Does this describe your contact centre?
• High abandon rate...
• Poor service...
• Spiralling costs...
• Poor morale...
• High absence...
Ok maybe you’re not affected by all of these problems but you’d certainly like to or have been given the task of making a change...but are you aware that most of the common intervention methods simply don’t work?
Go on any call centre course or even get advice from your local call centre association or body and here’s the sort of thing you’ll be told to do:
- Set targets so staff can handle more calls
- Manage staff absence better, weed out the problem people
- Do more 1:1s, coaching/counselling, it’s all the same really
- Put big signs on the wall reminding everyone that quality is job No.1
- Bring in a trainer to teach your staff to be more polite and helpful
- Ask everyone to reduce their wrap-up time
- Bring in temp staff
- Outsource to India or some other cheap place
- Do more staff training
- Etc etc etc...
Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but none of the stuff you’ve been taught about how to run your contact centre better will make any positive difference.
In-fact (and I know this a big claim) but in our experience, other than staff training, all of the above methods will make performance worse...much worse.
And let’s really be honest, if those methods did work you would have seen improvements by now wouldn’t you? You see, the gurus and the associations will have you believe that managing a call centre is just tough, it just costs lots of money, people are difficult, that’s just the way it is.
- A 50-60% reduction in call volume
- Freed up staff capacity for other value adding projects
- Lower costs than you can achieve by outsourcing
- Higher staff morale
- More committed staff
- Major customer service improvements
- Hundreds of thousands of pounds saved on staff re-training and recruitment as a result of attrition
- More rewarding jobs for staff and management
Don’t believe me? Enter your details below to get immediate access to a free mini course on why the standard practices in contact centres don’t work and what to do about it.
As an extra you’ll get an interview with the Customer Service Director at Scottish Life talking about how she changed her culture, slashed costs and won masses of awards.
You’ll also get an article explaining through independent research how the Velux window company’s call centre got the highest levels of staff commitment in the industry.
Enter your details below and get access to your free information within the next few minutes.