Jonty's Tips

Allow staff non-telephone treats (i.e. time off the phones).  Put staff on the phone for 70% of time, but leave the other 30% for other tasks such as emails, new projects, or improving processes.

Want to improve customer service and customer retention?  Why not make an MOT call to anyone who has not been in touch with you over the past 12 months?  It can be done in quiet periods and is best done before  renewal is due.
(It is called an MOT call after the Ministry of Transport MOT [...]

One of the things we quite often do in outbound contact centres is to use some words like “before we start, I need to ask you some security questions”.

Using CTI technology it is possible to route the call to the last agent that a customer spoke to.  This is great for consistency with the customer, but may cause problems with spreading call volume equally around the call centre.

Challenge the Data Protection Act guidelines in your company.  These can frequently present a barrier between you and the customer and can be very inappropriate – particularly when dealing with someone who is ill, or has recently died.
They are often used as a smokescreen for bad practice.  Challenge the guidelines and streamline them where possible.

Get the team away from their desks and hold a storming session.  It is difficult to do this when you are in the trenches, but you could get another team to cover you.
To solve the problem of brainstorming (people shutting down ideas) get everyone to spend a couple of minutes putting their ideas down on [...]

You could look up the caller’s phone number in your database and play different music on hold to the caller (e.g. pop music for the under 25s and classical to the people living in a posh postcode).

Rather than using external companies to do mystery shopping you could get some of your customers  to do it for you.  They know more about your products and could probably do a better job.

It’s possible to route calls to a person who is more connected with a particular region.  For example, you could route calls from the 091 STD code to an agent who is a Geordie (even if they are now working in Cardiff).

A simple technique to ensure lunchtime cover in a contact centre is to set up a lunch buddy system.  This is where two people team up and decide how to cover the lunch period.  Only one of them can be away from the phones at a time.
This is self-managing and can make sure that you [...]