Hello

What open source software solutions do you wish existed?

Please indicate why you would like it to be open source. Is it in the hope it would bring the cost of running the software within your budget? Would like to have access to source code to customise it for your own needs?

Hi Chantelle

With household budgets being hit at the moment, paying out for business suits could be prohibitive

Its important for people to feel comfortable in their work , that reflects the overall performance

Without being too rigid you could go for a compromise option of smart casual and maybe buy some nice branded shirts with your logo for them to wear ??

Regards

John

Hi Emma, if I understand you correctly, your ATLs and TLs are not engaged because they are normally committed to sales tasks and so this is a change from their routine. (And this task does not offer immediate tangible rewards.) My first instinct would be to coach the team on the value of gaining accurate insight in order to improve service excellence and sales efficiency. Time and budget permitting you could also take them to meet some of these customers face to face in order for them to appreciate the importance of making a connection and building rapport. As a last resort, you probably might need HR assistance in getting training and performance management system for this particular campaign. Hope this helps and all the very best!

Hi all, I am looking for ideas to capture voice of the customer and engage my team in collation of this.

I have been tasked with a work stream which is particularly specific in that it's not about capturing the customers voice through complaints handling ie the customer bringing it to us, but from the perspective of contacting customers for their feedback. 

Currently we have an external company who collates feedback. An additional requirement for us is to task our Team and Assistant team leaders with calling out to our customers and capturing feedback. A process has been provided which is scripted questions, it is non sales based and a database designed to record feedback... Probably wondering why I'm asking for ideas... The TL and ATL group are not engaged, it is time consumely, frustrating when cannot make contact and are finding that other sites are being praised for number generation when I feel actual feedback and what we can do with that is far  more important to make our service better...

Yours thoughts, ideas and suggestions are welcomed on how I can best drive capturing voice of the customer to increase my TL and ATL engagement in its task and outputs
In hope...
Emma

Belinda

There are so many measurements that people can use. The best ones are the ones that look at outcomes.

I have a friend who worked for Shelter a while ago. She said that tend to keep a log of all the people that they helped and what the outcome is.

If you are looking for more information on contact centre measures these links may be useful.

http://www.callcentrehelper.com/the-best-kpis-to-use-in-your-call-centre-10598.htm
http://www.callcentrehelper.com/have-service-level-stats-outlived-their-sell-by-date-8506.htm

We covered an article on this a while ago that may help

http://www.callcentrehelper.com/call-centre-dress-codes-13859.htm

How do you keep your frontline staff stress free?

On Call Centre Helper we are putting together a panel piece about stress and were wondering if anyone had any tips - Please note that we are not looking for a technology angle for this article.

We introduced a business dress code a couple of years back. Prior to this the only rule was no football shirts. At first there was a lot of negativity, including some people who quite rightly said they had to go out and buy business wear. We only gave a months notice of the change, and some people said they wouldn't have enough money to meet to buy correct clothing within that time.

So give good notice.

Once people got used to it things settled down. The only friction which occasionally still occurs is the rest of the business don't have a business dress code, so when other departments (who are typically seen as more senior) don't have the same rules, this tends to frustrate the agents.

Also it sometimes causes a bit of a male/female split. For men, the only options are basically, a shirt & trousers. As women s wear has much more variety you may find either standards slipping back into casual, or the need for a very comprehensive list of do's and don'ts. This is worst in the summer, when women's wear is at its most casual.

In that case you could try is (depending on team size) have a member of the QA team be the training support for the new hires, that way they can see what the agents are doing and how they get there and can provide short cuts or show them the "right" way of doing things as well as being there to answer any questions they have.

We are currently trailing this now with our new hires, they spend 3 weeks with training and end of week 1 we have one of the team begin evaluating their calls and putting together feedback for the agents. Then during the 2 weeks before they join the team we assess them as if they were on the team to show them how they are performing without the scores going towards promotion or team performance.

Its early days but again we are startign to see the new hires coming out of training more prepared and "ready" to take on the role.

Hey Chantelle

In terms of the dress code peice, part of my companies biggest peices is reflecting a professional demenour by conduct and appearance so I would say that aiming for a more business like dress code could certainly help with getting your agents in the right mindset.

That said it may have a negative effect on morale so if you allow either every friday or the last friday of the month as "Dress Down" then it will feel like a real benefit when they can dress down.

Hope that helps.

Joe

[Post removed. You are not allowed to advertise the company that you work for on this forum.]

Thanks for the idea their. We currently run a short 30 - 40 min presentation surrounding QA which sets out our expectations and we have training sign off documents as well but even still with that i dont think that it's sticking.

I am new to the forum but hoping somebody can shed some light on suitable solutions to our current challenge.

We want to consider using an outsourced solution to help manage inbound calls in various European languages including German, Spanish and Portuguese.

Does any body have any recommendations? We have no idea of potential volume and need a scalable option. We have some in-house language resource but not enough to cope. My concern is finding the right people locally with language skills may prove too much of a challenge.

Any advice would be welcomed.

Hi All,
I have recently taken over the position of supervisor for a small call centre (10 agents)and it is now my job to boost productivity in the call centre. At the moment there is no dress code in here but I am considering bringing in a business dress code. Does anyone have any experience with this or have any tips and hints for me?
Thanks, Chantelle

Hey QALoz

One of the peices my team has done is to give a presentation to the new hires right before they go on the phones on our expectation on call handling/etiqutte as well as some of the forms of monitoring we do (call evaluations, mystery shopping etc) so that right from the start they know what we are asking of them.

The presentation lasts about an hour with all the questions and tips etc. Seems to be working we have done this since June of last year and our scores are improving and we are keeping more staff.

Hope that helps

I am looking at introducting our Quality Assurance Department into induction training a little bit more, to give it a stronger presence on the sales floor. We have a short training window (5 days), so i need some ideas of effective/time friendly ways to do this. Many Thanks

Hi Top Boy,

I was just wondering - is tone of voice a key component in your call quality monitoring form? I ask because I sometimes experience this same issue within my role, and tone/professional speaking voice is a very important part of our model.

If it is included in your call model, how is it outlined? Do you have any specific guidelines as to what is required, that is specifically communicated to your agents?

I do agree with rboynton that this could be a motivation/boredom issue. Though two items we have added to our quality program are Stellar Service incentives (gift cards and recognition), and group calibration sessions. In these sessions, myself and a group of agents listen to a few calls and score them together...with emphasis on tone and professionalism. Not sure if that would work for your group, but it certainly does open their eyes and engages them in conversation about how tone impacts the calls overall.

The calibration sessions would be my first suggestion, but good luck, I hope you end up seeing the results you are looking for.

Hey Team

A quick question on a subject I am not familiar with at all so bear with me.

Is there any regulation for using an outbound dialler to call other businesses we call on a regular basis but spend a lot of time on hold with? Does an outbound dialler even have that functionality?

Sorry if I am being a bit vague but any help would really be appreciated.

Thank You

Joe

Hi Top Boy,
I would suggest reading a few of our articles on the importance of tone and body language while on the phone;

http://www.callcentrehelper.com/does-body-language-really-matter-when-talking-on-the-telephone-1711.htm
http://www.callcentrehelper.com/how-to-use-vocal-pitch-and-pace-on-the-phone-2644.htm

although I would say it sounds like a lack of motivation so maybe try our tips;

http://www.callcentrehelper.com/25-tips-for-motivating-staff-10974.htm

some great suggestions and games included to create incentive schemes and reward a positive workforce

Hi S Penny,
A few old articles but they might point you in the right direction;
http://www.callcentrehelper.com/how-to-introduce-professional-qualifications-in-to-your-contact-centre-182.htm
http://www.callcentrehelper.com/staff-qualifications-knowing-your-nvqs-from-your-mbas-170.htm
http://www.callcentrehelper.com/new-university-degree-in-contact-centre-management-773.htm

Rachael

Does anyone know what standards or kpis helpline uses to monitor and measure performance?

Hey Clair

Welcome to the forums first thing I would recommend is a two pronged attack.

Ask your staff what drives them, what kind of incentive do they want, then using that information provide incentives tailored to their needs.

This is really effective especially if you have a diverse team (ages, gender, race) the incentive will be different for each of them. Some its monetary gain, others its time off, others it could be as simple as some form of recognition (certificate, thank you email with upper management included),

Hope that helps

Joe

Hi Clair,

We run an incentive scheme in each department. For example on friday in the sales team whoever qualifies the most leads wins a bottle of champagne or some other prize. We also have team targets, for example, then need to create a certain number of opportunities a month. If the team reach the target the company pay for a night out.

For the in-bound team we have incentives for how many calls they are taking and call duration.

Sometimes we do longer term incentives such as performance over 6 months. The highest performer will get an extra day's leave or something like that.

What do you currently have in place?

Hope this helps,

Martin

Hi there,

I have just become a member of this forum and was looking for some help.

What do you think is the best incentive for staff?
Do you currently run incentive schemes? If so, how many staff do you have, what gifts do you use etc.

Thanks in advance for all your helpful ideas!

Clair

Good day!Just wanna say thank you so much for the tips. It will serves as an additional information and knowledge for the posted messages about the topics and articles.

Best regards,

Hi all

About 3 weeks ago i started as a new call centre manager with several team managers as direct reports my initial first impressions on a couple haven't been great, in fact one of them came across as slightly rude and not interested in either me or what I had to say and these were only the introductions !! They did not go for this role and therefore I don't believe it was because they were unsuccessful in promotion but I'm wondering how to tackle this going forward ?

I currently have a number of agents the continually answer and speak during a call with a DULL and BORED tone of voice, also they don't seem to engage or show empathy to the caller.... sounding like a old BBC news reader for example Moira Stuart

I have suggested a number of different ways to answer the call for example a smile on your face, also I explain to the agents talk how you are talking to me (how you speak to a friend or colleague face 2 face) but this fall on deaf ears.

I even sit side by side listening to the calls setting a small objective for the next call as above this falls on deaf ears.

Also I have notice the caller starts of upbeat but mirrors the agent in tone of voice and often becomes negative or frustrated during the call.

Can any help or suggest what to do next?

Hope to hear from you all soon

TOP BOY

Hi

I have been working in call / contact centres for the last 14 years and managing one for the last 4. I would really like to have a qualification to recognise the skills and knowledge I have, and also to challenge me. Looking online there does not appear to be many in the UK???

The only one I did find (Diploma in Contact Centre Management) has not had all of the course content completed and may not be ready for some time.

As I am full time in work, the course would need to be work based. Does any one know of any courses?

Thanks

Hi James,
We have a great guide section on our website on outbound dialing, thought you might be interested in this;
http://www.callcentrehelper.com/wiki/How_many_calls_should_an_outbound_agent_make

although there are a lot of great tips featured in the outbound dialing section; http://www.callcentrehelper.com/wiki/Outbound_Dialling_Reference_Guide

Hi Northern Lady, we have a few great article on tips for dealing with customer complaints in call centres

http://www.callcentrehelper.com/ten-tips-for-dealing-with-customer-complaints-15982.htm

http://www.callcentrehelper.com/top-tips-for-dealing-with-customer-complaints-in-call-centres-11826.htm

they both have some good processes to put in place

Hi Rachael,

In my experience of using CRM systems it will definitely improve the customer experience etc. What CRM are you using? There are integrated softwares with many CRMs that can improve some of the above things you mentioned.

In terms of improving customer experience for us, getting callers through to the right person first time and reducing queue lengths are important.

These integrated applications have clever systems such as dynamic routing and stats recording.

The dynamic routing means that the caller is immediately directed to the agents assigned to a particular skill group. This decreases the bounce around time for the customer and gets the call through to the agents you want.

On the stats recording side, you can see how many calls an agent is taking, the length of time on the call and even a first resolution percentage chart. This is what we look in our agents on but you can personalise the stats you want to see.

Be more than happy to answer any more questions

Best Wishes,

Martin

The link seems to be working fine
http://www.callcentrehelper.com/uk-contact-centre-industry-1-million-people-14548.htm

Figures exclusively revealed to Call Centre Helper by ContactBabel show that the UK contact centre industry now employs a total of 1,041,500 jobs in 631.250 seats in 5,630 contact centres.*

After a loss of more than 35,000 jobs in 2009, the industry returned to positive growth in 2010, and is forecast to add over 100,000 jobs by the end of 2014.

Hi Lclarke,

Thanks alot for replying and really it helps me a lot .I will be happy if you send to me your blank template.

Best Regards.

Ps: My e-mail a.maghrby@yahoo.com

Hi,

Tried to find the discussion for this topic but was unable to. Did you say a few months ago?

If you could send a link that would be useful.

Thanks,

Martin

Hi,

Just trying to find out the best practice for creating menu tones in our business.

I understand the IVR (in voice routing) but is it best to have less options or to have complex menus.

Any advice on this would be helpful.

Thanks,

Martin

I haven't used it for about 3 years, but it was certainly based on erlang back then. I remember the multi skilling attributes required you to identify what % of an agent's time would be spent on each skill, which certainly fits with the erlang requirement rather than full on simulation.

As far as I am aware eWFM is based on the Erlang C Calculations, augmented with some additional modelling/simulation.

The latest ContactBabel research showed 5,630 contact centres in the UK. The bulk of these woul be in house. More details in this link.

http://www.callcentrehelper.com/uk-contact-centre-industry-1-million-people-14548.htm

Hi Luke

Thank you for your reply. Our AHT hasn't increased but there has been a shift to more talk time, which is what we were hoping for. Do your team receive performance figures at all? We would like to shift to agents using their skills to judege the level of service a customer needs. Our aim to is become more of an advocate for those customers that need us and to direct other customers to self serve where possible. We do measure 1st time resolution through our CRM. How do you report on it and to what level of detail?

Hi Joe,

Having worked in a call centre environment myself as a agent and now worked from the other side by providing the software I should be of some assistance!

Many companies are now moving to 'Cloud' based call and contact centres. This basically outsources the set-up and maintenance costs of the software. These companies deal with all the software remotely and you as the customer just pay a monthly subscription for each agent.

In terms of improving customer experience, getting callers through to the right person first time and reducing queue lengths are important.

These products can help with database routing, skills based routing and overflow groups.

Many telephony companies now offer SLA's (service level agreements). A key factor to improve customer experience is to have a working platform with high availability.

If you have any more questions, I am more than happy to answer them.

Martin

[Part Post removed. You are not allowed to advertise the company that you work for on this forum.]

Hi

There are plenty of templates available on google to use as a guide but for a process firslty i assume they have objectives set from the last appraisal and acountabilities on their job descriptions, this is the first place i would start in terms of evaluation.

I would split into a couple of sections, firstly looking at performance on the job, have they met minimum requirements, or exceeded or not met etc.. How have they done this? Is there evidence?

Secondly I would be evaluating behaviours in a similar way to performance. What behaviours have they demonstrated, have they lead by example etc..

I would also expect my team leaders to come fully prepared, they should have evaluated themselves, they should be prepared to tell you where they think they are and evidence to you why. For example "I feel i have exceeded this year as i have hit all of my targets" to me is not good enough, I want to know how they have exceeded? How they have ensured consistency? What changes they have implemented? etc...

Achievments, Challenges, Failures, Evaluation, Feedback, Next steps/goals.

I would also have them set one or two objectives for themselves for this coming year empowering them to improved and push the boundaries.

Sorry to go on but finally i would then bench mark my appraisals with other managers in the company (if posible) who also manage TL's ensuring we all agree on the same approach helping consistency over the company.

Hope this helps in some way. Happy to email you a blank template i work from if this helps.

Luke

Hi RachelIN

In my experience if you are focusing on educating your customers you can expect your AHT to increase slightly during this period. Have you thought about measuring 1st touch resolution and using a quality framework to help measure customer satisfaction?

Where I work we still measure stats such as abandoned rate and grade of service but I am more focused on the quality of my agents calls, making sure we are focused on 1st touch resolution and delivering quality customer service even if this means longer AHT.

Thanks

Luke

Just a quick question to find out the number of call centres in the UK, and how many of these contact centres are in-house or outsourced.

Any feedback would be benifical on this.

Hi Monica2805,

How many telephone interviews are you going to have?

Recruitment best practice is to have two. The first will be almost solely focused on testing the candidates’ communication skills, and those that are successful here will pass through to a second stage which focuses on more job-specific requirements (e.g. sales or customer service skills/experience, qualifications, career ambitions, understanding of the role, etc.). The second telephone interview has a huge impact on the future loyalty of recruits. You may well lose some good candidates here, but don’t worry, they are probably the ones who would have left fairly soon after starting in any case.

We have a the following for good telephone interview questions;

http://www.callcentrehelper.com/can-anyone-suggest-some-useful-telephone-interview-screening-questions-2315.htm

Hello,

We are looking to introduce a new performance framework in our contact centre (Local Authority) We have set up a task and finish group to work on this. We have recently gone through a huge transformation in the way our operatives work, partly due to the roll out of a new CRM system. The focus is very much about adding value and our customer strategy is focused around helping customers to help themselves. We have previously used AHT for individual services and more recently calls per hour. Does anybody have experience of removing numeric figures and/or a framework in place that is centered around the customer experience? It would be useful to know how staff are measured.

Hi, does anybody know the calcuation eWFM uses to determine staff requirement?

Many Thanks

Good Morning All

I have created a project for myself to come up with an alternative customer experiance within my existing company.

There are many ways to begin the process and I have started an initial review of current proces to see what is essential and what can be stripped out.

This is however my first attempt at anything like this and just wanted to know if anyone had implemented something similar and could pass on any words of wisdom,

Thank you in advance

Joe

Good day,

I am looking to create a new complaints process and implement this into my office. Could I kindly ask if anyone has a robust process in place that they dont mind sharing or any tips/links you could share.

We are currently working from a spreadsheet were we log complaints and update with resolutions however this is not measurable and I am looking for something in which we can measure and manage performance, introduce stratagies for improvement etc.

Here's hoping you can help.

Hi Guys,

I'm just looking for a team leader job performance appraisal can you help me please to find a good form and guidelines for how to evaluate them.

Best Regards
Maghraby

Thank ChambersL for your response. It makes perfect sense.