Ocean Mist

« Older Entries Subscribe to Latest Posts

23 Feb 2012

Learn to Manage an Underperforming Team of Inbound Call Center

Posted by admin. No Comments

The customer service representatives (CSRs) are the main pillars that establish the construction of a sturdy call center. The individual roles played by each and every CSR are very essential to deliver a performance that determines the overall sales of the call center. But team working in most of the call centers often goes through a stage that deliberately acts as an interruption in the personal aspects and the organizational growth. What may be the reasons that have initiated issues? Have the call centers keep an eye on the in-depth factors that have led to the downfall. In order to maximize the return on investment (ROI), business establishments must put in place effective call center performance management programs that assist monitor the customer care approach.


Agent Development:Open communication and clear expectations are two basic fields that measure the call center performance management. The success lies with the hard work and dedication of well trained and call center employees for successful call center performance management system. The agents are the voice of the company and that are the only resources from where all the business communities establish the relation and decide to follow an approach. The calling agents must be well trained on how to deal with complex people, the sales techniques and the complete picture of their performance. An ongoing coaching is also a vital aspect to enhance this factor.

Metrics Based Evaluations: To attain the best levels of customer care services, the role of the call center metrics is vital. Therefore, it is a fact that call center performance tends to focus on numbers and therefore, it is important that all the agents in the business processes should appreciate what each metric represents and must know exactly what a passing measure is. The organizational hierarchy of the customer care team must have the access to the individual metrics as well as those of the entire team.

Reward Arrangements: The agents dedicating their career in the call center outsourcing industry can be well controlled if the rewarding arrangements are properly made on time. A team that is highly motivated is simply like an extraordinary performing machine. When the CSRs sense that their professional offerings are respected and translate into tangible benefits, they tend to exhibit better skills in the present and future. The monetary rewards and rewards with promotions can also encourage better level of performance.

Just follow them and see the change in the team very soon.

Share |

7 Feb 2012

A Short Note of the Rudiments of Call Center Outsourcing

Posted by admin. No Comments

The rising cost of the technology infrastructure and demanding labors in the developed nations have forced many prime businesses to outsource their business operations to approach the professionals that are located far away from their business locations. The concept of outsourcing is a widely applied methodology that determines the businesses to perform better and efficiently. For an existing firm that has been following this method from a long time can easily find out the conditions and how to handle the market situations in an adept manner. But for the establishments that are very new should understand the basics and a few questions that can help them to find out the best call center outsourcing establishments.

Inbound Call Center

In the up-to-date economy, outsourced activity has extended beyond manufacturing processes to embrace diverse business functions that can include human resources, marketing, technical support, customer service and many more. Whether it is retail or finance, banking or insurance, etc. it has become mandatory for these sectors to make a guardian that are handling all the complex processes in a tactful manner. The feasibility to technical skills, multilingual ability, and lower costs due to less expensive labor markets have all made outsourcing the best option of all times. There are also some inbound call centers that offers specialized services such as consulting or professional services and can assist in providing advice on offshore strategy and management. Therefore, the companies that have already planned to outsource any outbound or inbound call center services should follow some basic questions which can help them to find the best outsourcing partner:

The following questions will help provide some important guidelines.

1.Which detailed professional or dedicated services do you offer that set you separate from your competition?
2.Will the outsourced call center services be translucent to my business partners and their customers?
3.What would be the concern in project implementation and the transition of the business?
4.Will be my data secure?
5.What if you sell ma data base to me competitors?
6.How can you promise a continuous transition and how will you exhibit commitment to my brand and company?
7.How will you adhere to my company’s values and maintain a high level of quality and service?
8.Explain your agent-training process, including acculturation and accent training if you use offshore agents.
9.What are the specific metrics used to measure accomplishment and how often will I receive performance updates?
10.Will there be any references provided?
11.What is your disaster recovery plan? Is there a practicable system in place that ensures ongoing business operations and negligible disruption to customers in an emergency?
12.What is the exit strategy if I’m discontented with your service?
Follow them and may be you can be on a safer side from now onwards.

Share |

11 Jan 2012

Acquisition of Manpower for Call Center Services

Posted by admin. No Comments

Call center industry blooms only with the qualitative service and the services can only be better when the BPOs hire exceptional and intellectual agents. To achieve this target it has been observed that most of the call centers hire professional or a third party that easies the process and outsource a candidate that can be perfectly measured with the client’s requirement. But there should be a great care taken by the individual human resource team in the contact centers and prepare themselves with the tactics of hiring the best in no time.

Here are some of the tips and suggestions that can help the BPOs to deliver call center services with the recruitment process:

call center

A) Make sure that you explain the job descriptions to the consultancies and to the candidates before the interviews are conducted. This is important to judge the interest of the candidates in the exact profile you need agents. It also helps the candidates to prepare a little so that the process can be completed within a small period.

B) The human resource team should have the experience to read the psychology of the candidate. Assessment can be made successful if they are skilled with questioning techniques. As call center services is all about communication skills, make sure that the candidates is capable to speak in a fluent manner and handle the pressure of the industry.

C) If the candidates are experienced make sure you inspect all the documents and review the CV. Look at the experience in the relevant industry and how stable the candidate is. If the candidate has no stability then hiring the same candidate can be a serious loss of time and efforts.

D) Look at the potential of the candidate. A good candidate should be hired even if he/she needs to be paid a little more. As the attrition rate of the call centers is high, it is important that the candidates are kelp engaged by any means. A better candidate can deliver better call center services.

E) Try to appoint the candidate in his areas of interest. There would be some candidates that are dedicated to some special subject matters only. If you can judge the potential of that person may be you are justifying that and the performance level would touch the zenith of excellence.

It is simpler and easier to follow these steps to make a resource to an asset.

Share |

30 Dec 2011

Good Customer Service is the best Synonym of Marketing

Posted by admin. Comments Off

The life cycle of a business is all controlled by a strong management and the role of the customers. In this sense we can easily say that the customers are somehow very close to God.

Customer service is one the main essence of the business that craves for a high profit bar and make a position that can be seen by every competitor. In this sense, the prime attention has always been focused on the role of customer service and the factors that can satisfy the basic needs of the prospective customers.

A global study of the call center industry divulges that customer only like to follow a brand only when the customer support after and before sales can exactly meet the requirements. No matter the level of customer care is always better initially before sales, it is now noticed that every segment of a business is dependent on the feedback and interaction with the customers. They are working indirectly to the development of your service line-up and ultimately redirecting your rapport to greater heights.

The customers of 21st century are very clever and capable of judging all the moves initiated by your company. They can take sharp decisions and either keep or kick your service. Therefore, customer service needs a strong commitment in handling the complex business situations. Internet is a too that is also initiating great interest in the market updates. People have started to espouse all the possible technologies that can make them comfortable in saving money and achieving better services.

Apart from the Internet bracket, customers can also arouse Internet about a product/service from their friends. Nowadays, there is hardly any other way by which customer can be led astray. Therefore, an utmost effort in handling the customer relations are taken care by the outsourced partners that are officially known as the BPO or call centers.

Today most of the developed nations have started to outsource their customer care support sections to a call center that can easily stabiles the relations and build concrete loyalty and continuous support. American Marketing Association has delivered a report saying that almost 90% of the potential customers opts for a decision only after reading the online reviews about a service and subsequently makes move.

With all these deep discussions we can conclude to three major benchmarks that can build faith in the process of customer care:

Business around the clock: Customer can only be yours when you dedicate your team to assist them round the clock regarding any issues. Customer never care if your organization is available in the odd hours and would love to appreciate if someone is allotted to handle their calls during holidays or at some special time.

Knowing and taking care of your potential customers: Business can only earn some revenue when the level of customer care meets the demand with a special attention. Know the inclinations of the customer and in which way they are attached to a special brand. You do not have to do any extra efforts but only to listen and initiate their demands with some special manners.

Retaining clients rather than believing in short-term profits: Profit should not be the only target. You need a better stability to handle customers that can be from any service that can start with loyal and honest business ethics. A research says that business can only grow better with the business is all taken care from the customer’s point of view. It is easy to sell a product for once to a customer but very complex to resell the service to that special customer again and again.

Source: http://www.callcentersindia.com/displaynews.php?idnews=274

Share |

23 Dec 2011

Dedicating Call Center Executives on Queue Metrics – It is Easy

Posted by admin. Comments Off

The operations department of call center repeatedly devotes their precious time and effort in data monitoring and display solution. All these are carried out with the desktop applications, LCD digital signage, LED wallboard, email alerts or web dashboards displaying metrics from internal databases. All these metric help the call centers assists the agents to deliver better customer service results and assist the entire business development process to excel.

call center

Therefore, it is very essential that the CSRs draw an attention to these innovative tools. The information displayed on these digital tools are always helpful but the stress and hectic working hours in the call center outsourcing industry tend to divert the agents only towards their duty. Multi-tasking is always helping them to achieve better results and to attain the best level; there are certain tips that will motivate the agents to pay attention to call center wallboard.

Updating the contact center signage on a regular basis is a practical way of drawing attention. Attractive data on repeated basis will turn on the agents to concentrate better. Therefore, there should be a specific person who should be appointed in creating newfangled digital signage software views at least monthly.

Utilizing non-work related media in the call center operations is also a good way to build interest in the industry news and recent trends. Regular updates on contact center displays will actually make calling executives more productive. Any instructional message from management can be directly forwarded with this approach. News on the latest call center technology will always attract the agents.

Allow the agents to keep a thorough eye on the contest that keeps going in any departments. A contest can develop better interest to excel better and desire to take the individual rapport in the industry. Broadcast a contest in the digital signage or through e-mails and grasp the attention of the agents in a short time. No doubt these are hardly practices in the call centers, but these can actually allow the agents to keep a constant eye on these digital mediums.

Clean & clear information is another factor that can ensure better level of call center metrics. If clear information is not expressed properly, the long term attention of an agent can be go to ignorance status. Analyze the format size and the color of the texts and how exactly they can make a viewer stay tuned for long hours. The process can also be benefited with the integration of lock or pop-up desktop metrics applications.

Share |