Attrition is often seen as a health check for any business. If a high number of people are leaving then something is wrong. The question is what, and what can be done to improve it. Here Steve Woosey of the Professional Planning Forum shares his thoughts with us. (Read more…)

Customer loyalty is the make-or-break for most businesses. If customers do not keep coming back to you, and are not advocates of your organisation, then churn will become increasingly damaging.

Keith Pearce identifies how a dynamic contact centre can increase customer retention. (Read more…)

With a difficult economic period ahead the Professional Planning Forum looks at how to drive efficiency in your contact centre.

With ideas ranging from removing the need to contact at all to the more traditional multi-skilling approach, we provide some key areas to be looked at when driving efficiency, whilst maintaining or improving the customer experience. (Read more…)

Words have the power to build up or to tear down.

The way managers and team leaders communicate within call centres has massive impact on the people within the business and, by knock-on effect, on the customers with whom they communicate. Here Nick Drake-Knight shares his experiences with us. (Read more…)

Managing change is no mean feat. By nature, human beings do not like change. This is mainly because change can bring ambiguity, need for effort, disruption and confusion.

Businesses which are constantly changing often report ‘Change Fatigue’ in which people become demotivated, tired and negative towards management. Here Gwenllian Williams shares her views with us. (Read more…)

Is it all about the money? - Paul Weald talks us through what he thinks works.

Many years ago a former boss of mine, who was a commercial manager, told me that you condition people by how you pay them. He had a simple philosophy regarding incentives schemes - for him it was “all about the money”.
(Read more…)

In all call centres the cream of the team rises to the top and is made a team leader or even a manager. These people are often selected on their people-skills, their knowledge of the business and their ability to manage customers effectively. However, as Gwenllian Williams explains, the excitement of promotion can easily become the discomfort of having to manage people who, only yesterday, were peers.

(Read more…)

What is a motivated person? How do we recognise them? How do we define motivation? These are questions that my colleagues, our clients and I mull over every day of the week.

(Read more…)

If you want to cut your agent churn rate, you need to think about improving your processes and being a bit more savvy when it comes to technology. Paul Scott reports.
(Read more…)

What can call centre managers do to improve agent empathy skills?

“The capacity to know emotionally what another is experiencing from within the frame of reference of that other person, the capacity to sample the feelings of another or to put oneself in another’s shoes.”(1)

(Read more…)