Call center outsourcing services help in steering the growth of the company. They don’t just help the company in retaining the customers but in acquiring new ones as well. Moreover, it also helps in making the in-house team all the more efficient. In order to make the company even more productive, the agents need to be very efficient and proactive in their approach. This brings us to the question that how managers can ensure that the agents are making the best use of their skills and potential. That is why, in this blog, we mention certain tips that can help in increasing the productivity of the agents in the long-run. Take a look.
- Healthy competition- Healthy competition amongst co-workers is a great way to boost the agents to give their best. Praise the good agents and ask the agents not performing that well to take a cue from the best ones. Also, help them improve and reward them for doing better.
- Show them customer’s data- The agents should be shown the data of the customer which can help him in making the experience of the customer better. For instance, the customer’s geographic location, occupation, marital status and the dialect will help him in being able to understand the way he should tackling the caller. Moreover, it will also help him in understanding the right products to upsell and cross-sell.
- Show agents their real-time metrics- Showing real-time metrics to the agents will help them in understanding what they are delivering to the call center outsourcing services company they are working in. Self- assessment is a great step towards improvisation. So, let them see how many calls they have attended. Also, let them know how many agents are on call, how many are on a lunch break or away etc. This will help them in adjusting their time and performance accordingly.
- Allowing them to work from home- Most of the call center outsourcing services providers don’t allow this but if your call center will, this would be a revolutionary step. The step will radically change the way call center agents perceive their job. The shifts in a call center are a matter of concern and the work also is quite demanding. They have to update the sheets, solve the problem of the customers and what not. They get quite exhausted and allowing them to work from home with the help of cloud-based system would be great. It will allow them to work from the comfort of their home. Allow this for at least two days in a month.
When the agents will feel how much the call center they work in, thinks of them, they will automatically start performing even better for the growth of the call center.
- Allow frequent short breaks- The tasks that the agents have to manage in a day are quite long. They also have to deal with the customers who tell, who disconnect their call abruptly, and those who don’t even pay heed to their words. Talking to different kinds of people, bearing with their moods drops their motivation level and enthusiasm down to a certain level. So, it is necessary to allow them short break in between from 3-5 minutes. This will help them in recollecting themselves back to work again with full zeal.
- Improve the work environment- It is really important to make the work culture of your call center stand out than the rest. This will reduce the attrition rate and thus the productivity as well. Take the team to lunch for accomplishing some goal or take them to a day trip. If some agent has performed exceptionally well, reward and appreciates him. Don’t restrict the agents to sit on their desks all the time, to have a break of 30 minutes and send a mail to them even if they get five minutes late.
- Ask for suggestions and ideas for improvement- Show agents how important they are to the organization, make them realize how valuable their contribution is for the organization. The best way to do that is to organize meetings on a weekly basis. In the meeting instead of analyzing the performance, let the agents speak their heart out. They are the ones who talk to various types of customers throughout the day, who could be better than them to tell you how the call center outsourcing services can improve even more.
In short, the productivity cannot increase by asking the agents to work for long hours or to ask them to stick to their work desks or take no break other than the lunch one. It is as simple as that, you keep the agents happy and they will keep your customers happy.
