Whether you’re just starting up your own inbound call center, or you’ve been in the offshore call center business for a while, it is important to improve/maintain your reputation. Obviously, a good reputation in the industry translates to more new customers, as well as stronger customer loyalty.

The most compelling way to do this is not through high-end technology or efficient processes (although both are very crucial indeed), but through hiring the proper contact center agents. Your HR people have their work cut out for them, as they have to sift through numerous candidates, and get potential agents, based on several tangible metrics as well as their gut feel.

Ultimately, the “perfect” call center agent must possess a zeal for learning, and must have the ability to handle stress, as s/he will be taking calls from disgruntled, panicking customers, as well as clueless customers who might not even know how to boot up a computer. Finally, the hopeful recruit must have a sense of confidence about him/her. Your call center is in the business of solving other people’s problems, so you wouldn’t want an agent working at your center and telling the fretting client “I think this is how it’s done”. The client wants answers, not speculations. He/she wants to receive some amount of solace from talking to the agent.

Hiring good contact centre agents is only half the battle, of course. You need to maintain their morale and performance. The normal approach of call centers is to conduct regular team building activities. You can try to think out of the box and offer extra-curricular workshops they can attend. Have Yoga Mondays once a month. Create a shout out bulletin board where all the agents can let their creativity go. Ultimately, think of activities that will improve dynamics among the team, challenge their logic skills, and give them a venue to vent out all the frustrations they experience providing tech support.

Another important thing is to support your tech support agents. Purchase good helpdesk software. Hire competent technical officers to make sure that your computers and networks are running well. These are officers who are willing to learn the ins and outs of your system - not just the basics. That way, if the computer of one helpdesk agent crashes, these officers can attend to the problem immediately. Remember that the technology the agent uses during work is of utmost importance - without a computer, the agent cannot do his/her job. Hence, the customer on the phone is not attended to. And this generally leads to a bad outlook on your customer support services.

By ensuring the well-being of all your agents, you assure them that you value their work and consider them as assets to the company, which will translate to good overall morale, and good overall performance.

Sources:
Original article written by Paul Smith
http://ezinearticles.com/?Three-Ways-to-Improve-Your-Help-Desks-Reputation&id=74650
Technical Support
Tech Support Call Center

Using helpdesk software should not only be a good option to consider when setting up a technical support call center. It should be a vital part of your center’s business process. Here are some advantages of using software:

1. Helpdesk software efficiently handles pre and post sale issues online and offline.

2. Web based software enables better communication between the customer and the business.

3. It ensures that your call center offers 24/7 customer support and technical support by providing self-help features to customers and allowing your agents to handle more complex problems that the software cannot accommodate.

4. Automates several business processes.

5. Allows data to be readily available, improving overall efficiency.

Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Timothy_Rudon

Every now and then, when my Internet at home konks out, I am driven into a state of panic and immediately call the technical support hot line, mainly because number 1) I am used to a very reliable Internet service at the office, and 2) because the Internet is so ingrained in my lifestyle, that it’s up there in my neccessities list, just below water, food, and shelter. At this moment, I feel the role reversal as I now take on the function of a customer being served by a call center.

After a phone call with the tech support person, I either end up being the satisfied customer or the irate customer, and I’ve come to a conclusion that my mood hinges mainly on one thing: how the call center agent manages my expectations (that, and how quickly an agent actually picks up my call, but this should already be obvious).

Managing customer expectations is somewhat an art form. The contact center agent must speak to the customer in a tone that suggests he/she understands and empathizes with your problem, but must also stand his/her firm ground in explaining that a ticket must be made, and the ticket will be answered within a specific time period. Agents who try to be nice and do you a favor by prioritizing your problem are only going to ruin the system. You (the customer) acquire the bad habit of bypassing standard procedures all the time, and requests that were coursed through the right, orderly manner are ignored, creating even more irate customers.

In my own experience, I’ve found that I was able to end calls with the help desk agent with a smile on my face even though the problem had not been solved yet, simply because I was assured that the problem was going to be solved soon. Of course, the words of the agent had to be backed up with a prompt course of action. In my case, it was a confirmation call scheduling a repair within the same week.

Ultimately, good training of your call center agents is what will make your helpdesk / tech support call centre both customer-friendly and efficient at the same time.

Customer service has always been and will probably always be the X factor behind a company’s success. It is the helpful customer service representative or the prompt delivery of a certain product that makes people come back to your company. Today, many companies outsource their customer service to call centers for the sake of cost efficiency.

As an outsourced call center representing a major backbone of the company, it is very crucial to provide high-quality services. By providing excellent customer service, you improve the customer retention of the company you are handling, which in turn improves your call center’s customer retention.

Of course, this is easier said than done. The quality of customer service cannot be easily measured, since there are many factors that need to be considered - ex. the call center agent’s courtesy, length of time a customer is put on hold, professionalism, etc. And since some of these factors are subjective, you have to quantify them by determining what actions and values customers usually associate with that factor (ex. customers associate courtesy with an agent using words like “please” and “thank you”). Lastly, a call center must figure out which factors are most important to a customer in a particular industry.

The best way to approach this seemingly monstrous task is to use the ever useful focus discussion group and survey.

Creating a good survey is your first hurdle. Here are a slew of pointers:

1. Make sure your survey isn’t too long. Remember: you are using up a customer’s valuable time so don’t give him/her unnecessary headaches. Remove any questions that you can answer using different means. For instance, don’t ask a customer the length of time he/she was put on hold, because you can enforce other ways to measure that.

2. Set up a focus group discussion with some customers, or random people who can potentially be customers of that company, and find out what they’d like to see in the survey. You can also check out sites that deal solely on call center metrics, such as http://www.responsedesign.com/.

3. Use the knowledge and experience that you’ve had with your customer call center to finalize the questions.

4. It is important to note that the results you get from one industry will not always apply to another industry. Always conduct separate surveys per business.

Once you’ve made the survey, you can finally hand it out for customers to answer, so that you can ultimately understand what you need to improve on. Determine how many customers you need to survey before you believe that the data is accurate enough. Understand the correlations among the factors.

Once you derive and analyze the results of your survey, the last step will be to transform all these data into action.

Your call center agents must understand the results of the survey, and what each factor entails. Create an action plan based on your survey results. Use this action plan to measure the performance of each of your agents. In no time at all, your call center will be a well-oiled machine guided by one set of principles.

Remember, however, to make a periodical check-up to see if you need to conduct another survey or if you need to re-align your action plan.

Sources:
http://www.responsedesign.com/
How Call Centers must provide their Customer Service
Customer Service
Customer Call Center