Maintaining and running a call center can be quite fruitful for any business owner, provided that they do it the right way. Since having a call center requires spending valuable resources, business owners must be careful when devising strategies to control their operations. An important aspect of running a call center is the management of call center agents. This is because these individuals get to communicate with your current and potential clients on a daily basis, and you should make sure that all such encounters are professionally handled from your end. In order to help you out in this regard, we have compiled the following list of do’s that you can use to improve the efficiency of your call center agents.

Guide them through problem solving

This is extremely important, and will convert even the most novice call center agents into experts. When explaining the working of your call center to new agents, always make sure that you hand them out a guideline that helps them solve basic customer issues, so that they don’t go running to the supervisor every time a query arises, and can handle it right away. Remember that your customer care should be exceptional, which is why you need to make sure that your agents are properly trained.

Have a continuous training schedule for your agents

Constant training of your agents is very important when it comes to running a call center. This is because with each session, their overall skillset will improve, and they will get to learn at least one new way of dealing with clients. You can either schedule these on a weekly or monthly basis; it totally depends on what works for your business.

Use a call routing system that utilizes your agents in the most appropriate manner

Call routing is extremely important if you are to increase the efficiency of your call center agents in an effective manner. This is a system that utilized your agents’ respective skillset by diverting calls by assessing their nature. As a result, every issue is handled by an agent who is competent enough to do so.

Monitor all live calls

This is another important way of assessing the performance of your call center agents, and helping them improve in a systematic manner. In order to monitor the live chats of your agents, you can have more experienced agents or supervisors listen to them while they are happening. This is not only extremely beneficial in training novice agents, but is also helpful in situations where they falter while dealing with clients.

Let your agents interact with each other

This is an extremely useful way of making new agents learn from the wisdom of more experienced ones. You can either introduce a system where agents can interact on a one-on-one basis, or have them communicate in groups similar to chat rooms. Such platforms can also help troubleshoot, whenever a particular agent is stuck at an issue while talking to a client. When such a situation arises, they put the client on hold, and get advice from their peers in a quick manner.

Make sure that there are enough supervisors to manage your call center agents

In order to run a successful call center, you must make sure that the ratio of agents to supervisors is appropriate. This does not depend on the size of your operations, and will adjust accordingly. Never have a single supervisor manage too many agents on their own, because that would just make things worse instead of improving them.

Communicate with your agents

While running a call center, most business owners forget the importance of communicating with their agents, and taking their concerns seriously. Apart from this, they also do not ask for advice from their agents, which can prove to be valuable when improving the efficiency of call centers.

Listening to agents can not only solve their problems and increase their output, but can also give them a boost in terms of confidence and morale. So next time your agents try to voice their concerns, or give in some suggestions, do not take them lightly and pay heed to what they are trying to say to you.

Hire managers that do not shy away from jumping in the field

While call center agents do most of the work in terms of running a call center, it is the managers who are actually in charge of the operations. This is why you should make sure that you hire the right people for the job. An important trait to look for during the recruitment process is the willingness to jump in the field whenever a need arises. For instance, your managers should be hands-on, and ready to take calls themselves when all of the agents are busy, and cannot handle clients on their own. They must also be able to provide guidance at all times, and never shy away from doing slightly more than what is expected of them.

Promote an environment of competition within your call center

Healthy competition is always good, and will enable you to maximize the output of your call center agents. You can do this by announcing certain benefits for the agent of the month, who is chosen after analyzing the performance of everyone. In addition to this, you can also have their photo displayed in the call center to make them feel good. This will cause other agents to put in more effort at work, so that they too can have the honor of being nominated as the agent of the month. Apart from this, you can also use other ways to promote healthy competition depending upon the number of call center agents that you have.

It is very important to run a call center properly, and managing agents is a huge part of that. Most business owners can manage this on their own, but there are others who hire the expertise of companies such as the RosponseAI to provide them with some guidance. This is a good practice, and proved to be fruitful for everyone.