25 Things Successful Contact Centres Do

We take a look at some of the little things that make contact centres successful.

Quality Scoring

1. Have a group of agents listen to a live call and offer collective feedback

We have communal QA sessions where all of the agents listen to the same call and give live feedback to the agent whose call it was.

The agents seem to take constructive criticism better from their peers than a member of the management team.

With thanks to Zoe

2. Link bonus payments to quality

We have seen a lot of success with linking bonus payments to quality.

With thanks to Kelly

3. Remind your QA team to point out successes

We find it helps to regularly remind our QA team that they need to praise agents’ successes – and not just highlight mistakes.

With thanks to Bronwen

4. Allow your agents to listen to each other’s calls

Our agents can opt to listen to each other’s calls.

We find that this allows agents to see techniques in action that they may be struggling to adapt into their own calls, as well as to share best practice across the company.

Some contact centres extend this further by granting access to recorded calls to everyone in the contact centre, believing that there is no benefit to be gained by keeping it a secret.

[Editor’s note: You need to be careful with sensitive personal information.]

With thanks to Nicol and Danny

5. Get your agents to listen to and evaluate their own calls

We’ve seen great success in our contact centre with getting agents to listen to evaluate their own calls.

Our agents love it and see it as a way to continually improve themselves.

With thanks to Kelly

6. Get your new agents to evaluate calls

During the induction process, we get our new agents to evaluate a pre-recorded call alongside a member of our QA team.

With thanks to Christina

7. Send agents direct feedback about their calls

We evaluate all of our agents’ calls and send them the feedback directly.

This way they are regularly praised on their development and made aware of areas that need focus.

With thanks to Justin

Teamwork

8. Get your best performers to help coach those who are struggling

Get your best-performing team leaders to help coach the team leaders who are struggling to engage with their agents.

This is a great way to boost in-house collaboration.

With thanks to Nikki

9. Teams design their own team mission statement

To help the teams understand and buy into our organisation’s vision, we get them to create their own team mission statement.

This includes how they are going to work towards the organisation’s vision, as well as the development of their own quarterly goals to work against to achieve their team’s mission.

We find that they engage with the process as they have decided upon their measurements and own the results, which empower thems within the business.

With thanks to Nicol

10. Get your staff to prepare and lead team huddles

Get your staff to prepare and lead team huddles in both the morning and afternoon.

This can help to improve employee engagement.

With thanks to Dirk

Agent Involvement

11. Nominate a staff representative to give your agents a voice

Having a staff rep always goes down well.

It’s quite old school. But it still works well as it gives your agents a safe way to put forward their ideas, as well as raise any concerns.

With thanks to Kelly

12. Let your agents help implement their new ideas

We let our agents help out when the contact centre implements their own great ideas.

This helps to increase buy-in and ownership of the new scheme.

With thanks to Danny

13. Discuss staff suggestions on a monthly basis

We have a virtual suggestion box that we discuss in a monthly management meeting.

We let everyone know what the suggestions are, and keep everyone updated on progress if a suggestion is being implemented.

With thanks to Zoe

14. Enable agents to design and simplify a broken workflow

Enabling agents to design and simplify a broken workflow can work far better than having your senior management team guessing their way through something which they don’t use every day.

With thanks to Nick

15. Hold regular meetings for agents to openly discuss their ideas

We hold regular meetings with all of our agents where they can freely talk about any issue they have, or what they think would help the business.

With thanks to Bronwen

Business Improvement

16. Monitor social media sites to gain insight into a customer’s true feelings

We find that monitoring social media sites offers us greater insight into how our customers are really feeling.

This is especially enlightening when a customer tweets about a phone or email experience with one of our agents.

With thanks to Charlene

17. Recruit your Quality Assurance staff internally

When recruiting your Quality Assurance staff, consider recruiting internally.

Agents prefer working with Quality Assurance staff who’ve been there and done it themselves.

This approach can also help remove the tendency for the QA team to only pick up on the negative.

With thanks to Nikki

18. Listen to your customers and practise empathy

Make sure you listen to your customers.

A lot of people go straight to the problem and forget that 80% of the problem is actually the lack of empathy.

With thanks to Justin

19. Make simple structural changes to your IVR

The IVR experience is often your customer’s first impression of your business.

By making a few simple structural changes to the IVR, especially in regard to wording and tone, we’ve seen a large positive impact on our customer base.

With thanks to Katie

20. Hold regular ‘Continuous Improvement’ meetings to boost engagement

We find that regular ‘Continuous Improvement’ meetings really help the engagement process.

However, we do also have to ensure the successes are championed throughout the company to make this truly effective.

With thanks to Danny

21. Run 1:1 coaching sessions to improve performance

Evaluate agent calls regularly and run 1:1 coaching sessions to improve performance and therefore results.

With thanks to Nick

22. Build the business case for retention

Extracting the analytics from any technology can be the easiest way to build a compelling business case.

For example, focusing on possible savings in areas such as complaints and retention can have huge financial benefits.

With thanks to Mike

Rewards

23. Run an Excellence award scheme

We run an Excellence award scheme where we present £5 vouchers to our top performing agents.

With thanks to Julieanne

24. Issue rewards that are nominated by your agents’ peers

We have monthly rewards issued to employees. Agents are nominated for these by their peers.

The winners are broadcast on our ‘Recognition Board’ and are awarded time off.

With thanks to Christina

25. Run an ‘Agent of the Year’ programme to help boost morale

We run an Agent of the Quarter and an Agent of the Year programme. The agents are nominated by their peers for observed excellence or a good idea.

The nominations are then posted up in the office, which creates a boost in morale. There is also a monetary reward for the overall winner.

With thanks to Mike

What have you done to make your contact centre a success?

Author: Megan Jones