It takes a lot of patience and being mindful of what goes on daily in a call center operations floor. You have agents answering numerous calls that it becomes monotonous and stressful (especially if calls are queuing). Team leaders can be busy with their paper work. Managers can be in meetings all day. There is an opportunity for complacency and if this happens, it only spells trouble.
I’d like to highlight a recent news story, to make one realize how any call that comes into the center is equally important than the next. It may be just an ordinary day for you, but remember every customer that calls into your center has a need that you have to fulfill.
Here’s an excerpt of the story...
Ten dispatchers were available when Brenda Orr's call came in at 10:31 a.m., but the phone rang six times before an 11th dispatcher, who was already on an ambulance call, picked it up out of frustration and put it on hold. ''911, can you hold one second, please?'' Orr replied, ''I can't! It's an emergency, nine, one, one emergency, three, four, zero Doyle. Bed on fire!'
“Orr, 53, died from smoke and soot inhalation in the blaze..." Complete Story
I've just read this post, and the mcall.com report, and while I can see that there were failures at all levels, I can't help but think that it's the agents who were left to carry the can.
The company concerned has since reviewed its policies to ensure that two supervisors are on duty at all times. Sure, that's better than having one supervisor, but if that one supervisor on duty knew that his/her colleagues were in a meeting, the last thing they should have been doing was paperwork.
In my last call centre job, there was one dedicated duty manager who was responsible for monitoring all inbound/outbound traffic, and reporting back to the client's HQ (I worked for an outsourcing company). On the days that that manager was off work, usually at weekends), a team manager took on the responsibility and all normal team duties came second to running the place. On very quiet days the responsibility would be delegated to an experienced agent.
The mcall.com report says,
"Cawley and Wiggins said a new 911 center, scheduled to be completed in summer, will have technology that might have prevented Orr's call from going unanswered at first, such as a system that automatically routes calls to unoccupied dispatchers."
The technology they refer to is one that has been in place in all but one call centre that I've worked in. It's called ACD, and it's not rocket science. In a centre which handles emergency calls this should not be an option!
It is unclear whether the other 10 agents were either ready to take calls, or simply just sitting twiddling their thumbs, but alarm bells should have been ringing from the console of the one supervisor who was in place. While it would be easy to blame this whole situation on that one person, I appreciate that TMs/supervisors also have targets to fulfill and perhaps they were under pressure to do this within a certain timescale.
This is a senior management failure, and while agents and supervisors perhaps need some retraining to increase their awareness, it's very unfair to discipline them for mistakes that occur much higher up the chain.
Posted by: AJ | February 23, 2008 3:18 PM | Permalink to Comment