Updated May 2020.

Setting up a call center is not always straightforward.

There is a vast selection of call center reporting software, including hosted or cloud call center solutions and premises-based solutions, and you will need to do a little research to determine the best solution for your needs.

The different types of systems each have certain advantages and disadvantages. Each caters to different sizes of organization and call center needs.

Before we get to the crucial questions, we need to talk a bit about the differences between cloud call center solutions or other types of hosted solutions and premises-based solutions.

Types of call center reporting systems

A premises-based solution is, as the name suggests, is one that is based on-site in your call center’s location. In other words, your PBX or VoIP system’s physical server and all of the hardware associated with the telephone system will be situated on-site.

The customer can maintain equipment, but this requires internal IT staff.

Sometimes the equipment maintenance is covered through a contract with the provider.

Premises-based systems require an initial outlay of capital, as the company must purchase the equipment at the starting phase of implementation.

Your company will own all of the hardware and have immediate access to the hardware. As you can imagine, this involves a significant outlay of capital at the initial stage of implementation.

You may also be taking on monthly fees associated with network infrastructure and ongoing hardware maintenance.

Alternatively, you may be required to hire additional staff to tend to the maintenance of the in-house system.

According to Genesy’s definition, a hosted call center reporting system is a call center reporting “solution in which an organization’s central point of inbound and outbound communications is hosted on a service provider’s back-office systems.”

When it comes to call center reporting systems, there is often some confusion around the terms “hosted” and “cloud-based.”

People often use the words interchangeably without any clear distinction between them.

Often, when vendors claim to offer “cloud” services, they are, in fact, hosted versions of a legacy on-premises solution.

Hosted and true cloud services are two very different things.

Cloud-based call center reporting software is a type of hosted call center reporting system that stores your data in a secure network of servers that can find what you need and deliver it to you or your team wherever you are.

Cloud call center reporting software solutions are those that include a comprehensive suite of tools, applications, and cloud-hosted services for contact centers.

The cloud-based technology can accommodate the needs of large organizations that require multiple communications channels (including phone calls and messaging), sophisticated call routing, agent management, and analytics.

A Cloud Contact Center reporting system can help large organizations meet the challenges of communicating with their customers or clients.

In short, hosted PBX, or Hosted VoIP (Voice over IP) – also referred to as cloud systems – embody the latest phase in phone system technology.

With a hosted or cloud system, the customer does not own or house the physical server in their office – instead, the phone server resides in a service provider’s data center.

Since the system itself is offsite, hosted solutions use web-based access to configure, manage, and maintain the system.

What is the “cloud”? The technology industry uses many buzzwords.

Some examples of this include terms or phrases like the Internet of Things, Big Data, and 5G.

The problem is that these sometimes nebulous or arbitrary terms don’t make it clear what they mean to consumers from individual users to corporations; the meanings of these buzzwords are not always precise.

“The cloud” is one of those terms.

The cloud refers to software and services that run on the Internet, instead of locally on your computer.

Your team can access most cloud services by using a Web browser like Firefox or Google Chrome, and some companies offer dedicated mobile apps.

There are many business applications for cloud computing, but here we are only interested in call center reporting applications.

The advantage of the cloud is that you can access your information on any device with an Internet connection.

Before you choose a call center solution, you will need to consider several factors that will impact which choice will be best for your organization.

There are quantitative considerations, like the number of calls you expect to handle, the size of your team, and your budget.

There are other considerations, too. Continue reading to learn more about the ten essential questions to ask before you invest in call center reporting solutions.

10 Key Questions

1. Compatibility: How well will the system integrate with your existing tools?

If your business is well-established and already has a customer relationship management or sales system in place, then it is essential to choose a call center reporting system that is compatible with your existing infrastructure.

Why spend a significant amount of capital on a system that will not easily offer improvements in productivity and customer satisfaction?

You also want to ensure that the system and the staff have the experience and expertise to meet your company’s needs.

2. Security: How secure is the service?

Security is an important consideration.

Does the system have mechanisms in place to establish the security, confidentiality, and integrity of their customers’ data?

You need to look at things like data isolation, data backup, and the security of the servers.

Is data isolated and stored on dedicated tables?

How frequently are backups run, and where are the backup data stored?

What security measures on in place at the data centers?

3. Scalability: Can the service scale in tandem with fluctuations in demand?

Contact center demands fluctuate.

You need a system that will be flexible enough to provide the capacity you need and are using according to the ebbs and flows of your customers.

Why pay for maximum volume all of the time?

Especially for small to medium-sized call centers, a system that can switch from higher to lower call volumes as needed makes good business sense.

Cloud systems are suitable for this because they provide a large and robust infrastructure and typically offer on-demand provisioning.

4. Usability: Does the system provide useful reporting capabilities?

Is the reporting system robust and accessible?

Look for the capability to generate reports from multiple data sources (ex.: telephone, sales, WFM, quality, and so on), for multiple locations, for multiple business units in one place.

Will your team be able to access amalgamated and roll-up summaries at every level of the organization.

Many companies unwillingly end up spending more time collecting data, compiling and distributing reports than they spend in quality analysis.

Delays in decision-making weaken a company’s market position.

So can making bad decisions.

Look for a call center reporting system that generates reports that lead to useful and timely decision making.

There is rarely a shortage of raw data, yet leaders continue to run short on business insight.

The challenge is not a lack of data per se; it is the transformation of data into insight that is absent.

Lack of insight limits opportunities and success.

Without new information, your capacity to find new solutions is severely handicapped.

Will your team be able to access reports in real-time? When reports are obsolete, decision-making is compromised.

The cost of revamping, refitting and reformatting reports to accommodate changes is rapidly mounting.

5. Capability: Is the system capable of tracking all of the channels through which you communicate with your customers?

With the growing popularity of social media, companies are offering their customers and clients options for customer care communication.

In addition to telephony, most contact centers also offer live chat, email, and message boards, to name a few.

Look for a system that offers “Multi-Channel Support.”

Multi-Channel support simply means that the system is capable of handling the various channels that your company may be using to communicate with your customers, either now or in the future.

6. Affordability and transparency: Check the pricing structure so that you know up-front what the system will cost.

As already mentioned, premises-based solutions often require an initial outlay of capital and ongoing maintenance costs.

In addition, there are the costs associated with an on-site IT team. By contrast, a self-serve user interface eliminates the need for in-house IT staff, or frees up their time for other tasks.

And a hosted or cloud-based solution eliminates the substantial up-front cost and investment risk.

7. Functionality: Are your team leaders and agents able to use the call center reporting software?

The system you select must be one that your agents and team leaders are able to use comfortably.

To best serve your end customers, you need a system that your employees can use.

The goal is to empower your team and enhance your customers’ satisfaction with their contact center communications.

For this to happen, contact center managers and supervisors need to be able to access reports as they need them.

So you want to be sure that this will be the case.

It is a good idea to ask your personnel for input.

8. Efficiency: Does the call center reporting software support blended agents?

In the context of a contact center, a blended agent, manages both incoming and outgoing calls and applications as needed.

Need is determined by contact center traffic levels.

The strategy of using blended agents is increasingly common as it contributes to the overall efficiency of your business.

You need to ask whether the system you are considering will allow your agents to move between answering incoming communications and dialling outgoing calls with minimal effort.

9. Accessibility: Can agents access the system from home?

More and more companies are relying on remote workers, and this trend is likely to continue.

You need to ask whether or not it is easy to add additional staff to the system as needed.

Will you be easily able to direct calls to an external number or numbers?

Will the reporting software be capable of monitoring this usage?

10. Testability: Can you run a demonstration before you go live?

Another critical consideration is whether or not you are able to run a demonstration of the call center reporting software before you invest any money or sign any contracts.

In most cases, you should be able to try the software on a separate network.

It is a good idea to have the agents and team leaders who will be working with the system on the ground involved in the trial run as they are well-situated and knowledgeable about the day-to-day flows and demands of their workplace.

In brief, there are ten vital factors to consider when you are selecting a new call center reporting software system or upgrading your existing system.

The crucial considerations relate to how much you are willing to spend, what you estimate your current and future needs to be, the reliability of service, the ease of use for your agents and management teams, and the overall improvement to your customers’ experience.

And, of course, you need to think about your budgetary needs and return on investment.

For many call centers, cloud-based solutions fit the bill.

Cloud-based models have a multitenant architecture with an intentional design that will maximize the secure and efficient delivery of web-based applications.

They feature interconnectivity capacities as part of the design.

Cloud-based consumer experience systems are quick to install and set up.

Additionally, your company will benefit from lower operating costs because you are using a secure and shared service.

You also benefit from the ability to increase or decrease capacity according to fluctuations in demand.

To recap, some of the main benefits of a hosted or cloud solution are:

• Cost-effective and up to date VoIP functionality
• Little to no need for in-house IT involvement in installing and maintaining the system
• Hosted and cloud-based systems feature scalability making them suitable for both small and large businesses

At the end of the day, you want to find a telecommunication partner that offers secure, reliable and affordable services.

You want a company that has the experience, capability, and expertise that you need. And you want a solution that your team can use with ease.

Finally, you want a solution that can adapt as your company’s needs change over both the short and long-term.

For more information about The Reporting Engine, Contact Us Now.

What is customer-centric?

Customer-centric is a business approach driven by the idea that the needs of customers come first.

The ultimate goal of the approach is to cultivate long-term solid relationships that lead to better business.

But it’s easier said than done.

For a company to be customer-centric, it needs to put clients at the core of everything it does.

Plus, it needs to translate its commitment to clients into exceptional client service experiences.

This effort requires intentional and strategic thought, which should spread through every layer of the organizational structure.

When we refer to call centers specifically, having a customer-centric approach is vital.

By their very nature, call centers are designed to answer clients’ needs and offer prompt solutions to their requirements.

That’s why each decision and process within call centers should be taken with the clients’ best interest in focus.

In the case of call centers, customer-centricity becomes a value that guides every client interaction and what goes on backstage.

According to this approach, call centers should be on top of what a client might want at any given time, and anticipate their needs even before they pick up the phone.

To fully achieve this goal, you can combine customer-centric techniques with data and customer relationship management (CRM) metrics.

In fact, customer data is essential to paving the way to a customer-centric call center for businesses, as it focuses on understanding behavior, interests and potential problems.

The benefits of a customer-centric call center

Customer satisfaction leads to increased business revenue, which is why the smartest companies are adopting customer-centric strategies.

Increased customer satisfaction

Through its very definition, a customer-centric call center strategy is meant to nurture and enhance customer satisfaction.

The bottom line is simple: a satisfied customer will choose your business over and over again, resulting in repeat purchases and higher revenue.

Studies have shown that holding onto existing customers is more profitable than reaching out to new ones, who are more volatile.

According to Harvard Business Review, it is from 5 to 25 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to keep a current one.

Thus, since satisfaction naturally leads to loyalty, identifying and anticipating the needs of your customers is definitely very good for business.

A customer-centric approach can help any call center elegantly bypass the risk of losing clients to other more thoughtful competitors.

To ensure this happens, you might sometimes find yourself in the position of taking some counter-intuitive decisions, such as not pushing promotional offers in order to avoid irritation.

Competitive Advantage

A customer-centric call center for businesses will help your company stand out among many other similar brands.

In fact, unique customer experience helps companies drive 4% to 8% more revenue than others in their market.

A customer-centric call center, through its focus on the client, is implicitly interested in providing custom experiences that answer real needs.

More than just trying to tick a number of requirements, these types of call center for businesses really go above and beyond to provide value to their clients and make them feel heard.

This extra-effort will lead to bigger gains in the future, as your clients will probably spread the word about the unique experience with your call center.

A bigger market share

Failing to deliver customer-centric call center services can carve a bad reputation for your brand.

And once the word about your lack of real interest in what your customers need gets around, you’ll lose your chances of expanding your business.

While good news travels fast, bad reviews travel even faster, so make no mistake about it: your unsatisfied clients will tax you. Big time.

That’s why any modern business that wants a bigger market share should build its call center procedures by following a customer-centric approach.

Now, more than ever, clients want honest, real relationships with the businesses they interact with.

So how can you ensure that the connections you establish fall under this spectrum?

By taking an extra interest in understanding who your customers are.

New growth opportunities

If you create a customer-centric call center for your business, you can uncover client insights which can lead to new growth ideas.

Of course, to be able to gather precious information, you must first be willing to make the customer your main focus.

That means instructing your call agents to follow suit, but also promoting a client-centric mentality throughout every other department.

The hard work will pay off in the end, as a customer-centric approach will allow you to identify and take advantage of the opportunities for improvement and growth.

To ensure this happens, there are several tools you can include in your customer-centric kit.

For example, you should make feedback a recurrent part of your activity, and collect it regularly with the purpose of better tailoring your services to your customers’ preferences.

How to create a customer-centric call center

Design a top-down approach

Call center agents are the forefront of your business, but it doesn’t mean that customer-centricity should only concern them.

On the contrary.

For the approach to reap results, it should permeate every department, and guide every single process from reporting to client interactions.

In the words of Tony Hsieh, the founder and CEO of Zappos: “Customer service shouldn’t be a department, it should be an entire company”.

A good way to ensure coherency in your call center is to create a document that formulates a single-focused vision.

Not only that, but you should make sure to articulate what being customer-centered means in practice by offering relevant examples.

Once everybody is aligned conceptually, start practicing what you preach by leading through example.

High-level managers should set the tone for customer centric call centers by responding to customer complaints on social media channels.

Another way of delivering a top-to-bottom approach is by getting higher-ups directly involved in planning performance management for call centers.

And last, but definitely not least, focus on operations as the core trigger for customer-centric operations.

Ultimately, it’s the management of call centers that can make or break a business.

So, if you want to build a call center for business that stands the test of time (and customers), you need to consider a top-down approach.

Know your customers

It might sound ubiquitous, but knowing your customers is a step worth mentioning because many businesses wrongly assume they do.

In fact, few companies actually take the time to understand their customers’ needs and internalize them.

Most businesses think they have a hold of what their customers want simply based on their intuition or past experiences.

However, truly understanding what customers want requires another key ingredient: data.

Customer data is essential to customer-centric call centers and should be leveraged at every stage of decision-making.

If you haven’t already, form a data management team and put it in charge of the reports of your call center for business.

By using a powerful reporting tool, you’ll then be able to get detailed information about each customer and share it across departments.

You can even use call center software as an assisting mechanism for agents, enhancing their ability to respond to clients’ needs faster.

After-all, customization is the best indicator of how customer-centric a call center for business really is.

Create a seamless call experience

To be worthy of the “customer-centric” name, a call center should design every interaction as seamless as possible.

In your client’s eyes, this translates into minimum effort for maximum value.

Customers expect to have their questions answered promptly, congenially, and without friction.

Anything less will result in frustration, which is the number one killer of any aspirations for customer-centricity.

Seamless interactions start a long time before agents pick up the phone, with how you manage your call center.

Performance, reporting, and staffing management all play a crucial role in delivering seamless customer experiences.

At the same time, crafting and maintaining a coherent brand voice is essential to supporting flawless interactions.

Call resolutions don’t happen by accident, they’re the result of customer-centricity permeating among agents and managers alike.

So, while you put your best people on the frontline answering calls, remember that every interaction starts with your management decisions.

Prepare your call-agents

Your call center can only be as customer-focused as your agents are.

Fact is, you could have a perfect backstage strategy, exceptional scripts, and stellar performance management, only to fail because of a single untrained agent.

To set yourself up for success, you should empower your call center agents with all the tools they need to sustain exceptional interactions.

This means educating them on call center best practices that lead to amazing service and consistent messages.

However, it also means offering them access to company culture training courses that cover branding, culture, and values.

This way, you’ll make them feel integral as part of your organization, and they’ll be more motivated to perform.

It’s also important to cultivate a set of creative skills within your call-agents’ teams and encourage accountability and autonomy.

Close the circle by delivering access to powerful customer data and call center reporting, and you’ll take your agents one step closer to solving issues in record time.

Leverage the power of metrics

You cannot have a customer-centric call center without glimpsing into data insights.

By following the trail of customer data, you can ensure your decision-making process will always have clients at its core.

Undoubtedly, your customer service is filled with valuable data and it would be a shame not to make the most of it.

In order to achieve your objectives and build a customer-centric call center, it’s mandatory you use a powerful call center reporting solution such as The Reporting Engine.

Not only will you get access to data that will empower informed decision-making, but you will be able to tweak the performance of your center and operate at full throttle.

Data and metrics-driven improvements should be essential pillars in your business culture, providing insights to tackle every stage of a customers’ journey, no matter the touch points.

They should also dictate how you staff and manage your call center, things that indirectly also reflect on how satisfied your clients are with your services.

To achieve your customer-centric objectives, use a mix of real-time and historical data from multiple data sources.

Implement feedback to get better

Alongside data, feedback is invaluable to building a customer centric call center for businesses.

Gathering feedback shouldn’t be a once-in-a-blue-moon feat, but a continuous concern to management teams.

You should constantly monitor client interactions and gather real-time insights which you can then build upon.

In addition, techniques such as data mining and direct feedback should become an integrated part of your customer relationship management strategy.

For this information to be valuable, you must make it readily available to all concerned parties.

Feedback can undoubtedly improve your teams’ responses, leading to a more customer-centric call center.

Metrics to assess the success of your customer-centric call center

Once you implement customer-centric strategies across your call center, you’ll probably want to assess how efficient these really are.

In order to do that, you can follow a set of customer-centric metrics that will offer you a realistic measure of how well your efforts are yielding.

Here are the metrics worth tracking:

Service level: how accessible your call center is to the client.

First call resolution: all clients expect prompt answers, with minimum efforts.

Contact quality: how answers are offered is equally important as the resolution itself.

Customer satisfaction: it is a holistic metric that accounts for client-centricity.

Employee satisfaction: only happy agents can keep customers happy.

Ready to work towards a customer-centric call center?

If you’re serious about transforming your call center with a customer-centric approach, you need to start thinking about data.

The Reporting Engine can help you make sense of the piles of data stored in your interactions, and lead the path towards a more client focused approach.

You probably can’t even begin to imagine just how valuable these data insights can be.

We invite you to find out.

Request a demo and let’s see what we can achieve together — for your customers, and for your business.

If you’ve been struggling to improve the efficiency of your call center to no avail, don’t despair.

We know how monumental this task might feel, and it’s not hard to understand why.

With so many loose ends and puzzle pieces to put together, you probably don’t know where to start.

However, don’t be disheartened or overwhelmed in front of so many variables.

Boosting efficiency is possible and within reach by following some well-laid steps and using the proper call center reporting solutions.

From processes to agents, this article will reveal how you can improve the efficiency of your call center, and how report engines can help.

After you read it, you’ll know how to have better leadership, more involved agents, faster response times, and speedier resolutions.

All these aspects will ultimately translate into more satisfied clients and better business returns.

Bear in mind that the path to a more efficient call center requires forethought and planning.

So let’s begin.

What factors determine the efficiency of call centers?

Several factors lead to an efficient call center, including how a call center operates, what tech it uses, how it addresses issues, and how agents behave.

Because there are so many fronts to address, you need to understand when, where, and how each factor comes into play.

The best approach is to organize these factors into categories and tackle each section with increased attention.

For example, the factors that determine how efficient a call center is can be separated into four large categories:

- Strategic factors (approach to customer interactions, hiring processes)

- Operational factors (processes, frameworks, and workflows)

- Technological factors (report engines, performance tracking)

- Human factors (call center agents)

Each category can be further expanded to reveal even more layers that can impact efficiency.

Take a close look at each category and consider what aspects within your call center could be improved.

Make an honest assessment, and even plot a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) to each category.

Again, the task might feel monumental, but don’t feel pressured to make all changes at once.

Start with the most pressing ones and slowly move towards improving one day at a time.

And remember that each category influences the others.

Strategy influences operational decisions.

Operational decisions can be implemented only with the help of technology and advanced call center reporting solutions.

And all of the above have a significant impact on how your call center agents perform.

The first step in having a thriving call center is tweaking your strategic factors to a customer-centric approach.

The following steps involve increased attention to operations, technology, and call center agents.

Why is call center agents’ efficiency paramount?

Your call center is only as efficient as your agents are.

It doesn’t matter if you have the best-oiled processes in the world, powered by the most sophisticated report engines.

At the end of the day, your agents are the ones who interact with your customers and directly influence your call center’s efficiency rates.

Statistics show that 79% of customers prefer interacting with a human being instead of chatting with bots, and consider this a sign of good customer service.

However, you must make sure that agent interactions lead to more efficient resolutions in your call center.

The speed with which agents resolve issues, their ability to handle even the toughest clients, how often they transfer calls, and how many customers abandon the call are essential metrics that speak about efficiency.

Efficient call center agents tend to be great communications, flexible and adaptable, and can creatively solve unexpected issues.

They are technically proficient and understand how to use call center reporting tools to aid customers.

Of course, efficient call center agents should also be patient, empathic, and have great listening skills.

After all, there’s no amount of technical proficiency that can make up for a sulky, ill-mannered agent.

However, no matter how fit for a position an agent might be, improving their efficiency (and that of your call center as a result) is also your responsibility.

Top tips to improve the efficiency of your call center

Establish a call center framework

You can’t expect to have an efficient call center if you don’t think your processes through.

Having a plan is necessary for eliminating errors and saving time.

It gives clarity and offers direct instructions on how to handle everyday situations.

A good framework needs to define roles and accountability, leaving no room for passing responsibility from one call center agent to another.

Plus, it will empower managers to make better performance assessments, especially if they use it in collaboration with a reporting tool such as The Reporting Engine. 

Think of your framework as an operational guideline that includes the best practices your agents need to follow.

This way, they’ll be able to address clients’ issues smoothly without scrambling to find on-the-spot solutions.

Create a strong management team

Leadership directly affects a call center’s efficiency.

After all, it all starts from the top and propagates throughout the company.

Currently, stats show that 77% of companies are experiencing a leadership gap.

This is more than unfortunate because without competent, visionary leaders, all departments suffer.

Everything from hiring, establishing objectives, setting goals, and offering support will be affected by a lack of leadership.

A first step towards addressing this issue is to hire call center managers that are able to step up as true leaders.

They should be able to communicate efficiently and understand what drives productivity and performance.

Equally important, they should be technically proficient, and should know how to use reporting engine solutions to advance their understanding of the call center. 

Managers should lead their teams with integrity and emotional intelligence, setting the tone and offering guidance.

In a nutshell, your managers should be problem-solvers who look at the bigger picture and make data-driven decisions with the interest of agents and clients in mind.

Train your call center agents

While training sessions can be pretty expensive, they are an investment well worth making for the success of your call center.

Untrained agents can become detrimental to your business’ image and affect customer loyalty.

Remember that 90% of people use customer service as a factor in deciding whether or not to do business with a company.

So why risk the future of your business by letting its future hang in the hands of untrained agents?

Training will help agents polish their innate skills and will allow them to acquire new ones that are essential for customer satisfaction.

If you’re serious about improving your call center’s efficiency, consider making training sessions a regular part of your schedule.

By creating an ongoing training program, you’ll ensure each agent gets the knowledge they need at the right time.

As a bonus, you’ll also be able to address more custom issues, such as specific problems that arise in your call center.

Empower agents with real-time information

Customers assess the quality of your service by how fast an agent can respond to their queries.

To help your agents improve their resolution time, you can:

1. Establish a framework for them to follow
2. Give them access to real-time information

For agents to become more effective at service delivery, they need to have access to data about operations, callers in queue, waiting time, etc.

With this information at hand, they’ll be equipped to make better, quicker decisions.

Solutions such as The Reporting Engine can help business operations move faster.

Managers can have access to business intelligence dashboards and gain insights to empower agents in turn.

Balance call center agents’ shifts and manage overhead

Tired, overworked call center agents have no chance to be efficient.

On the contrary, they will drop in productivity, and they’ll make a dent in your overall efficiency as well.

Not to mention that in the long term, an over packed schedule will get your agents frustrated, which might lead them to quit or be bitter to clients.

So, on the one hand, it’s important to keep your agents satisfied so that they can help your clients.

On the other hand, having thoroughly planned shifts will lead to improved response times, making your customers happy.

The Reporting Engine offers a free tool to calculate overhead, plan vacation times, and maintain balanced shifts.

This way, agents will be able to uphold their service levels to the highest standards, and they’ll also love working in your call center.

Design a feedback – learning loop

To improve the efficiency of your call center, you need to be open to outside input.

Whether it comes from your own staff or your clients, you have to keep your ears and eyes open for feedback.

Listening to your managers and call center agents will give you the necessary insights to discover the areas in which you might improve operations.

In addition, call center reporting solutions can empower you with even more feedback data you can weave into your improvement plan.

And, feedback from clients can be extra-helpful when it comes to training your staff to be more in tune with what customers need.

Empowering your agents to learn and thus improve will lead to higher job satisfaction, increased performance, and improved efficiency.

By having a feedback – learning loop, your staff will be able to progress and learn from past mistakes.

For this approach to have the expected results, make sure to also reward employees based on their performance.

Using report engines or solutions such as The Reporting Engine will help you have a clearer view of each agent’s performance.

With feedback available and data knowledge at hand, you’ll quickly know whom to reward.

Keep track of essential metrics

You can’t know whether you’ve improved efficiency if you don’t track the corresponding metrics.

Not only that, but you cannot actually aim to improve efficiency without also knowing what your weak spots are.

Even if you follow the best practices in the industry, you might still be lacking in some aspects.

What’s more, it’s essential to be aware of what metrics directly affect efficiency.

For example, your average handle time is tightly connected to how efficient your call center is.

However, this is not the only metric worth considering.

In fact, to boost productivity, you need to keep track of business, customer, AND process metrics all at once.

Plus, you should be able to analyze these critical metrics together to get a complete overview of what areas need improvement.

Again, reporting solutions can be your way out of inefficiency.

By implementing best practices and understanding what works and what doesn’t, you’ll have a better chance at success.

Ready to improve the efficiency of your call center?

Now you know how to step-by-step improve your call center’s efficiency.

As you can see, there are no shortcuts to getting the results you’re aiming for.

Instead, by taking a “small steps win the race” approach, you can slowly build a more efficient customer service.

And you won’t have to do it alone.

Let technology help you and try a state-of-the-art call center reporting solution.

Contact us today for a Demo for The Reporting Engine and discover for yourself the countless benefits it can bring.

Employees hear “decrease quality” when they hear the boss ask for increased productivity.

Many leaders asking for better quality are afraid to decrease productivity.

I have witnessed many companies where employees became the de facto “defenders” of quality and the leaders the defenders of productivity.

Not a very encouraging place to be.

Productivity and quality is not a unique challenge to call centers, but the two values have a particular make-up in the contact centers.

ACD (Automatic Call Distribution) systems provide easy access to productivity metrics.

Furthermore, easily accessible metrics makes productivity the more objective of the two measurements.

Objectivity is still possible with quality standards but remains a little more demanding to define than productivity standards.

To avoid creating this elusive dichotomy within your contact center, here are a few suggestions:

Do not underestimate the power of aligning your metrics/goals with your corporate mission.

People tend to readily follow leaders that demonstrate evidence that they know where they are going.

When goals and metrics are detached, or appear detached from any bigger picture, people tend to not take them seriously.

Do not change your values on a regular basis.

If your values/goals are connected to a corporate mission, they are less likely to change unless the mission changes.

Stability of objectives inspires confidence and trust.

Lack of consistency projects a lack of commitment; people learn by example and will imitate this lack of commitment.

“…Serenity to accept the things that cannot be changed, Courage to change the things which should be changed, and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other..”

Although, a great corporate mission statement will rarely change, it might be a question of survival to re-evaluate goals.

Have the wisdom to know the proper time and method to apply the appropriate changes to new goals. Keep them aligned.

When changes are deemed necessary, do not underestimate a grand communication plan.

People will respect change and adapt to change favorably when they understand the rationale.

Be respectful to their intellect and spend the required time to ensure your changes are explained, and make sure that new goals are still aligned correctly with mission.

Pay now or pay later.

When a conflict is perceived between productivity and quality deal with it immediately.

Do not ignore it – it is viral.

People will listen to you when they feel you have understood them first.

As Stephen Covey said “Seek first to understand, then seek to be understood”.

Have discussions with your people, ask questions, genuinely seek to understand what their point of view is.

Act like they truly have the best interest of your customers at heart.

You will be surprised at what they have to share.

Get your employees involved in finding solutions to set proper balanced goals.

Build empowerment.

It is not in the “or” but in the “and” that you will find the synergy.

Always demonstrate the value of productivity goals and the value of quality goals.

Always include both values anytime any one of them is at play.

And explain how they each play a critical role in ensuring the success of “their” company.

Be transparent.

Nowadays businesses recognize that you can’t pigeonhole everyone with the same goal.

The goals must derive from the nature of your business and your market and what arsenal you choose to position yourself as a leader in your field.

Many managers and executives automatically assumed that if you had a call center your service level goal had to be this 80% answered in 20 seconds if you wanted to follow the standard.

But no one knew why it was set as the standard.

Consequently, companies started to choose different service levels for their call centers – this was a good thing: they recognize that the uniqueness of their business required a different goal.

When setting a service level goal, it is imperative that you realize that the occupancy rate of your agents is inversely proportional to your service level.

The occupancy rate formula is as follows:

Occupancy Rate = (Total Agent Logged In Time (or Staff Time) – Idle Time) / Total Agent Logged In Time

In other words, the busier your agents are the lower your results of Service Level will be.

Conversely the idler your agents are, the higher your service level.

The idler your agents, the more money it costs you to run your call center.

That is why many call center executives want to find the right service level at the right “price”.

Ask your business analyst to prepare an analysis comparing your service level results with your occupancy results for a period of 52 weeks.

Observe the relation between them – pay particular attention to the service level results of 80% answered in 20 seconds, and notice the occupancy rate.

Depending on the size of your call center, generally if it is greater than 100 agents, you will notice that whenever you achieve the 80-20, your occupancy rate might be between 80 to 85% which means your agents are idle between 9 to 12 minutes per hour.

That’s the cost of doing business at 80% answered in 20 seconds.

Remember how you treat your employees will reflect on the kind of service they deliver to your customers.

So the next time you are thinking about setting a new target for your service level, remember to consider the occupancy rate that will co-exist with it and the impact on your people.

Everyone is also painstakingly aware of the disadvantages of focusing too much on this indicator.

Some experts and some companies have decided not to consider this factor at all using the argument that the cost and ramifications of managing handling time far outweighs its benefits.

For those who cannot afford to try this exciting idea, this article will provide you with some suggestions to alleviate the pressures brought about by managing productivity.

As if managing productivity was not enough of a challenge, the telephone system your call center operates exacerbates the issue.

I will recall this issue later.

Let’s just take a moment to be clear on what are the usual elements considered in handling time.

Handling time is meant to track how long it takes an agent to serve a customer by telephone.

This means from the moment the agent answers the phone to the moment the agent is ready to answer the next call.

The time between those two events is what we all refer as the handling time.

There are different states within your telephone systems that can occur during that time.

Your agent can be in a conversation with a customer, can put the customer on hold, or once the customer hangs up, the agent can be in the after-call work state.

While the customer is on hold, or while the agent is in the after-call state, the agent can also make telephone calls – either internal or external.

The mistake I believe some call center managers make is to try and put expectations/goals on each of these states.

I hold that this creates much more pressure on the agents than is necessary and this contributes to productivity’s bad name.

Whether an agent is more comfortable writing notes while the customer is on the phone or during the after-call work or while customer is on hold, does not alter the overall handling time and therefore efforts to manage each state are useless when it comes to managing productivity.

Some may argue that the customer experience might be a whole lot different depending on which method is used, and I conquer, but if you are concerned about achieving certain operating expense goals you might want to consider my suggestion.

At the very least, you might choose to keep your goals/expectations on the amount of time an agent puts a customer on hold, but please remove the expectations from all other states.

(NB.: Pay particular attention to your telephone system’s calculations of Hold Time and Talk Time. Some telephone systems separate the hold time from the talk time, other include the hold time in the total talk time – so beware of double counting it).

How does achieving your productivity goals while removing pressure off of the team leaders and agents sound?

Great? Right?!

Then go ahead, globalize your objectives.

There are other steps you can implement to increase productivity while increasing empowerment.

The key is to think through your company’s mission statement, your core values and by understanding how important it is to streamline your goals accordingly.

But this is not always as easy as it seems.

Usually your competitors are also out there scourging the terrain which creates a higher demand on an already short supply.

There are some things you may be able to do to mitigate this challenge.

As you already know, whatever industry you are involved in, you and your competitors experience the same ebb and flows of that market which in turn influence your decision-making.

Perhaps, you could adjust your recruiting timeframes and start sooner to avoid the “peak” in the demand from the industry.

However, that may be too costly.

You could also consider increasing the value-proposition to your employees, perhaps surpassing that of your competitors.

This is not limited to the salaries you offer, but to the entire employee experience.

When all else fails and you must hire people with little or no experience, there are certain important things to consider in order to limit the negative impact this has on your bottom-line.

Lack of experience is a result of lack of theory and lack of practice.

New employees are quickly overwhelmed with knowledge during training.

They get the opportunity to practice what they learned, but it does take time for a human brain to properly integrate the knowledge in a workable framework.

The process of integration is achieved when knowledge is tied to reality, and this is easily accomplished when what was taught in class is what they encounter once they hit the floor.

Tip #1: Ensure your training reflects what is happening in reality.

Any discrepancies between reality and the training material will slow down the integration process.

Humans integrate knowledge more easily when the instructions are clear and logical.

Even though we are learning about something new, we cannot help but feel a sense of uneasiness and disconnect when the process does not seem to follow logic.

Tip #2: Make sense of your processes – eliminate the ambiguities and limit exceptions.

At the beginning, a lot of the learning for a new hire is memorizing many instructions.

But there is a limit to the capacity to perform by rote.

Reviewing what they have learned is crucial to a proper integration of knowledge and to an effective transformation of knowledge to practice.

Many of your processes occur infrequently increasing the gap between theory and practice.

This creates additional problems for employees to remember what to do.

Tip #3: Review material regularly until employee has mastered it.

Leaving employees to fend for themselves at this point is suicidal for your business.

When productivity is low for your new hire, do not sit and wait for things to eventually get better.

Although, they will eventually get better, you are losing lots of money on so many levels while you wait.

Take the bull by the horns, and make this happen.

Provide a more robust support system for your new hires.

Perhaps you may even invest in creating a “certification” process where you define where you want a new hire to be at a certain point in time (preferably weekly).

Create expectations that take into account their starting point and gradually increase them over a period of weeks.

Provide the necessary coaching to help them achieve their weekly goals.

Meet with them frequently to discuss their challenges, and especially to acknowledge their progress.

Ensure you have staff available around the clock to help answer questions they have, especially if the new hires are on the phone with a customer.

Think of the handing time you will save.

New hires must contend with a tremendous amount of change.

Change is good, but it is not so easily integrated.

Proper methods of coaching and support will make the transition so much easier.

It will also create a much better employee experience.

An easier transition means faster gains in quality and quantity.

These gains ultimately translate in a better customer experience.

And we all know what better customer service means…

Yet this fact literally means the difference between a great brand and a dud.

We can spend millions of dollars on a great ad campaign and still end up short of establishing a great brand if we have lost sight of this critical success factor.

Amidst schedule adherence goals, handling time goals or sales per hour goals we can easily forget about the fact that our customers’ first contact with us (after the initial purchase) is with a human voice (after your IVR of course).

Our customers’ experience with our call center is wonderfully centered on the voice of our agents whether we know it or not.

Our employees’ voices become our “voice” which is part of our image which builds our brand.

How does your voice score with your customers?

What would Simon say?

What quality of voice should you focus on?

That depends on your market, your customers.

Whatever the type of voice you need, your recruiting process should reflect it.

Each of our call centers may be unique in terms of the market we serve but we do share a great number of voice quality requirements.

Voice qualities that exude empathy, appreciation for our clients business, voices that evoke a smile, voice that wrap the client with a warm caring sentiment.

Our voices should also know how to express understanding and should also have maturity and confidence not to take anything personally.

Our voices should be supported by a great customer service policy that allows the voices to do whatever it takes to fix our customers’ problems.

So much is at stake in your voice.

Let’s consider our current recruiting procedures and redesign them to recruit people based on the qualities you are looking for.

Perhaps you should even consider conducting your first interview entirely over the phone; why not?

After all, we should experience the candidate’s voice as the first element to be evaluated.

If a candidate does not win you over on the phone with their voice qualities when an opportunity for a job is at stake, how are they ever going to win over one of your clients?

Make that first phone interview your secret weapon in building your voice, in building your brand.

Some of us have put great effort in looking for an IVR voice or a voice for a radio commercial yet we fail to do put the same effort in recruiting the voice that our customers will hear day after day.

The true voice is the one within your call center – are you hearing it for the first time?

Or ever wonder about why people do not visit your website?

Ever wonder why your employees don’t seem motivated about your rewards program?

The answer to these and so many other questions can help you improve your business.

The answer to these questions may mean the difference between success and failure.

So many managers and executives spend hours and hours in meetings after meetings discussing what they think the answers are.

Sometimes even committees are formed, reports are compiled and studies are performed.

All of which often come very close to getting the right answers, yet the results do not change.

Some companies create these wonderful incentive programs with exciting gifts yet they fail to gain any momentum on the sales results.

“We offer front row tickets to an NBA game!” why aren’t they trying harder to win these?

“We offer front row tickets to a popular play!”, why are the employees not clamoring over them?

Design your incentives, your rewards in terms of your employees’ interest not your own.

You cannot count on your employees to desire the same rewards/gifts as you.

Further still, do not assume they want monetary rewards, or gifts.

They may prefer intangibles like receiving formal recognition – in front of their peers.

Don’t discard the fact that they may even prefer the recognition to be done in private instead of in front of peers.

Most importantly, ask your employees what they prefer in terms of rewards and recognition.

Listen to what they have to say about it.

You will unavoidably receive many different answers.

Don’t be intimidated by that.

Welcome the information, explore the opportunities.

A few extra minutes of careful analysis and you will be able to design a better incentive program that will be based on what your employees have told you about their likes and preferences.

No more guess work.

No more hit and miss.

Ask and you shall receive.

Whatever you are wondering about today, there are people within your organization holding the true answers.

They are more than happy to tell you if you just simply ask.

When it comes to customers, you can ask them directly, or you can again rely on your front line employees.

Your front line employees meet and greet your customers on a daily basis.

They are the voice of your company, but they are equally important, they are the ears to your company.

Tap into the wealth of information your employees possess.

They have insurmountable data stored in their minds.

Leverage that.

Again, ask your front line employees, and you shall receive.

Sometimes one employee may not necessarily hold the key answer, but the key answer is held by the totality of the data held by several employees.

But the answer is there – explore it.

Tap into your creative side and learn to extract this data, and better yet learn to decipher it and build a stronger business.

Do not be afraid to continually ask your employees.

Think about it.

This is in effect a different way to open the communication between you and your employees.

That in itself is a rewarding experience for the employees.

Who knows what you might learn?

Regardless, imagine the stronger relationship you will form with your employees, and they with your customers.

True.

But that should never stop anyone from trying to achieve it.

What is perfection anyway?

If you treat the concept “perfection” as an objective idea rather than intrinsic or subjective one you might well achieve it.

What I mean is perfection presupposes the question “perfect for what”.

In other words, it depends on what you are trying to accomplish.

Is the screwdriver perfect for the job of tightening or loosening a screw?

Yes it is.

Is a hammer perfect for a nail?

Yes it is.

Yet the screwdriver or the hammer are not perfect for every job.

In your workforce you will find different people with different skills.

Some will be better at certain tasks than others, and others will occasionally be perfect for a given task.

All of these people need to have goals and direction and the proper encouragement.

Defining proper goals and incentives is critical to the success of your company.

So, what kind of goals and incentives do you define?

You send your kid to the store to buy 3 items, say 1 pint of milk, a loaf of bread and a pound of grapes.

If your child comes back with these 3 items, wouldn`t you say he has delivered exactly what you wanted?

Would that not constitute a perfect delivery of your expectations?

Yes it would if that is all you expected.

Say you asked your kid to come straight home after he bought the items, you also asked him to bring back the change, and you asked him to pleasantly accept to do this errand for you.

But he dragged himself home an hour later without any change left, i.e. an imperfect outcome.

Leading people effectively means setting clear goals.

It also requires you to set clear expectations by identifying the quality, the quantity and the spirit in which you want the goals achieved.

It is also very important to reward accordingly to encourage people to continue to do great work i.e. incentives.

Don’t be afraid to ask your employees what they want as rewards – don’t guess.

Giving undesired rewards/gifts can be as bad as not being recognized.

Start the recognition process by asking your employees what they desire as rewards.

If you evaluate your employees on a regular basis and if you employ some kind of grading scale do you ever score someone with the highest grade for a particular goal?

Too many managers are afraid to score a perfect score on a given goal/task.

This only serves to stunt the growth of their workforce.

What is the message it is sending to the people who want to achieve the best possible result?

The message is this: “My boss sets goals that he wants me to achieve but believes impossible to achieve by anyone.”

Another way of putting this: “My boss makes unreasonable demands.”

Soon no one even tries to achieve that lofty goal and they settle for the average or the “meet expectations”.

So next time you are setting goals and incentives, set them high, make your goals “stretch” your people, but make them attainable: make them aim high and please don`t be afraid to appraise someone with the perfect score.