Video: Call Centre Hints and Tips

We asked a number of award finalists for their call centre hints and tips.

The tips focus on a number of key parts of life in a contact centre:

• Listening to your agents
• Reviewing your processes
• Your agents can come up with some of the best ideas
• The importance of planning

Participants

• Catherine Miles, Project Manager, The Contact Company
• Juliette Brown, Operations Manager, Ai Claims, Blackpool
• Julie Smith, Contact Centre Manager, HMRC, Cumbria

The videos were all filmed at the North West Contact Centre Awards in Manchester.

Video Transcript

Jonty:

Hi I’m Jonty Pearce and welcome to the Call Centre Helper three-minute videocast.

We went up to the Northwest Contact Centre Awards, and we asked a range of contact centre managers for their hints and tips.

The First Tip is About Listening to Your Agents

Catherine Miles, Project Manager, The Contact Company:

Listen to your agents, make sure they really understand what their responsibilities are. Involve them in your business as much as you can.

You know get their opinions on things, a great example is we’ve bought this new building and we’ve got them to trial a lot of different chairs for us, and ultimately they will select the one that is that they feel is the most comfortable for them.

So you know and people say oh you can’t do that in huge, you can, you really can it’s just you have to make that effort, and you have to always be focused on the fact that they are our products, they are the people who make us successful, and you know the focus has to be on them.

So never forget that, never get too high up, never get too distracted by little things. Always remember that they’re the guys who are going to make your business a success.

Jonty:

The Next Tip is About Reviewing Your Processes.

Juliette Brown, Operations Manager, Ai Claims, Blackpool:

Constantly review your processes and procedures, and look at whether they align with where your company is actually going to.

Business, particularly in contact centres, changes rapidly. It’s a fast changing market and if you don’t do constant reviews then basically you sit on your laurels and you get left behind.

I like to constantly review the processing procedures within the contact centre on a monthly basis, and encourage the agents to do that as well.

Jonty:

The Next Tip is That Your Agents Can Come Up With Some of The Best Ideas

Juliette:

Never lose sight that the agents are your first point of contact with your customer. You know they are your eyes and your ears, and not only do they represent the company, but they often come up with your best ideas as well.

So don’t leave it all to management level when it comes to making decisions and looking for how to improve things. Get right down amongst your staff to see what they have to deal with, and what fantastic ideas they can come up with as well.

Jonty:

The Next Tip is About the Importance of Planning in the Contact Centre

Julie Smith, Contact Centre Manager, HM Revenue & Customs:

Remembering that planning is obviously vital in a contact centre business. In a real-time environment that can be very fast-moving.

Make sure your service levels are kept up to date, and reacting to the business and the customer demand, the customer experience. But as I’ve already said remembering your staff are your greatest asset is absolutely key.

Jonty:

And that’s it for this issue of the videocast thanks for being with us I’m Jonty Pearce editor of Call Centre Helper.

Author: Jonty Pearce