All,

My companies call centre seems to be going down the drain. The agents seem to have far too much visibility of what is happening. They have the call centre manager software on a big screen infront of them so they can see eveything including how many calls are coming in and who is on the phones. Is this normal?

Should they have such visibility??

Please help me

Thanks

Paul

Hi Paul

The vast majority of call-centres I have seen have some form of display that shows the agents information on the cirrent call performance. This can be anywhere from seeing the number of calls queuing on their turrets to complex and interactive wallboards and big screens.

It appears that you see this as being a contributary factor to the poor performance in your centre. I wouldn't say that there is a direct link between the two but perhapsyou could give us all some detail of the things that the agents get up to, as a result of having this information, and we could take it from there.

Rest assurred I've centres work really well and really badly with both little and a lot of screen information.

Eamon

I agree, I dont think they are related. I just need to know the best way to push the teamleaders to motivate staff during peak periods and what to give then when the lines are quiet ( Documentation, training? )

I will leave the screen in but make a couple of changes to prevent them seeing management reports etc.

Any help will be gratefully recieved

Thanks

Paul

Hi Paul

Overall this can be helped by ensuring that your shift patterns match the incoming work requirement as closely as possible across the day. However some immediate gains can be achieved by

- Reducing the autonomy that agents have during specific parts of the day. Look at the worst two performing 1-hour intervals, on average, each day. Then specify what can and can't be done in those periods e.g. no breaks, no off-phone activity, no outbound calling. Maximising the call-handling activity in these times will naturally push the non-phone activity into the quieter periods.

- Target the agents on adherence, both the right amount of time on the phones and at the correct time of day, I have a presentation on this subject that agents can take themselves through that explains the importance of this not just to the office performance but also the impact on customers and their colleagues

- Give the TMs intra-day targets to reach e.g. be on target for call service level by 11am, call service level and have any non-phone work completed by 3pm, maintain performance from 3pm onwards. In this you can include any back office work that needs to be done and 1-2-1s, team-meeting briefings etc.

- Show performance on your screens only in the current 30 or 15min interval, avoid using terms like "calls waiting" and use "customers waiting". Get across to the agents that just because the customer can't see them doesn't mean that they should get an inferior service e.g. how would they feel if they were queuing in a supermarket and half the till staff closed their aisles

- Analyse performance across the group, if everyone should be doing the same role then metrics like "Not Ready time", "time logged in as a percentage of attended hours" and "Wrap" can give a good indication of those agents who may be doing something different. Importantly this shouldn't be seen as management by numbers, the stats are there as a starting point. Look at the average wrap for example and look at everyone who performs at +/- 20% outside of the mean and see what they do differently to everyone else. It could be that they provide fantastic customer service.

- Lastly emphasise a simple message that ties this all in e.g. "If in doubt, answer the phone", "customer experience starts when they make the call, not when the call is answered" or "absence makes your friend work harder" depending on what is appropriate to your centre.

Eamon

Paul,

Can you explain exactly what you mean when you say the call centre is going "down the drain"?

Best,

Rob