Contact Service Centers are always under pressure to increase organization productivity and efficiency. They are the direct point of contact. Thus talking about productivity, Call center Managers always emphasize on improving the quality off work agents deliver. It is easy to speak about, but harder to achieve. Hence motivation, communication and teamwork are always sought out for increasing the productivity of call center agents. It is important to keep morals of employees high. In such a high turnover business it becomes difficult to track each and every employee and track their performance and moral levels. Eventually to increase productivity the Call Center agents needs to be looked after for.
Give your agents short breaks.
Giving your agents short break during the shifts will help in releasing the pressure that mounts after taking dozens of calls. It will help them in revitalizing and regaining energy levels to take further calls. It will also help as a stress buster. Taking back to back calls can at times be very hectic and exhaustive. After taking back to back calls the operator can at times perform lower than expected. Probability off them delivering the right information decreases. Hence theses short breaks will come as a life saver for both the call center and the operator. Continuous calling process can also frustrate the operator. To avoid such situation short breaks prove to be vital.
Option of working from home.
Allowing your operators to work from home and giving them flexibility shows them how much you trust them. A cloud based system could be solution to allowing operators to work from home. A cloud based system will not affect the working and operators can easily access the work space from any place without being present in the office. Working from home will also prove to be beneficial, as people working from home tend to yield higher productivity, as they find lot of comfort in their home. It is their own zone and hence comfort levels are high. As far is monitoring is considered, you can track all your remote employees through cloud system. Implementing work from home could be done on basis of 2 to 3 days per week. The organization can take a step further by reimbursing the internet connection charges that employee has to bear by working from home. This will make employees feel cared by the organization.
Agents can see their own performance card.
With usage of technology the employees will be enabled to track their own performance. This will create a competitive environment on the floor. With real time analytics employees will strive to do better than what they are doing. They will also be able to see the performance of others on the floor, by this they try to outperform each other and overall productivity of the call center will improve. This will help employees to see in real time where they are going wrong and they will be able to improve their mistakes immediately. This step can also prove as a motivational booster, as employees who are doing well will be motivated to do even better, and those who are under-performing will be able to set benchmark for their work. Research study shows self evaluation is best for corporate culture, rather than your manager pointing out to you your weaknesses. This helps in motivation process also.
Providing agent with information about the caller.
The biggest factor influencing the time duration of call is finding out comprehensive information about what customer needs. Half of time on call is spend on understanding the problem of the caller. This is a huge amount of time. The software present in the call center containing relevant information about the caller helps in reducing the handle time and increasing the productivity of overall process. For increased productivity the information needs to be readily available to the agent in a comprehensive format. The information can popup as the caller calls. The more information about the caller the better it is for the agent to understand its history, past grievances, and other queries. By analyzing the information given, the call experience could be made better.
Offer agents to develop their skills for career progression.
This is a great way of employee engagement. This will not only increase job satisfaction of the employees, but will also increase their competencies. To accomplish Skill development, the Managers can conduct workshops, interactive sessions. training sessions and various other methods like seminar, or short courses. This will keep employees hooked on to the job, as they learn new skills which will help them in shaping their careers. Another good method could be providing certifications on all skill development programs, this will give credibility to the programs and certifications could be used by employees to advance in their career. With using methods like skill development and providing self evaluation information will help employees in taking ownership of their development and growth. This way they will feel like not doing a job, but pursuing a career.
Make Flexible Shifts as per Employee.
Power should be given to employees to schedule and plan their own shift timings and shift structure, that will fit accordingly in their unique lifestyle. There should be options for flexible shifts and work from home options. This will give the employees the ownership of their work. This way employees will be able to work in their most convenient time. This will give them flexibility and will also improve long term productivity. Employees will also feel mentally relieved. If they will work on their own timings, they will tend to feel special.
Have Monthly Contests and Reward System.
Eventually all call center operators need motivation and appreciation to do their work efficiently. To inculcate practices such as monthly contests could placed in order to make sure employees are in healthy competition mode. A little bit of competition should always be there in workplace, it helps in increasing the productivity. It is well said that competition brings in motivation to the work. Monthly Contests can help employees exceed the expectation of the work. Benchmarks get new heights when it comes top monthly contests. Next are the reward system. Rewards and incentives should be used to provide employees that exceed the normal benchmarks and yield maximum productivity. Incentive system helps motivate the employees to excel in their work. This also helps in increasing job satisfaction and scope for personal growth within the organization. It also helps in preventing talented employees from leaving the organization.
