Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Better Communication Skills — Three Tips for Conference Calls

The conference call has been a way of life in business for many years now. So why are so many frustrating, ineffective calls being held every day? This simple list of reminders is intended to help keep conference calls from becoming wasted time.
1. No multi tasking — I've been guilty on this count, I must admit. But if you force yourself to follow a no multi tasking rule, you get another benefit. You're force to confront the question of whether the conference call is an effective use of your time. It's easy to say yes if you're thinking you can appease someone while you do your email. But if the call isn't worth your time, you need to speak up and say so.
2. It's a meeting, so treat it like one. The call should have a clear PAL (Purpose, Agenda, Limit). Participants should be invited, and attendance taken. Be clear about who is leading the call. Start on time. The leader needs to keep the call/meeting on track, and document actions taken and follow up activities (who, what, by when). End on time. Send an email with the documented action items promptly, preferably before you do anything else.
3. Test for agreement. In face to face meetings, body language and facial expressions provide clues as to whether people are engaged in the topic, even if they choose to remain silent. Not so on a phone call, and while we'd like to live by a rule of silence equals acceptance, that's dangerous. If the number of participants is reasonable, call the roll so everyone has to say yes or no on key decisions. Beware of voice inflections that indicate uncertainty, and tactfully call them out.
Avoid ex partee one to one conversations after a conference call, especially the kind where someone calls you right away to express their frustration or anger. On the other hand, if you're leading a call and you're convinced that someone has been disenfranchised or needs some help dealing with a topic, go ahead and reach out to them.
One more point — the speaker phone is a great invention. But poor quality speakerphones can really bog down a call. People end up talking over one another and sometimes don't even know it. It can lead to repetition and frustration. If you're relying on speaker phones, get high quality equipment. Otherwise encourage people to use handsets or headsets

Monday, August 25, 2008

7 interesting call-center facts

1. A study by Ventana Research threw up the following interesting facts
• 50% of call centers target less than 4 minutes per call
• 48% track revenue generated by the call center
• 46% employ up-sell or cross efforts
• 12% of call center companies do not measure customer satisfaction at all
• 60% rely on the agent to assess the customers satisfaction
What do these points tell us – mainly that call centers are focusing more on extracting “volume” performance from their employees and customer satisfaction which they all harp about is essentially secondary. Not different from any other business!!
2. An IDC report states that the cost of a home-based agent is two-thirds that of the cost of an office-based employee.
Am sure they must be using different performance metrics too to judge the two types of workers. Going by this piece, telecommuters must be outperforming their office-going counterparts.
3. South America is set to be the dominant global flavor of call center pie according to a report from Datamonitor. The number of agents in Caribbean and Latin American based contact center agents servicing offshore customers to more than triple from 16,200 in 2005 to 44,900 in 2010. Mexico is set to emerge as a major force set to cater to the US Hispanic market.
It’s slow progress for these countries in my opinion; maybe they don’t have a pool of English speakers that an early mover like India had.
4. According to a study by the Yankee Group, 24% of call center employees are home-based and this number is increasing by 24% each year. On similar lines IDC estimates the number of home-based phone representatives in the United States, to grow from 112,000 today to over 300,000 by 2010.
5. VoIP has had a huge impact on how call centers function and according to an In-stat study Asia is where the action is. The study states that the VoIP market in Asia will be worth more than $10 billion by 2009 with a major chunk coming from the developed nations of East Asia.
6. An interesting find by Purdue University – an astonishing 92% of callers/prospective customers form an opinion about a company based on their call-center interaction and a very high percentage – 68% - will not hesitate to switch brands if not satisfied with call center performance.
7. A probable reason why many SMBs remain just that – don’t know the source of this but it says that a staggering 51% of SMBs did not think emails were worth responding to, they didn’t respond to them at all and 70% of these SMBs took more than 24 hours to get back. This compared to 41% of enterprises not responding at all and 61% not responding within 24 hours.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

New Capabilities in Call Center Technology

By:Howard Baldwin

Not all of today’s call center capabilities are new; what’s new about call-center technology is the ability for these capabilities to be quickly and inexpensively integrated. “Small businesses have always needed call center technology,” insists Chris Lyman, CEO of Fonality. “They’ve just never been able to afford it. Not just the call-center technology, but tying it into your back-office systems has been heinously expensive.”
Twenty years ago, telephone company equipment was proprietary — both the hardware and software were created solely for the use of the telephone company, so that when you wanted to integrate computer equipment with telephone equipment (known as computer-telephony integration, or CTI), the costs were exorbitant because the computer systems were probably proprietary as well, so you needed programmers who understood the intricacies of not one but two arcane systems.
In recent years, considerable change has taken place. Call center software runs on industry-standard servers, just as databases do; integrating applications is much simpler than it used to be. Even more important, most telephony systems now also run on industry-standard servers, rather than on proprietary hardware.
Finally, the convergence of voice and data networks — on which voice transmissions use the Internet protocol — makes call-center integration even less complicated, and less expensive to implement.
At the same time that voice and data networks have converged, specialized call-center capabilities have been integrated as well. At one time, you may have had to separately purchase automatic call distribution (ACD) software, which distributes calls into queues for agents, and integrate it with IVR software, which, as noted, routes calls to the appropriate department. It seems silly now, but Bern Elliott of the analyst firm Gartner notes that a major shift in the last few years has been for vendors to offer a full portfolio of such products. “The differences between the products have been reduced, and people want to get them through a single vendor or through a partnership,” he says.
“Any vendor that you select now comes with the complete package,” notes Dan Coen, vice-president of call centers for CallSource, which offers call-center services on an outsourced basis. “You should be leery of a niche player, not because they won’t do that particular thing well, but because they can’t scale” as you need to add capabilities.
And that integration, insists Bern Elliott of the analyst firm Gartner, is what a call center is about. “It’s people supporting people. All you really need is for the most basic call center is a person and a phone. People get so caught up in the technology that they forget what’s important.”

Thursday, August 21, 2008

TRACKING FIRST CALL RESOLUTION WITHOUT TECHNOLOGY

How can you track First Call Resolution (FCR) if your center is not using any kind of technology or support application? 
One pitfall of asking agents to mark a ticket as "closed" or "resolved" is that some agents, in order to boost their resolution rate, will mark a case "resolved" or "closed" when in fact, they are escalating the call to a more specialized agent, or when the call is terminated by the customer without resolution (customer does not have time to troubleshoot, or is not at the equipment to try the agent-suggested solution, or the resolution is dependent upon resolving an issue with a third party which cannot be contacted or conferenced in - is not available). In this instance, a completely new case has to be opened by the higher-level agent.

Another ringer - which can skew data in either direction - is the customer with a recurring technical performance issue. If the issue no longer appears at the conclusion of the call, one must ask whether the customer's issue has truly been resolved, or whether the agent has just applied the most recent strategy against a moving target. Many agents will mark the case "resolved", per the (probably-temporary) resolution. Other agents will hesitate to mark the case "resolved", keeping it "open" for the customer to monitor the product's performance for a period of time. Often these cases are never marked "resolved".

Additionally, escalated-level agents may hesitate to mark as "resolved" a case that they have truly resolved, if they believe that their agent IDs will be correlated with an outgoing customer satisfaction survey -- some higher-level agents believe that the customer will only remember the initial agent or agents, who either were unable to solve the problem, or whose actions may have complicated the issue -- reflecting poorly on the advanced agent's real ability to resolve the complete suite of issues and satisfy the customer

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Tips for Handling Angry Callers as a Virtual Call Center Agent

As a telephone customer service agent, you are often the first contact a customer has with a company. When you're working with customers directly, you'll eventually have to help customers who are irate. During these conversations, it's important to focus on your job and solving the problem at hand. You're being paid to assist customers - the good and the bad. Take a deep breath and follow these tips to successfully handle angry callers.
Don't Personalize
Regardless of the negative attitudes or unpleasant tones of angry callers, it is essential that
you, the customer service representative, do not get emotional, too. The first key to successfully handling these calls is to remember not to personalize anything these callers say to you. The easiest way to do this is to remember not to react to anything angry callers say. Instead, take a moment to hear what they're saying and offer a response that will help calm them rather than incite them. Using phrases like, "I hear what you're saying," or "I understand," can help calm angry callers.
Listen and Be Patient
Don't interrupt angry callers Be patient and let them finish speaking. Sometimes they just need to vent their frustrations then they can relax a bit and work with you as you try to resolve their problem. Sometimes they aren't interested in getting help at all. Instead, they may simply want to voice their anger and complaint. If the customer knows you're listening and want to help them, there is a strong likelihood they'll calm down.
Empathize
Put yourself in your customers' shoes. An angry customer has a problem, and they need you, the customer service agent, to help them fix it. How would you feel if you were in the same situation? What would you want a customer service agent to say to you in a similar situation to make you feel better? Those are the same words any angry caller wants to hear. They want to know you understand, and they want reassurance that you can help them.
Apologize
A critical component to successfully handling angry callers is to apologize to them. Even if you know the customer is wrong, take a moment to apologize for the inconvenience the confusion caused. Many angry callers simply want acknowledgement from the company that a mistake was made. For other callers, an apology is the first step to overcoming their anger and opening a dialogue about resolving the problem.
Offer Solutions
As the customer service representative, it is your responsibility to resolve customers' problems. Once you've identified the problem, you need to take responsibility for finding a solution that not only follows company policies but also satisfies the customer. If you aren't able to resolve the customer's problem immediately, offer reassurance that the problem is being worked on and will be resolved for the customer. Provide details about the next steps you or the company will take to resolve the problem and ensure the customer leaves with realistic expectations at the end of the call.
Bring Closure
Your goal is to bring closure to every call whether that means a completed sale, a change of address or resolution to a problem from an angry caller. By working with this goal in mind each time you answer the phone, you'll be setting yourself up for success, and you'll be offering customers first-rate service.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

COMPONENTS OF A QUALITY CALL

Great question. First, I would say that there are certain components that make up a quality call that are fairly consistent across every industry. There are also many components that will be very specific to your specific industry, customer base, type of call, the overall mission of the center and so on.
In terms of the components of a quality call/contact, the following list, which must be credited to
Brad Cleveland since it comes from his book, Call Center Management on Fast Forward, represents the basic components that span across industries, contact types and customer types:
  • Customer does not get a busy signal when using telephone or "no response" from Web site
  • Customer is not placed in queue for too long
  • Agent provides correct response
  • All data entry is correct
  • Agent captures all needed/useful information
  • Agent has "Pride in Workmanship"
  • Contact is necessary in the first place
  • Customer receives correct information
  • Customer has confidence contact was effective
  • Customer doesn't feel it necessary to check-up, verify or repeat
  • People "down the line" can correctly interpret the order
  • Customer is not transferred around
  • Customer doesn't get rushed
  • Customer is satisfied
  • Unsolicited marketplace feedback is detected and documented
  • Call center's mission is accomplished
After this, it is really a matter of determining the specifics for your center (as mentioned above). A great way to truly understand and accomplish this list is to ask your representatives...get them involved in defining a quality call. Not only is this a wonderful team meeting exercise (which spurs a lot of excellent discussion and ideas), but since they are truly the main point of contact with your customers they will know better than anyone except for the customers themselves. Which leads me to suggest looking at your customer surveys for what customers say is important or conduct some surveys asking them what is important.

Article Source: Rose Polchin, Senior Consultant, ICMI rosep@icmi.com

MEASURING TRAINING EFFECTIVENESS

Incoming Calls Management Institute (ICMI) recently published a study guide for CIAC certification on People Management and included information on evaluating training effectiveness. The following is an excerpt:
At a basic level, evaluation consists of defining objectives, specifying those objectives measurably, and then assessing the extent to which learners have mastered those objectives. To determine the results of training, management must establish baseline performance metrics based on the needs assessment. That is, "What measurement is used to identify the gap?" After the training has been conducted, these performance metrics can be evaluated to determine the effect of the training. Of course, other influences (e.g., a change in procedures, new technology) should be noted to ensure the positive or negative effect was due to training.
Training programs should be evaluated on four levels:
  1. Reaction: What are the participants' feedback on the training? This is typically measured through a survey and usually covers such items as program methodology, group and individual exercises, quality of materials and media, facilitator capabilities, facilities, etc.
  2. Learning evaluation: This is the process of collecting, analyzing and reporting information to assess how much the participants learned and applied in the learning environment.
  3. Application to the job: This step assesses the degree to which the knowledge, skills and abilities taught in the classroom are being used on the job.
  4. Evaluating the impact and ROI: This is the process of determining the impact of training on organizational productivity, improved customer satisfaction and the organization's strategic business plan. What is the change in business metrics attributable to training? What is the return on the training investment (typically calculated by dividing the net dollar value of the benefit by the costs of training)?
   
Article Source: Debbie Harne, Director of Educational Services, ICMI, debbieh@icmi.com

Sunday, August 10, 2008

5 Crucial Factors In Call Center Management

Call centers spring up everywhere. It's the latest hub in business world. These call centers efficiently connect companies and customers wherever they maybe around the globe. From product inquiries to technical support, call centers offers varying services. It can accept calls from customers ( inbound) as well as initiate calls (outbound). Some call centers even do both.

At the heart of a call center industry lies the wonder of proprietary technology and keen management. If you plan to put up a call center or have been called up to supervise one , here's some crucial management factors you should know :

1.)CAPITAL

If you are a business man and want to diversify your portfolio by putting up a call center, please know that such business venture requires a significant start up capital. Study your options well and take stock of your funds before engaging in such costly endeavor. If possible, do some appropriate researches. Drop by and arrange interviews with call center owners. Leave no stone unturned.

2.)EQUIPMENT

A call center basically needs, office space,phone lines, computers, dedicated servers, and a broadband connection. It also needs a specialized software. These costs money. Anyway, equipments can be tailored to the growing needs of your proposed call center. You can start up with a small office space, invest in four computers or so, some telephone lines and equipments. Just remember to get reliable equipments or your call center will suffer an early demise. Then you can upgrade these devices as the need arises.

3.)PERSONNEL
Call centers requires staffing. And staffing means hiring people to do the job. In other words, call center rely heavily on people manning their jobs. It's the backbone of the call center industry. It's labor-intensive. A large chunk of your investment will go to wages. In addition, remember to give the right training to your call center agents. Your personnel can spell the difference between success and failure of your call center.

4.)LEADERSHIP

To supervise effectively a team of employees in a call center, you must provide the right leadership to them. You see, being a call center agent is a demanding job. Employees gets tired easily. For a start, you should design your office space so would be conducive for workers. Plus, you should build rapport and goodwill between you and your call center agents. Tempers can run high in any given moment and as a manager, you should be knowledgeable enough how to diffuse such situation before it could escalate into a big scenario. Keep your cool. And always strive to talk softly, amiably, but firmly so you will respected. Otherwise, you will get a high turn-over volume that could drastically affect your investment.

5.)MONITORING

If you can, select top-notch, high-end call center software because it incorporates an excellent employee monitoring features. Pick the best. You can make a choice because there are many of them in the market. Again, this type of software costs money. The good thing is , it offers you monitoring tools and real time access to call center agent's conversations with their customers. Thus, you can track their performance as well as institute needed improvement in weak areas.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Is a Call Center Right for Your Small Business?

Outsourcing has turned so many services into commodities that the personal touch that used to distinguish one business among its competitors is rarer today than it has ever been. Consequently, that personal touch is also perhaps more crucial than ever for a business that wants to pull ahead in a competitive marketplace.

But delivering that “personal touch” may not necessarily mean that your own employees are responsible for all the contact your company makes with customers. If you choose wisely, you can get a fully outsourced call center service that can uphold your standards for good customer interaction.

You may also decide to develop your call center services in-house, in which case you can support your customer service or sales staff with technology that helps to route calls, offers multiple ways to interact with customers, and manages the information your customers provide. As a third approach to setting up your company’s call center, you may choose a hybrid option, relying partly on outsourced services and partly on your own call center system and personnel to take care of all your customer contacts.

The good news for small businesses is that there are affordable tools and services in all these call center options. Call centers are no longer formal, complex, and expensive solutions only for those with dedicated agents. Managing communications, and integrating the management of that information along with other aspects of customer relations, including customer history, is now available to businesses of any size at a fraction of the cost from five to 10 years ago.

Call centers come with different functions; there are special functions that make a contact center different from the phone-only interaction of the traditional call center. There are different levels of call center service and technology, from fully outsourced solutions to the software and hardware that will allow you to set up your own in-house contact center
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