During interviews for other positions in the center, most agents will be honest enough to say that they’d like to move on in their careers because they are tired of being on the phones. You can’t blame them, phone work is hard, but it’s sad to see that support groups and even supervisors rarely take phone calls.
What I’ve managed to implement is to have these groups take in phone calls on a regular basis. At least 4-8 hours per month is a good start. A lot of factors come in as well and the most popular would be helping the queue when it’s busy. This helps but in case you don’t have this opportunity in your center, then do it when there are important updates being rolled out. Here are several instances:
- New System
- Updated Process
- New Product or Service Release
- Coaching Opportunities
- Tackling Productivity / AHT (Average Handling Time)
- Development of Skills
- CSAT survey results (bad or good)
Factor these into the productivity sheets, because it is useful data. You can get anecdotal feedback from them to validate what the customers are saying (if you have a CSAT survey in place) or can be used for coaching purposes. Agents will trust and respect these leaders even more, getting sure buy-in when an initiative is implemented.
Do you ask them to do phone time? If not, then start now. The benefits are endless.
This is a tough one. It may be politically correct to suggest that they supervisors take calls, but it is not likely to happen in most call centers.
They became supervisors to escape the calls and aren't likely to implement a program which puts them back on the phones. Also, it would be interesting to hear from supervisors who will probably say they could not fit calls into their schedules.
Posted by: Call Center Information Site | September 22, 2006 9:44 PM | Permalink to Comment