The call center services industry is notorious for having high turnover rates for live operators. Many times call center managers feel like they are constantly hiring and training new employees in order to replace the ones which have left. The key to retaining employees is keeping the call center staff motivated and interested in their jobs. Additionally, it is important to properly screen job applicants.
Skill Enhancement
A common reason employees quit a professional call center is lack of intellectual stimulation. In other words, employees become bored. One solution is to develop multiple skill sets of certain employees. Managers can do this by assigning multiple call center campaigns to employees who seem most interested. This will keep them from becoming bored of performing the same job function every day. This will also develop skill sets and work experience, which can help them their careers, therefore providing incentive and motivation. However, managers should not force this upon any employees. Some employees are perfectly satisfied with doing only one job function on a daily basis.
Promote Active Participation
Employees who are encouraged to actively participate in the management of the call center business will feel more empowered. When an employee feels insignificant and unimportant he or she may experience dissatisfaction. This increases the chances of attrition, therefore reducing efficiency. Call center managers can promote active participation and employee empowerment by asking the employees for suggestions on managing the call center business. Forming teams and creating contests, to reward effective work performance enhances interest and motivation.
Offer Promotion Opportunities
Employees are more motivated when there is an incentive to perform. Call center managers can offer is the possibility of being promoted within the company as an incentive. This provides employees a reason to continue their careers with the company and fosters a sense of ownership. If there are no promotion opportunities available, then employees will eventually begin to look elsewhere to further their careers. This causes high turnover and forces management to spend more time, money, and energy on hiring and training new employees.
Treat Employees Like Real People
Call center managers have an easier time retaining employees if they have empathy for employees' lives outside of work. The call center services industry refers to this as the employee's work-life balance. Employees have various personal obligations to family and friends outside of work, which may affect their performance at the workplace. Live operators working at a professional call center can be a stressful job. Therefore, call center representatives need time to recharge by enjoying free time in their personal lives. Managers should consider employee work-life balance when scheduling to ensure employees have enough time off in between shifts to rest. Management should consult with each employee to make sure they understand the employee's personal needs and to address any problems with his or her work-life balance.
Keep Things Fun and Positive
A fun and positive work environment helps retain employees and reduce attrition. Motivational games help to keep employees interested and increases productivity. Many call center businesses give away prizes to employees who perform well. Some call center managers will treat their employees to the occasional free lunch or party in order to build a sense of teamwork. Allowing employees to dress casually on specific days or perhaps even every day will also keep the work environment relaxed and free from stress. Permitting regular breaks helps relieve stress caused by answering the phone. These call center management techniques boost morale, while keeping the work place fun and positive.
Showing posts with label contact center services. Show all posts
Showing posts with label contact center services. Show all posts
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Friday, December 23, 2011
Seven Rules of Excellent Customer Service
Businesses commonly outsource to answering services and professional call centers because they need help providing service to their customers. Customer service representatives should be able to answer almost any questions, as well as, solve most problems. Representatives should leave the customer satisfied and happy with the interaction. Fortunately, there are some simple rules which may help guide representatives in providing the best possible customer service.
Rule 1: Customer is King (or Queen)
Live operators should remember that they are being paid to service and fulfill customer needs. This is the best context for a representative when speaking to the customer on the phone. Setting this context when training call center employees will help them understand how providing good customer service can benefit themselves, as well as, the customer.
Rule 2: Listen to the Customer
The first step in providing good customer service is knowing what the customer wants or needs. Customer service agents should not assume they already know what a customer wants. Finding out what the customer wants requires excellent listening skills on the part of the live operator. Some important things to take note of are the customer's choice of words and tone of voice. These will be clues as to the customer's level of satisfaction, as well as, how much rapport the representative has earned.
Rule 3: Always Be Courteous and Polite
Being courteous and polite with customers is essential to building rapport with customers. Live operators should be trained to carefully choose their words. An effective script can help the representative in this aspect. He or she should also pay close attention to the customer's tone of voice. The representative should never raise his or her voice or sound frustrated in any way when speaking with customers. Even if the customer is irate, the representative should remain calm.
Rule 4: Go the Extra Mile
Customers appreciate a service agent who does more than is expected. Many times it is easy for a call center representative to ignore this aspect in customer service, because he or she are not physically in front of the customer. When training call center representatives you should be sure to emphasize that going the extra mile for the customer will be recognized by the customer, as well as, the call center management team. Whatever reasonable request a customer presents, the customer service representative should always accept and fulfill the request.
Rule 5: Educate Customers
Some of the most common customer complaints stem from the customer's ignorance about how an organization's systems work. If customers are confused by a company's systems for transacting business, they can become irritated. Even the most patient of customers can become angry in these instances. Customer service representatives should do their best to educate customers on how the company's systems are designed to simplify transactions.
Rule 6: Always Apologize
An apology can go a long way in call center customer service. When a problem arises, customer service representatives should always apologize first before finding a solution. This helps build rapport and calm down the customer's emotional responses. Customer service agents should always apologize even if it is not his or her fault. They should also apologize even if the customer is the cause of the problem.
Rule 7: Value Employees
Working as a customer service representative in a call center can be stressful. Sometimes it can be difficult to maintain a positive attitude after taking hundreds of calls. Call center managers should recognize this and do what they can to keep customer service agents happy with their jobs. How call center management treats its employees will be reflected by how employees treat the customers over the phone. The last thing a call center wants are employees who are already upset before they even take one incoming call. Making employees feel appreciated will translate into customers feeling appreciated. This will cause increased business and income.
Implementing these rules will help any professional call center service elevate its level of customer service. Putting these rules into action require implementing them into the customer service representative training curriculum. Proper training from day one will build the correct context for the call center employee to effectively interact with customers.
Rule 1: Customer is King (or Queen)
Live operators should remember that they are being paid to service and fulfill customer needs. This is the best context for a representative when speaking to the customer on the phone. Setting this context when training call center employees will help them understand how providing good customer service can benefit themselves, as well as, the customer.
Rule 2: Listen to the Customer
The first step in providing good customer service is knowing what the customer wants or needs. Customer service agents should not assume they already know what a customer wants. Finding out what the customer wants requires excellent listening skills on the part of the live operator. Some important things to take note of are the customer's choice of words and tone of voice. These will be clues as to the customer's level of satisfaction, as well as, how much rapport the representative has earned.
Rule 3: Always Be Courteous and Polite
Being courteous and polite with customers is essential to building rapport with customers. Live operators should be trained to carefully choose their words. An effective script can help the representative in this aspect. He or she should also pay close attention to the customer's tone of voice. The representative should never raise his or her voice or sound frustrated in any way when speaking with customers. Even if the customer is irate, the representative should remain calm.
Rule 4: Go the Extra Mile
Customers appreciate a service agent who does more than is expected. Many times it is easy for a call center representative to ignore this aspect in customer service, because he or she are not physically in front of the customer. When training call center representatives you should be sure to emphasize that going the extra mile for the customer will be recognized by the customer, as well as, the call center management team. Whatever reasonable request a customer presents, the customer service representative should always accept and fulfill the request.
Rule 5: Educate Customers
Some of the most common customer complaints stem from the customer's ignorance about how an organization's systems work. If customers are confused by a company's systems for transacting business, they can become irritated. Even the most patient of customers can become angry in these instances. Customer service representatives should do their best to educate customers on how the company's systems are designed to simplify transactions.
Rule 6: Always Apologize
An apology can go a long way in call center customer service. When a problem arises, customer service representatives should always apologize first before finding a solution. This helps build rapport and calm down the customer's emotional responses. Customer service agents should always apologize even if it is not his or her fault. They should also apologize even if the customer is the cause of the problem.
Rule 7: Value Employees
Working as a customer service representative in a call center can be stressful. Sometimes it can be difficult to maintain a positive attitude after taking hundreds of calls. Call center managers should recognize this and do what they can to keep customer service agents happy with their jobs. How call center management treats its employees will be reflected by how employees treat the customers over the phone. The last thing a call center wants are employees who are already upset before they even take one incoming call. Making employees feel appreciated will translate into customers feeling appreciated. This will cause increased business and income.
Implementing these rules will help any professional call center service elevate its level of customer service. Putting these rules into action require implementing them into the customer service representative training curriculum. Proper training from day one will build the correct context for the call center employee to effectively interact with customers.
Sunday, December 18, 2011
What Types of Businesses Use Lead Generation Services?
Almost any type of business can utilize some form of lead generation. Whether hiring a contact center service provider for lead generation services is a viable option depends upon the type of business. If your business requires a large volume of sales calling, then hiring a lead generation service may be your best option.
Insurance Agencies
Insurance agencies generally have a wide target audience, which may include people from a variety of ages to various locales across the nation. With this much ground to cover, insurance agencies require a large volume of lead generation and sales calls. This makes insurance agencies a prime candidate for hiring a call center services provider to make the initial lead generation calls to potential clients. This allows insurance agents to concentrate mostly on closing sales, rather than sifting through huge lists of cold calls.
Educational Institutions
With the rise of private colleges, online universities, and specialized trade schools, comes the need to recruit new student enrollments. These types of schools do not receive government funding like traditional educational institutions. Therefore, they have to use more aggressive marketing and sales techniques to find enrollments. Brick-and-mortar private colleges and trade schools may want to focus on a localized target market. However, online universities have a much wider target market, which may include potential students from all over the nation. Both brick-and-mortar and online private universities may be able to use contact center solutions to generate leads.
Marketing and Advertising Industry
Companies involved in the marketing and advertising industry may also wish to consider contact center solutions to generate leads for new clients or sell more advertising. Generally these companies will concentrate on a list of small and mid-sized businesses. It may be difficult to contact the decision maker of a business, due to receptionists and secretaries screening phone calls. Many times it will be necessary to call a business on multiple occasions before actually being able to identify the business's decision maker. Marketing and advertising companies may save their sales team valuable time by hiring a professional to generate leads.
Real Estate Agents
Real estate professionals and agents have to generate two different kinds of leads: sellers and buyers of real estate. However, much of their time is allocated to preparing paperwork for existing clients and a variety of other administrative tasks. They also spend a significant amount of time showing houses to potential buyers at open house events. As a result, their time is limited for cold calling and producing new leads. Many real estate agents outsource cold calling and lead generation to professional s in order to save time. Real estate agents generally pay a fee for each lead generated or they may pay a flat rate for the number of calls made by the .
Mortgage Industry
The mortgage and loan industry operates similarly to real estate agents. Their sales process also involves calling upon the consumer sector in order to generate leads for people interested in obtaining a loan. Loan officers are also looking for homeowners who may want to refinance their existing mortgage. Although it is common for loan officers to make their own cold calls, some prefer to outsource to a service provider to generate leads. One common method which loan officers use is having the representatives live transfer warm leads directly to the loan officer. In this way, the loan officer is able to speak to the potential customer while he or she is still thinking about obtaining a mortgage or refinancing a home loan. Other times the will simply record the generated lead's contact information in order for the loan officer to follow up at a later time.
The most common reason a business may use a service provider for generating leads is to save time on cold calling. On the other hand, using a may not properly suit every type of business. Some businesses have more intricate sales processes and more complicated products or services. However, most businesses which involve searching for leads and closing sales may be able to find a use for outsourcing to services.
Insurance Agencies
Insurance agencies generally have a wide target audience, which may include people from a variety of ages to various locales across the nation. With this much ground to cover, insurance agencies require a large volume of lead generation and sales calls. This makes insurance agencies a prime candidate for hiring a call center services provider to make the initial lead generation calls to potential clients. This allows insurance agents to concentrate mostly on closing sales, rather than sifting through huge lists of cold calls.
Educational Institutions
With the rise of private colleges, online universities, and specialized trade schools, comes the need to recruit new student enrollments. These types of schools do not receive government funding like traditional educational institutions. Therefore, they have to use more aggressive marketing and sales techniques to find enrollments. Brick-and-mortar private colleges and trade schools may want to focus on a localized target market. However, online universities have a much wider target market, which may include potential students from all over the nation. Both brick-and-mortar and online private universities may be able to use contact center solutions to generate leads.
Marketing and Advertising Industry
Companies involved in the marketing and advertising industry may also wish to consider contact center solutions to generate leads for new clients or sell more advertising. Generally these companies will concentrate on a list of small and mid-sized businesses. It may be difficult to contact the decision maker of a business, due to receptionists and secretaries screening phone calls. Many times it will be necessary to call a business on multiple occasions before actually being able to identify the business's decision maker. Marketing and advertising companies may save their sales team valuable time by hiring a professional to generate leads.
Real Estate Agents
Real estate professionals and agents have to generate two different kinds of leads: sellers and buyers of real estate. However, much of their time is allocated to preparing paperwork for existing clients and a variety of other administrative tasks. They also spend a significant amount of time showing houses to potential buyers at open house events. As a result, their time is limited for cold calling and producing new leads. Many real estate agents outsource cold calling and lead generation to professional s in order to save time. Real estate agents generally pay a fee for each lead generated or they may pay a flat rate for the number of calls made by the .
Mortgage Industry
The mortgage and loan industry operates similarly to real estate agents. Their sales process also involves calling upon the consumer sector in order to generate leads for people interested in obtaining a loan. Loan officers are also looking for homeowners who may want to refinance their existing mortgage. Although it is common for loan officers to make their own cold calls, some prefer to outsource to a service provider to generate leads. One common method which loan officers use is having the representatives live transfer warm leads directly to the loan officer. In this way, the loan officer is able to speak to the potential customer while he or she is still thinking about obtaining a mortgage or refinancing a home loan. Other times the will simply record the generated lead's contact information in order for the loan officer to follow up at a later time.
The most common reason a business may use a service provider for generating leads is to save time on cold calling. On the other hand, using a may not properly suit every type of business. Some businesses have more intricate sales processes and more complicated products or services. However, most businesses which involve searching for leads and closing sales may be able to find a use for outsourcing to services.
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