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

Sleep Country and Sears Canada are two retail businesses making good in Canada. Both are in highly competitive and saturated industries, but have stood out from the crowd. How? Through customer service.

As ironic as it may sound, it’s no longer so much about the product you are offering as the service you are giving along with it. When customers praise Sleep Country, they note the company’s prompt delivery, and friendliness and efficiency of the deliverymen… not the comfort of the mattress or the affordable prices. It makes total sense if you think about it - with so many companies competing, it’s the convenience and overall satisfaction that helps a customer discern among dozens of seemingly identical products.

Sears Canada, on the other hand, provides a 24-hour telephone shopping and internet shopping to make their products always available. Aside from this, they allow you to refund your items, no questions asked. Couple that with a 3-day delivery time to any part in Canada, and you’ve got your company sold.

It is clear from the experience of both these business that customers care a great deal about customer service. As such, this is something that businesses, both small and large, must consider above anything else.

Source:
http://sbinfocanada.about.com/cs/marketing/a/custservretail.htm

The Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP) Annual Call Center Conference & Expo 2008 promises to be an event bigger than its predecessors. To be held at the SMX Convention Center in Mall of Asia on July 23 to 24, this two-day affair will include a conference on the call center industry, a training program for contact center professionals, an exhibit of the latest gadgets, and a job fair for interested applicants. The conference will certainly be an all-around learning experience for both outsourced and in-house call centers, of all sizes and operational backgrounds.

The event will be focused on four main tracks, depending on the attendee’s needs (ex. the CEO of a call center VS. a fresh graduate): Operations, People, Solutions, and  Career. Four sessions will be given concurrently for each track per day.

For the Operations track, attendees will be able to learn more about logistics and the ins and outs behind call center management through the following sessions:

1. Next wave cities: Site selection success
Focuses on emerging call center locations in the Philippines, outside the Metro Manila area.

2. Driving customer centricity through WFO
Provides insights on how to improve customer satisfaction and employee retention through proper workforce management optimization (WFO).

3. Leading a fast growing call center company
This session explains how a customer call center company with multiple branches and a very large manpower can succeed and sustain itself.

4. Beyond basic service offerings
Because of the competitive nature of the call center industry and the existing economic issues of the USA (which we discussed in a previous blog post here), it is important to provide value-added services. This session elaborates on this need for innovation.

5. Top design: Case studies in building a facility
This tackles the crucial concepts behind creating an effective physical call center facility - one that is conducive to productivity and efficiency.

6. The quality evolution: Creating predictive models to improve performance
This session explains how trends analysis can give call centers a leverage in providing high-quality services.

7. Delivering quality in a cost-constrained environment
Quality and cost efficiency have always been on opposite ends of a balance, and this session aims to shed some light on how to properly balance the two.

8. Integrating Balanced Scorecard and Lean Sigma towards business excellence
An in-depth look on two key strategies for a successful company.

The People track focuses on the recruitment and workforce management side of a call center business. Recruitment and workforce management are critical aspects of any company, as the manpower dictates the quality and efficiency of the output. This track allows attendees to learn more about the following:

1. Old school vs. new school: Recruitment marketing techniques
This session aims to shed some light on the recruitment marketing techniques that really work.

2. The future of work to 2020:  What is the color of your workplace?
As the name suggests, this focuses on the workforce of the future, and the changes that the HR department will experience as a result.

3. The power of emotional engagement
A view on employee emotional engagement and how it can improve morale in the workplace.

4. People make the difference
An inspiring talk that takes the age-old adage, “People are our greatest asset”, to heart.

5. Life on the graveyard shift: Managing performance and lifestyle
One of the unique aspects of working in a call center is the unusual work lifestyle. This session explains how the contact center must address the issues of such a lifestyle.

6. The soul of the organization: Building a successful corporate culture
Corporate culture defines the values of an organization. A culture that is molded in line with the company’s goals can spell success for a contact center.

7. Driving behavior: Effective rewards and recognitions
A look into what motivates a Filipino call center professional.

8. Managing Generation Y
How to make the most out of today’s tech-savvy, forward-looking yuppie generation.

The Solutions track sheds some light on the technical aspect of a call center operation.

1. The perfect fit: Choosing the right technology for your contact center
Makes sense of the wide array of new technological solutions that come out of the market.

2. All aboard the VoIP train
An enlightening discussion on how to select the right VoIP vendor.

3. Keeping IT under control: Simple solutions for your network operations

4. Technology innovation in tomorrow’s call center

5. Project runaway: Getting technology implementation under control
Explains how to efficiently implement and manage newly acquired technologies.

6. Voice clarity and its effects within the call center environment
A look at how voice clarity shortens calls, improves customer satisfaction, and saves costs.

The final track, Career, as the name implies, is for those attendees who are looking into a career in the call centre industry.

1. Call center, Pinoy-style: Managing the Filipino workforce
A renowned Filipino anthropologist talks about the Filipino culture.

2. Using organization politics to your advantage
How to get up the call center corporate ladder by getting along with bosses and coworkers.

3. Friday night lights: Frontline coaching techniques
The proper coaching technique for different personalities.

4. 7 habits of highly-effective customer service reps
A look into the seven habits that can set one contact center professional above the rest.

5. Developing the leader within you
The session explains how a professional can realize his/her leadership potential.

6. Planning and managing your call center career
An in-depth look on how to plot a career path around the call center

7. EI for TLs: Using emotional intelligence to manage your team

8. Finding your true north: Values and principles in a changing world

To find out more about the conference, visit the official site of CCAP at http://ccap.ph/

The United States of America has encountered major economic problems since mid 2007. Subprime mortgage, recession, and the weakening dollar affected not only their country, but the rest of the world as well, including the outsourced inbound call center industry, whose income is denominated in US dollars and largely obtained from the US market.

Despite this somewhat bleak situation, several predict that this will not necessarily affect the industry adversely, as long as businesses know how to innovate and improve their services.

1. Value-Added Services
Instead of competing with prices, CIO (http://www.cio.com) predicts that this year, BPO companies and offshore contact centers will strive to market their value-added services - those that will give clients an edge in closing deals. Some of these value-added features include process expertise, flexibility, and a skilled workforce.

2. Currency Hedging
Currency hedges will be an effective way to handle unpredictable currency fluctuations.

3. Cutting Costs
Offshore companies must learn to maximize marketing and administrative costs that may have been overlooked back when the dollar was much stronger than local currency.

4. Broadening Horizons
While Makati and Ortigas City have always been the obvious choice for inbound contact center locations in the Philippines, other less known, less commercialized locations such as Cebu are gaining more popularity.

5. Looking for other Markets
For quite some time, the US market made up 56% of 2007 BPO/KPO contracts and 67% of 2006-2007 IT contracts. Contact centers should now start catering to markets in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

Sources:
1. http://www.sourcingmag.com/content/c080114a.asp
2. http://www.neoit.com/gen/industryresource/country_specific_res.html
3. http://www.cio.com/article/166108/_Outsourcing_Predictions_for_and_One_to_Grow_On_/2