We’ve made previous arguments that discuss the need for call centers to fundamentally change the way they view performance management.
Some call centers are too focused on traditional productivity metrics that they ignore actual phone performance.
Successful call center performance management should include, establishing a culture of excellence, creating policies that engender on-the-phone performance and employee success, developing the ability to perform at a high level, monitoring performance in a measurable way and rewarding good performance.
These elements of call center performance management are fairly straight forward. They are quite basic and common sense. And yet, many call centers are blatantly overlooking qualitative elements vital to their success.
The modern call center employee talks to 2500 people on the phone every month. The vast majority of these calls, 78%, are inbound calls. Because of the sheer volume of these customer interactions, each call center employee has the potential to do enormous harm or enormous good to your company’s reputation, revenue, and customer retention.
Call center employees have tremendous power.
Just one call center employee who handles a call poorly can damage a company’s image. And with the reach of social media, one negative customer experience with a call center employee can mitigate thousands of dollars in advertising, PR and branding as well as cancel any positive interactions other employees have had with that customer in the past.
A recent study found that one upset customer will tell 15 people about their negative experience. Dissatisfaction spreads like wildfire. One call center employee can make or break customer loyalty.
And remember this:
An unhappy customer, 91% of the time, will never do business with your company again. One misstep by a call center employee and that customer is likely gone for good.
Hopefully you know that qualitative performance indicators are critical for any call center. (If you didn’t, you wouldn’t still be reading this). But here’s the question: how do you effectively manage on-the-phone performance quality? What tools do you need?
Your call center agents are making and taking a lot of calls, but how ‘good’ are those calls? How skilled are they on the phone? These are important questions. But before we answer those questions, let’s discuss some of the problems facing the modern call center.
