Our panel of experts share the types of broken processes that they believe are common throughout the contact centre industry. Also have a read of this article introducing call centre processes. 1. Holiday Approval In many contact centres, holiday approval is a hassle for everyone. The “Holiday Administrator” has to cope with an overflowing inbox that is stuffed with requests, cancellations and amendments. The advisor has to wait forever to hear the result of their request. The Operational Manager becomes concerned when all holidays aren’t used up by the end of the year. It can all get a little crazy. The process is often broken because of unnecessary complications or legacy concerns, such as: Do we really need to have the request checked by a team leader? Do we always have to ensure there are 27 advisors covering the evening shift on that skill (even when demand says you need five)? Is it necessary that the request pass through three layers of management or be made more than five weeks before the date requested? [caption id="attachment_130184" align="alignright" width="100"] David Preece[/caption] Some businesses insist theirs is a uniquely complex contact centre or they don’t trust their advisors to do the right thing. As a result, checks are put in place that aren’t necessary, adding to everybody’s workload. A solution could be an automatic holiday approval tool. This can instantly approve or decline holiday and update your schedules automatically. Thanks to David Preece at QStory 2. Congestion on the Voice Channel The voice channel is one of the most popular channels for customer service, which makes long queues and customer complaints more likely. Contact centres can combat this by pinpointing peak call times, analysing repeat contact reasons and improving schedule efficiency. Contact centres can combat this by pinpointing peak call times, analysing repeat contact reasons and improving schedule efficiency. Frédéric Durand Examining the busy periods will help businesses to arrange the appropriate number of advisors from the right departments who can manage the volume. This will help to reduce lengthy wait times and distribute calls effectively, while it is also cost-effective for businesses. The analysis will also support contact centres in designing a user-friendly Interactive Voice Response (IVR) solution which will be able to address basic customer needs without requiring an advisor intervention, leveraging technologies like text-to-speech, web services, etc. Take a read of this article for Best Practices on Introducing New Contact Centre Processes
15 Common Broken Processes in Contact Centres

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Filed under - Technology, 8x8, Annette Miesbach, Business Systems, CallMiner, David Preece, Diabolocom, Enghouse Interactive, IFS, Jeremy Payne, Natterbox, NiCE, NiCE CXone, Puzzel, QStory, Susannah Richardson, Team Management
3. Slow Responses to Customer Queries
One of the most common broken processes in contact centres is the delay in responding to customer requests. This isn’t just for phone calls, but responses to emails, social media, letters and so on. Many customers now expect to wait days for an email response or call-back when contacting a customer service team. As a result, those customers are already frustrated and disappointed before they have even been connected to a customer service representative. [caption id="attachment_123171" align="alignright" width="100"]
4. Not Doing Enough Coaching
Many of us avoid getting in touch with companies via the phone because, by reputation, it’s considered a difficult and frustrating process. It’s the advisors at the end of phone who then end up bearing the brunt of this frustration. With the technology we now have to hand, there is little reason for this to still be happening. For example, Artificial Intelligence (AI) integrated into telephony systems can enable contact centres to analyse good calls from bad calls. This information can be used to train staff and better understand what customers respond well or badly to. [caption id="attachment_126555" align="alignright" width="100"]
Read 8 Things to Remember When Changing Contact Centre Business Processes
5. Advisors Sticking to One Channel
Not all channels are created equal. If you enable advisors to respond on more than one channel, they can resolve more interactions on the first attempt. [caption id="attachment_131484" align="alignright" width="100"]
6. Costly Overstaffing
Impressive customer experiences help businesses to gain an edge over their competitors. But in trying to deliver this, too many businesses overcompensate and don’t plan staffing efficiently, incurring unnecessary cost. Contact centres need to ensure that advisors are coached to deliver a quick, helpful and personalised experience, but having too big a team is a waste of resources.One solution is to use call analytics, which can help brands to better track the peaks and troughs of demand and assign staff accordingly. Lisa ClarkOne solution is to use call analytics, which can help brands to better track the peaks and troughs of demand and assign staff accordingly. With reporting and monitoring in place, businesses can be notified if the volume of interactions exceeds a certain amount and therefore pull in the additional resource needed to deal with the demand.
7. Inaccessible Expertise
No matter how well trained contact centre advisors are, there are certain queries that require a high level of expertise. But it is a waste of time and budget to have a highly trained subject-matter expert within a contact centre at all times; their expertise is not usually required or utilised. [caption id="attachment_129334" align="alignright" width="100"]
8. Problems That Become Big Issues
In a lot of contact centres there are five significant broken call centre processes that annoy customers and can turn a problem into a reason for customers to switch loyalties. These are:- Long wait times
- Having to repeat yourself from one contact channel/advisor to the next
- Calls that are cancelled/drop out after holding
- Failure to resolve your issue on the first call
- Long messages before being routed to the right person
Take a read of this article for Top Tips for Broken Processes
9. Ineffective Self-Service Solutions
A survey by CallMiner found that although there is a willingness and preference - in some cases - for a self-service approach, most customers end up using the telephone to resolve their problems. [caption id="attachment_63596" align="alignright" width="100"]
10. Lack of Integration Between Channels
Contact centres have become more complex, handling multiple channels and an increasing number of contact types. Unfortunately, channels are often still handled in isolation from one another and are queued independently from each other.Channels are often still handled in isolation from one another and are queued independently from each other. Susannah RichardsonCustom rules, such as prioritising live chats over emails but not over calls, cannot be applied across multiple channels, often leading to separate teams handling each, which then results in a fragmented customer experience. A solution is to install a universal queue that allows channels to be routed consistently, using criteria such as availability and skill level, maximising advisor resource utilisation. To find out more about this, read Customer service strategies: Look at processes from varied viewpoints.
11. Multiple Different Systems
The common sprawl of systems, processing tools and applications means that advisors’ time is taken up gathering information, rather than resolving issues. Many advisors must use five or more applications to serve each customer, resulting in much of their time being taken up by information gathering. This presents a difficult challenge for contact centres, as the systems used to manage these channels are often disparate and uncoordinated. [caption id="attachment_99805" align="alignright" width="100"]
12. Fire-Fighting Mentality
A problem with many contact centres is that they are set up with a “fire-fighting” mentality, which prevents them from making continuous improvements and identifying waste. Because most managers have been promoted from within the contact centre, new managers just continue to do exactly what their predecessors did before them. Fresh perspectives can then be lost and the contact centre continues to put out the “fires” without thinking ahead. So, new managers from inside the contact centres should think about the following three-step guide to avoiding this “fire-fighting” mentality, which “breaks” the continued development of the contact centre. [caption id="attachment_131843" align="alignright" width="100"]
13. Not Tracking Customer Promises
Customers don’t interact with faceless organisations, they interact with people. Therefore, if a contact centre breaks a promise, perhaps due to a broken process or system, it is taken very personally – it was that nice customer service person that broke the promise. [caption id="attachment_131966" align="alignright" width="100"]
14. Random Call Selection
With hundreds of calls being dealt with every week, addressing key issues by randomly selecting calls is like asking an evaluator to find a needle in a haystack, and is one of the broken processes which many contact centres can fall victim to. While it can be good practice to ask advisors to select contacts themselves for quality monitoring, a speech analytics solution can help you to pinpoint the calls that require attention instead of selecting contacts at random. [caption id="attachment_131845" align="alignright" width="100"]
15. Contact Recording Processes
Contact recording processes are often an area where contact centres fall short, as recordings are often only made of phone calls. [caption id="attachment_71195" align="alignright" width="100"]
Author: Robyn Coppell
Published On: 3rd Sep 2018 - Last modified: 18th Aug 2025
Read more about - Technology, 8x8, Annette Miesbach, Business Systems, CallMiner, David Preece, Diabolocom, Enghouse Interactive, IFS, Jeremy Payne, Natterbox, NiCE, NiCE CXone, Puzzel, QStory, Susannah Richardson, Team Management