The Key to Boosting Call Center Agent Performance
As competition gets more and more fierce, you have to devise new plans and strategies to stick out and increase sales. You might improve your product or service, work more hours, hire more employees, etc.
Another option is boosting your call center agent performance. This is, of course, easier said than done, so how can you achieve this? It all starts with taking care of your employees, and with that in mind, this is what you should know:
Proper tools and incentives
While you can’t hand out bonuses every time an employee does a good job, you can incorporate some kind of incentive. And if nothing else, you can give them positive feedback when they do a good job and constructive feedback when the opposite rings true.
After all, the training process has to live on if you want your employees to continue to grow and improve. You can also create a good work environment in which your employees enjoy coming to work, as that can lead to job fulfillment, higher-quality work, and a direct boost to your sales.
The above tactics are important and should not go unnoticed. However, the key to boosting call center agent performance is incorporating the right technology.
Call center software
Every business has different wants and needs when it comes to call center software, but it is essential to give your agents the proper tools and technologies for success, as it can lead to your agents being more efficient.
As an example, take customer relationship management (CRM). CRM call center software can make your customer service representatives more efficient because it tracks and manages interactions with customers. This means that it stores information so customers don’t have to repeat themselves every time they talk to a new agent.
Automatic call distributors (ACD) can really boost call center agent performance because they have many essential functions. ACDs can route incoming calls (as well as emails and texts) to the most appropriate department for whatever question or concern the customer has.
This saves the customer time because he or she is routed to the person who can best answer his or her question. Beyond this, it saves the agents (and your company) time because multiple agents don’t have to talk to the same customer while routing him or her to the correct department. On top of that, ACDs allow managers to engage in call monitoring, conferencing, and much more.
Call center software can further boost call center agent performance with predictive dialer software. Without this technology, an agent has to look up numbers and then dial them to reach prospective leads and customers. This can become monotonous for the agent and can lead to human error, such as dialing the wrong number on accident.
With a predictive dialer, the calls are made automatically since the software dials numbers and connect answered calls to agents. This software has an algorithm that predicts when an agent is finishing up on a call so he or she can be connected to another live customer. It boosts productivity and performance because the agent is taking more calls with less downtime since the agent is not dialing numbers and waiting to be connected to a live caller.
There are many ways to boost call center agent performance, and while it’s invaluable to create an environment in which your employees can thrive in, tools such as call center software can also go a long way.
