Advantages of using a power dialing system: I

In our previous article, we made you familiar with the concept of power dialing system. Now let’s have a look at the benefits that this highly efficacious technology can provide to the call centers:

1. Enhances the lead generating and nurturing process:

Filtering out the blacklisted numbers is one of the main advantages provided by the power dialing system. When power dialing system is clubbed up with lead management software, it helps in eliminating the wastage of time due to useless calls. Power dialing is quite useful for organizing all the sales information, lead data, and customer history. It also helps in organizing the call-back info with the help of a CRM and can quickly pass it on to the agents, thereby obtaining more successful leads. Thereafter, it efficiently takes care of lead nurturing, such that it intelligently manages the journey of your leads, prospects, and customers across their engagement cycle. This further enables the agents to sort and prioritize the generated leads.

Improved lead management
Improved lead management

2. Improves your right party concerns:

Power dialing system has a provision for retry strategies. Since there is always a possibility that agents cannot get connected to all the numbers in the lead list in the very first try, so, it becomes quite necessary to contact such leads again. Retry strategy is the best solution for such instances. Based upon the last dialer details, you can set different retry strategies for different occasions. As an example, you can try a “No answer” after 3 hours, “Abandoned” call after 72 hours, a ‘Busy” call after 5 minutes etc. This eliminates the chances of missing any important lead and increases the probability lead sale conversion rate. Moreover, it takes into consideration, the compliance norms and improves your right party connects by over 10%. Hence, it helps in boosting your revenue growth.

Retry strategies
Retry strategies

 

 

 

 

 

Your guide to predictive dialing system

Predictive dialing refers to a state-of-the-art pacing mode used to call a large number of customers within a short period of time. Predictive dialing helps optimize agents’ time by reducing the idle times between connected calls and freeing agents from dialing calls. Predictive dialing gathers statistics related to the duration of calls, how long it takes for calls to be answered, and how often calls are answered. The system places several calls when an agent is about to become idle.

The performance of predictive dialing depends upon the accuracy of the contact lists and the policies on nuisance calls. If the contact list is poor, the performance of the predictive dialing campaign may be affected negatively as agents are not connected to live contacts and are not able to do business.

Predictive dialing
Predictive dialing

A predictive dialer is a type of dialer that dials a list of telephone numbers and connects answered dials to people making calls, often referred to as agents. Using statistical algorithms, predictive dialers minimize the time that agents spend waiting between conversations while minimizing the occurrence of someone answering when no agent is available.

There are two possible sources of delay when dialing numbers one at a time:

i) Only some fraction of dials are answered. As an example, if 1 out of 3 dials is answered, a predictive dialer might dial 3 lines every time an agent becomes available.

ii) Dials that are answered take some time before being picked up. If it typically takes 10 seconds for someone to pick up, and conversations typically last 90 seconds, a predictive dialer might start dialing at 80 seconds.

Predictive dialer
Predictive dialer

Predictive dialers may either be standalone hardware devices, or they may be integrated with software with call center or contact center platforms. Dialers integrated with software perform less aggressive dialing modes, such as power, progressive, or preview dialing.

 

All you need to know about power dialer

The term “dialer” refers to an electronic device that is connected to a telephone line to monitor the dialed numbers and alter them to seamlessly provide services that otherwise require lengthy national or international access codes to be dialed. A dialer automatically inserts and modifies the numbers depending on the time of day and country or area code dialed. This allows the user to subscribe to the service providers who offer the best rates.

Dialer
Dialer

A power dialer is defined as an automated telephone dialing system that connects prospects with agents more efficiently. It allows the agents to focus on live connections instead of manual dialing. The power dialing system automatically dials the next contacts, when an agent becomes available. With such a powerful setting, the contact center is given ultimate control over the automatic dialing rates. The power dialer is quite useful when a contact center has a small number of sales executives and a large number of prospects.

As an example, Dolphin dialer is autodialer software that enables telemarketers, sales teams, and call centers to dial a list of phone numbers automatically and completely hands-free. It basically helps them save valuable time and energy that would otherwise be wasted dialing by hand.

Power dialer
Power dialer

An agent is always available to talk to the customer in the case of power dialing. Moreover, it can be utilized for a number of campaigns like customer care follow-up calls, telemarketing etc. In order to automatically place a call to the agent, the automated dialers consider the priority and the skills of the agent.

Telemarketing
Telemarketing

The power dialer, also known as progressive dialer enables you to manually set a calls-to-agent ratio, so you can take advantage of automated dialing benefits while retaining control over dialing rates. Also, contact centers can spend more time talking to live prospects. This avoids wastage of time, leads to more sales and increases revenue growth.

Increased sales
Increased sales

 

 

Agent status and its importance : II

1.Ensures efficient call routing:

Agent statuses are taken into account by the call center software in order to direct calls only to those agents who are available to take calls. As a result, the likelihood of inappropriate routing is eliminated. In other words, it helps avoid such situations where callers are routed to an agent who is not ready for their next interaction. This further ensures that calls are distributed appropriately among agents.

Call routing 2
Call routing 2

2. Provides the required guidelines to new agents:

A thorough analysis of agent status metrics enables the managers to determine the standard cadence of the work of the agents at their call center. It can actually act as a useful onboarding tool because it allows new agents to have a set of guidelines for how they should spend their time. This helps them to have a thorough understanding of the work they are supposed to do. So, they can efficiently handle all the calls, resolve customer queries in real time and provide exceptional customer service

Guidelines
Guidelines

3. Helps in proper billing:

Agent status is very helpful for billing purposes especially if you outsource your call center. Monitoring the agent statuses consistently helps ensure that you’re not being charged for minutes that agents aren’t actually working. Moreover, it ensures that your third party call center is meeting the terms of your SLA.

Billing
Billing

4. Schedule adherence:

Schedule adherence refers to a key metric that helps ensure that your agents are logged into the queue during their scheduled times. Call center agent status enables you to monitor, measure, and optimize this KPI. By viewing historical reports, you can actually see whether an agent is currently active or is on pause. This further helps you make sure that you’re scheduling enough agents at the right times, and that they are actually available during their scheduled shifts.

Schedule adherence
Schedule adherence

 

Agent status and its importance : I

Agent status refers to a feature that allows call center agents to display their present state of work to the rest of the team. The most common method of doing this is to select a status from a pre-created drop-down menu. Generally, there are six agent statuses. All of them have been listed below:

i) Available

ii) On a Call

iii) Busy

iv) Away

v) After Call Work

vi) Offline

Agent status
Agent status

Here we have mentioned the most important reasons for inculcating agent status in call centers:

1.KPI optimization:

With the aid of this feature, it becomes easy to extract agent status reports for the call center as a whole as well, as specific agents. These agent reporting metrics further enable managers to know exactly how agents have spent their time. Moreover, the agent status reports can also be utilized for diagnosing a number of call center issues and inefficiencies. Based on these key performance indicators, managers may determine if additional agents should be hired or that staff need to be let go to properly handle the call volume. Employing the agent status feature actually enables them to notice exceptional agent productivity and detect inefficiencies. Thereafter, strategies can be adopted to exempt the shortcomings of the system.

KPI optimization
KPI optimization

2. Encourages teamworking:

Agents can easily determine who is available to make and receive calls, with the help of this call center software feature. In the case of call transfers, agent status is very useful as it helps ensure that customers who are transferred are connected quickly with available agents. It enables the agents to easily stay updated with the present status of all the others, hence further encouraging teamwork. This efficacious software helps them know exactly when to reach out, when to transfer a call and when they should take a break. Thus, the entire staff can work as a team with the help of this software.

Team work

 

Advantages of having blended agents

In the context of a call center, the term blended agents refers to the agents who manage both incoming and outgoing calls and applications as needed. Need is determined by contact center traffic levels. The blended agents in any call center are trained to handle both incoming and outgoing calls. This training generally involves:

i) Automatic call distribution system identifying a rise in incoming call volume a

ii) Switching outbound agents’ duties to handle the overflow.

As an alternative, inbound agents can be assigned to outbound calls when the incoming volume is low.

Blended agents
Blended agents

In a blended call environment, the managers can decide when more agents are required for as particular role and instruct them to swith. And all this can be done in the absence of an automated system. Having blended call agents at your call center has a number of advantages like:

i) Increased occupancy

ii) Promotion of short-term offerings

iii) Reduced queueing

iv) Greater staff satisfaction

Blended agents have a huge potential of adding value to a variety of contact centres, and are especially useful in centers with few seats. The reason for this is that small centres are vulnerable to low levels of occupancy which further leads to low efficiency, based on peaks and troughs in call volume. In centres where low occupancy is a major issue, adopting a blended approach can prove to be highly profitable. Instead of revisiting scheduling practices, this technique can act as an efficacious solution to such a problem of low occupancy. Moreover, blended agents can be used on a short-term basis to promote campaigns. Inbound agents can be trained against a simple script to make outbound calls for the duration of a promotion. Employing a blended environment in call centers can also help utilize the resources efficiently and effectively.

Blended environment
Blended environment

 

 

 

 

Steps to design an effective quality monitoring process

Quality monitoring process aims at evaluating the agents in an effective manner. It is employed to identify the calls failing to meet predefined standards. Thereafter, you can make informed decisions to make the process better, faster and quicker. The following steps need to be followed when trying to design an effective quality monitoring process:

1. Determine and define the objectives:

The very first step of this process is to determine important goals. Once it’s done, these goals need to be defined along with intended results. Based on the goals and intended results, tasks should be assigned to the various individuals.

Goals and objectives
Goals and objectives

2. Educate the agents about the process’s merits:

When you decide to install a quality monitoring system, you may face resistance from the agents. You can combat this problem by explaining the merits. This would encourage them to support you.

Educating the agents about the process
Educating the agents about the process

3. Call selection:

Non-routine customer calls need to be selected for greater effectiveness of your QA program. These calls include the ones:

i) that were transferred multiple times

ii) those were either shorter or longer than usual

iii) that originated from certain geographies or customers

iv) that involved some particular activity on the PC screen of the agent

Call monitoring
Call monitoring
4. Conduct a monthly audit procedure:
Conducting a quality audit procedure can help examine the various qualities and skills like adherence to processes, product knowledge, call control, courtesy, empathy, accuracy, and clarity of voice. The scoring evaluation should be capable of reflecting the goal of a contact center. Moreover, scorecards or quality monitoring forms should be arranged by categories.

Call scoring
Call scoring

5. Make use of process maps:

Consider creating and documenting a process map for the call center’s quality monitoring system. The document should describe responsibilities of people, their roles, and the techniques/tools to be used. Calls recording should be employed and the agent must listen to his/her own calls from time to time to conduct a self-assessment.

Process map
Process map

 

Tips for designing an effective call scoring evaluation form

These days, call scoring evaluation forms are being extensively utilized when analyzing live or recorded calls. These forms, when used along with call recording are highly beneficial for the call centers as they can be used to help enrich the feedback provided to agents during coaching sessions. This helps enhance the agents’ motivation to improve their performance. As a matter of fact, a poorly designed call scoring evaluation form will result in data that does not accurately assess agent performance, lacks key performance areas and is not reliable. So, it is very important to design a call scoring evaluation form that eliminates all of the above errors. Here, we have mentioned some useful tips that you should consider while designing the same:

1. Encourage employee engagement at different levels:

For designing an effective call scoring evaluation form, consider involving employees at various levels to help you in your quality assurance program. Engaging employees fro various levels means, taking assistance from everyone starting from managers, trainers, supervisors, to even agents in the call center.

Employee engagement
Employee engagement

2. Leverage your internal Q&A system:

An internal Q&A system helps you determine the efficiency level of all the internal processes being employed. The measurement should be done based on the points that are regarded as important by customers.

Q&A
Q&A

3. Prioritize the categories in the form:

In order to make the call scoring evaluation form effective, you need to prioritize the decided categories with respect to their relevance and importance.

Categories
Categories

4. Test and review:

Once you are done with the form making process, you need to test and review your call scoring evaluation before it can be rolled out for implementation.

Test and review
Test and review

5. Train your agents:

After you have tested and reviewed the form, consider training all employees in your call center on the new scoring evaluation form. This will help them have a proper clarity on what items are being measured in the evaluation form and what is the process of doing that.

Training session
Training session

 

 

 

 

All you need to know about call scoring

Call scoring is a process that enables you to derive additional benefits from efforts to analyze recorded calls for information. This process can benefit customers, agents and company sales and marketing plans. It provides a systematic means to conduct these reviews and identify the weakest areas of agent performance. Moreover, it lets you know the steps necessary to improve the agent’s performance.

An example of call scoring
An example of call scoring

Contact center call scoring can be regarded as a useful training and management tool. Scorecard is an essential element in the entire process. Using this scorecard and setting contact center standards, you can improve your contact center performance. Call scoring can be done by determining whether:

i) the customer was met with a friendly greeting or not

ii) he/ she was asked their name and was it used during the call

iii) the agent keeps a positive attitude across all customer contacts

 

Call scoring tools
Call scoring tools

 

The very first step in the call scoring process is to determine what elements are important in each customer engagement. This is followed by a process of knowing how each effort should be scored against these pre-determined criteria. As a matter of fact, most of the scorecard elements are fairly standard and are derived from dividing a call into segments. Moreover, the calls can be scored on a 1-10 scale, or 9 in the form of A-F letter grades.

Example of scorecard
Example of scorecard

A basic open-middle-close format is employed in many companies. This approach focuses on determining:

i) how the customer is greeted

ii) how the problem or question is resolved

iii) how the call ends

iv) whether the agent was able to answer all questions

v) whether the agent was friendly when the caller was hostile

vi) if any upsell opportunities were missed

Once the scoring has been done, the results can be shared with each agent. Additional training can also be scheduled in cases where the agent performance falls below the expected level.

 

 

 

Call recording and its significance: III

1.Enhances customer satisfaction:

The quality of interaction between a call center agent and a customer decides the efficiency of customer service which further affects customer satisfaction. Therefore, the agent has to communicate clearly, maintain phone etiquette, treat the customer with respect, maintain a pleasant tone throughout the conversation, and provide resolution to all their queries. As mentioned earlier, call recording helps management check whether an agent has efficiently performed in an expected manner or not. It helps managers to resolve customer complaints in an appropriate manner. Also, it enables the agent to play nice knowing that his / her call is being monitored.  Moreover, this forces the agent to be consistently professional in all the calls.

Customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction

 

2. Improves security:

An appropriate call recording system can be highly beneficial to a company employing it. It helps reduce inappropriate calls and detect any security problems. It enables you to monitor employee interaction to reduce inappropriate conversations. Call recording exempts the chances of agents using the resources for personal use as it also helps to reduce personal phone calls. However, all the call centers are required to inform the customer beforehand that the call is getting recorded. This, in turn, causes the customers to refrain from using abusive language on the call. In other words,  a call recording system actually helps to keep the conversations professional.

Improve security
Improve security

3. Corporate liability and compliance:

As a matter of fact, even a simple miscommunication can lead to a potential lawsuit. So, almost all companies have the potential to face lawsuits.  Hence, a call recording system enables your company to diffuse many such scenarios. Moreover, new and old government regulations require all companies to be compliant with their business practices. So, call recording also helps to maintain compliance with all these regulatory groups. In other words, it exempts any chances of you being prosecuted or fined.

Corporate liability
Corporate liability

 

 

Call recording and its significance: II

1. Helps enrich feedback during training sessions:

Excerpts from call recording can be used to demonstrate the agents where exactly they failed to meet expectations. The quantitative data from call scoring forms will help to make the feedback more comprehensive. Moreover, this will enhance the feedback process and make the training session more efficacious.

Feedback
Feedback

2. Encourages quality control:

Call recording proves to be highly useful in cases where the agents take down the wrong information and there are chances of customer being dissatisfied. Here, in the absence of a call recording system, the agents tend to argue that they are not at fault. On the other hand, managers can prove their point using call recordings. Moreover, in such cases, the manager can listen to the call and take down the correct information, rather than calling the customer again for the same information, which might irritate the customer. This will also help save time and money of the company.

Quality control
Quality control

3. Helps formulate an action plan and assess agent performance:

Based on the data collected through call recording and call scoring, an enriched feedback can be provided to the agents. This can further be used to develop an action plan. Thereafter, through call monitoring, managers can assess whether or not the agents have made the appropriate adjustments. If not, then further strategies should be employed to resolve the issue as soon as possible so that the agents can adjust their approach accordingly.

Action plan
Action plan

4. Performance review:

The recordings can be analyzed by the management to compare employee progress to company standards. Also, the employees can listen to their own calls, and find out their shortcomings. As a matter of fact, listening to your own calls helps you know the mistakes that you have made or that you have to work on your tone to keep it pleasant.

Review
Review

 

 

Call recording and its significance: I

Call recording software records telephone conversations over PSTN or VoIP in a digital audio file format but it’s distinct from call logging and tracking. However, the software may include both recording and logging functionality. The actual recording takes place on a recording system with software for the management of calls and security of recordings. Most call recording software applications rely on an analog signal via either a call recording adapter or a telephony board. It offers a number of benefits to the call centers that use it. Some of those advantages are mentioned below:

1. Knowing agents’ struggles and helping them overcome them:

Call recording along with call scoring can be used for accurately assessing call center agent performance. While call recording helps gather qualitative data from customer interactions, call scoring helps gather quantitative performance measures. In other words, it helps managers gain a more comprehensive understanding of an agent’s performance deficits and proficiencies. They can know about agents’ struggles regarding various call types by analyzing call recordings. This also helps them to gain a comprehensive understanding of where the agent is going wrong. Thereafter, strategies can be employed to enhance agets’ performance.

Agents
Agents

2. Providing sales training to the agents:

Call recording and call scoring, together provide valuable insights into agents’ performance which can further be utilized to provide effective sales training to the agents. This training should include educating the agents about different tactics that can help improve customer service. For example, they can be taught about the correct ways of pitching a product to the customer. Calls of experienced agents can be played to trainees or junior agents so that they can gain points from it. Moreover, bad calls can be played to point out the things that affect the customer experience in a negative manner and should be avoided.

Sales training for agents
Sales training for agents

 

 

Benefits of using speech analytics: II

1.Deflates operating expenses:

Speech analytics can help deflate operating expenses by detecting cost savings and ways to avoid spending money while generating incremental revenue. In order to tune a speech analytics application for a specific site, a significant investment in time and resources is required. This highly efficacious technology then filters out and provides cost savings data across the board. This enables the call center owners to avoid counterproductive spending and enhance their reputation among businesses requiring call centers. Moreover, it improves customer experience.

Reduce costs
Golden coins and red arrow Graph falls on white background

2. Reduces customer churn:

Speech analytics can help businesses/ organizations to curb customer churn. The tools engaged in this process can be used to identify the factors responsible for customer churn. It provides an opportunity to all such businesses to make the changes necessary to keep customers coming back. This results in improved quality service which further improves customer experiences and satisfaction, giving customers less of a reason to leave. Also, the more information companies gather about existing and potential customers, the better they can take advantage of general consumer behavior.

Reduces customer churn
Reduces customer churn

3. Improves customer experience:

This amazing software can be used for audio data analysis. This data analysis includes:i)

i) detecting things like emotion and stress in a customer’s voice

ii) the reason for the call

iii) the products mentioned and more

With the help of speech analytics, organizations can quickly identify a customer’s needs, wants and expectations, and work to meet them. These days, more and more call centers are relying on call center speech analytics to enhance customer experience. Organizations depending on call centers to provide their customers with satisfying and fruitful interactions can actually leverage the power of this wonderful technology to take their business elsewhere by discovering inferior agent-customer synergy.

Customer experience
Customer experience

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Benefits of using speech analytics: I

As we mentioned in an earlier post, speech analytics refers to the process of analyzing recorded calls to gather customer information to improve communication and future interaction. The information cumulated using speech analytics can be used to discover information relating to strategy, product, process, operational issues and contact center agent performance. Moreover, it can be leveraged to identify areas in which contact center agents may need additional training or coaching, and can automatically monitor the customer service provided on calls. Easing out a number of processes at the call center, speech analytics provides a number of benefits.

1. Helps manage operational and performance issues:

Speech analytics can be used by call center managers to monitor customers and call center agents simultaneously. They can actually keep an eye on their performance in order to make sure regulatory requirements are met. Moreover, this highly efficacious technology can be used for coaching call center agents. Well trained agents are efficient enough to resolve customer queries which further improves first call resolution and reduces call volume. In other words, operational and performance issues that occur throughout the enterprise can be tracked and managed, hence, resulting in improved service quality.

Monitoring call center agents
Monitoring call center agents

2. Provides valuable insights regarding marketplace:

Not only call centers but the entire enterprise can benefit from speech analytics. As an example, sales organizations can leverage the power of this amazing technology to identify up-sell and cross-sell opportunities. The tools engaged in this process can actually be used to track the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. Sales managers can utilize the data gathered using speech analytics to learn about how a particular up-sell or cross-sell impacted a customer’s level of satisfaction. They can also determine how different customer demographics respond to the offers, using this technology. This does not end here! Personalized up-sell and cross-sell opportunities that meet a customer’s specific needs can also be created using this wonderful technology.

Upsell and crossell
Upsell and crossell

 

 

Blended universal queue system and its advantages

Blended universal queue, more appropriately known as the universal queue (UQ) refers to an advanced concept in contact center design. As per this concept, multiple communications channels (such as telephone, fax, and email) are integrated into a single queue to standardize processing and handling. In other words, the universal queue is essentially a combination of email, chat and other data enabling universal queuing along with call blending.

Blended universal queue system
Blended universal queue system

Importance:

1. Universal queue system provides a single unified workflow which integrates all the various trouble tickets, CRM cases, mobile, social and traditional channels into a singular entity so as to eliminate improper handling of customer issues.

Handling customer complaints
Handling customer complaints

2. This highly efficacious system allows the customers to opt for a communication channel of their choice. Thus, people who do not wish to talk over a phone call can use email or another such channel of communication while the ones who are comfortable with calls can directly talk to the agents for query resolution.

Choosing communication channels
Choosing communication channels

3. Blended universal queue system provides improved cross-channel flexibility. This further results in an enhanced user experience leading to a higher customer satisfaction.

4. As far as the business agents are concerned, they can leverage the universal queue to gather valuable insights and information available across the various channels. This may help them manage their customer care workload more effectively.

Valuable insights
Valuable insights

5. The universal queue system helps in increasing the productivity of an organization by providing the facility of optimizing work patterns of its employees according to the operational requirements of the center.

Increasing productivity
Increasing productivity

6. It facilitates a smooth delegation of work among the agents according to the customer priority, availability, and their individual skills. Moreover, this technology is capable of identifying as to which of the channels need precedence over the rest of them, based on the individual priority.

Delegation of work

 

 

 

Call blending and its unmatched benefits

Call blending refers to the capability to make outbound calls while also being able to receive inbound calls, all in one easy technologically created the system. It helps in the equal distribution of calls among the workstations in a call center. This means that all the agents have the same workload which further leads to increased customer satisfaction. These days, call blending is being used by a number of call centers to maximize the productivity of agents without overworking them. This process is entirely automatic as an agent finishes with an outbound call and becomes free, a tone will emit from his or her headset signaling that the line is connected to another caller.

Call blending
Call blending

There are a number of benefits of using call blending:

1. It increases customer satisfaction:

When you allow your agents to take both inbound and outbound calls at the same time, a number of incoming calls lowers down. This causes the workload to be equally distributed such that each agent receives the same number of callers. Since everyone stays busy and productive, the number of net calls accommodated in a day boosts up which further results in a higher satisfaction level from your customers.

Increased customer satisfaction
Increased customer satisfaction

2. It helps cut down on expenses:

Call blending enables your agents to take inbound and outbound calls which cut down your need to hire more employees. Thus, you can save on your payroll. With proper training, each agent can take on the responsibility of handling both inbound and outbound calls. Also, they can carry out the task without sacrificing the quality of customer service calls.

Cutting down the expenses
Cutting down the expenses

3. It helps accommodate customers’ needs efficiently:

With call blending each agent is provided with all the necessary information through utilizing a feature called screen pop. This enables all your representatives to respond more intelligently to their calls. Thus, with sufficient information on hand, an agent is able to accommodate a customer’s needs effectively.

An example of screen pop
An example of screen pop

 

 

 

All you need to know about workforce management

Workforce management is a term used for an institutional process that maximizes performance levels and competency for an organization. This process consists of all the activities needed to maintain a productive workforce, such as field service management, human resource management, performance and training management, data collection, recruiting, budgeting, forecasting, scheduling, and analytics. In other words, workforce management is an integrated set of processes that call centers use to optimize the productivity of its agents on the individual, departmental, and entity-wide levels. It also includes determining and providing schedules, forecasting, and adherence for a workforce in their future events.

Workforce management
Workforce management

The process provides a common set of performance-based tools and software for the service optimization in corporate management, front-line supervisors, store managers and workers across manufacturing, distribution, transportation, and retail operations.

Workforce management 2
Workforce management 2

The solutions using this management process can be deployed enterprise-wide and through mobile platforms. By using a software solution for demand-oriented workforce management, planners can optimize staffing by creating schedules that obey the forecasted requirements at all times. Moreover, it helps users to observe all relevant legislation, local agreements and the contracts of individual employees including work-life balance guidelines.

Workforce management solutions
Workforce management solutions

These efficient solutions are meant to satisfy the reality of the work that is being presented to agents. These solutions help the agents to inculcate a pool of in-depth and specific talent to be available in order to satisfy customers fully. Some of these talents include:

i) good listening ability

ii) familiarity with keyboard and IT skills and a

iii) knowledge of the business they are working in

iv) familiarity with either specific customers or customer subsets

v) specific technical knowledge

vi) exceptional customer experience and empowerment for the customer

vii) language skills (both in domestic and international markets)

viii) ability to deal with multimedia interactions

ix) Similar regional accent to the caller (where applicable).

Workforce management solutions
Workforce management solutions

 

 

 

Tips to reduce after call work time: II

1. Use repetitive calls as an advantage for wrap time:

Repetitive calls can be advantageous for work time. Consider making a process document of common best practice call text paragraphs. These call text paragraphs can further be classified into the types of calls your agents receive. This categorized process document can then be sent to them electronically so that they can have it open on their desktop and paste across without re-writing standard advice/actions every time. Some of this text may also be useful to paste into emails which would further save their time.

 

Copy and paste call texts
Copy and paste call texts

2. Make the most out of “hold time”:

There are many instances when calls may have to be put on hold to verify some facts or to route it to another agent or to look up for a solution. This hold time can actually be leveraged to increase the efficiency. Therefore, if you train your agents properly, they may be able to utilize this time to make some entries into the call log in order to reduce the ACW load.

Hold time
On Hold 3d words for waiting for assistance, help or service with great frustration

3. Consider getting feedback:

This strategy can be highly helpful in reducing the after call work time. For this, you need to find out how useful the call text is to the people that depend upon it (other departments, levels of escalation, field operatives, etc.). You also need to know if the details that are being entered are correct or not. In case something is essential or not needed let your team know.

Feedback
Feedback

4. Review:

Lastly, review the statistics and quality of call text from a cross section of team members. Identify the good ones that could be shared as best practice. Also, make sure to identify people that continually take longer in wrap or produce poor results so as to coach them and improve their efficacy.

 

Review
Review

 

 

 

 

Tips to reduce after call work time: I

After call work time is a term used to describe the time taken by an agent to complete any transactions or work for a customer after the call has ended. This is considered as an important bit of time in a contact center once a call has ended when the advisor can update the system with the caller’s resolution, next steps, details or order notes. Apart from this, they may also need to make some outbound calls or send emails during this time to progress the caller’s resolution. Once it is done, the agent has to feed the relevant data into the CRM software so that it can be recorded for security purpose and for future marketing needs.

Wrap time
Wrap time

Now, we know the significance of after call work time. Let’s have a look at some of the strategies to reduce it in order to increase the efficiency of the call center:

1. Provide proper training to the agents: 

In order to reduce the after call work time, you need to train your agents clearly on what is required in call text, logs or notes. You can consider employing speech analytics software to make entries into the CRM data sheet or call logs automatically. You need to train your agents appropriately before they can use this technology efficiently. Their minds should be trained in a way that they are able to multi-function. They should be efficient enough to not make typos and spot them quickly. Moreover, they should be able to make some notes and entries while talking to the client without taking the attention of the caller. This would help improve KPIs.

Training
Training

2. Strive to manage time classifications:

The overall wrap times of a call center will be hugely inflated if people are using these for breaks, chat time, drink refills, etc. As a matter of fact, most contact centers do have targets on wrap time, which can vary depending on the type of center, but often around 5% of average handling time is used. Making the time classifications clear at a team briefing can help in improving the metrics to a large extent.

Managing time classifications
Managing time classifications

 

 

 

Your guide to speech analytics software

Speech analytics refers to the process of analyzing recorded calls to gather customer information to improve communication and future interaction. The process is primarily used by customer contact centers to extract information regarding client interactions with an enterprise. Speech analytics is somewhat similar to automatic speech recognition, however, it can also be used for analyzing the topic being discussed, which is weighed against the emotional character of the speech and the amount and locations of speech versus non-speech during the interaction. The technology can be leveraged to know about cost drivers, trend analysis, identify strengths and weaknesses with processes and products, and help understand how the marketplace perceives offerings.

Speech analytics
Speech analytics

Speech analytics applications are capable of spotting spoken keywords or phrases, either as real-time alerts on live audio or as a post-processing step on recorded speech. It can also be used for categorization of speech in the contact center environment to identify calls from unsatisfied customers.

Spotting spoken keywords and phrases
Spotting spoken keywords and phrases

Call centers employ speech analytics software to identify things like the reason for the call, the products mentioned and the caller’s mood. Speech analytics software is capable of quickly identifying a customer’s needs, wants and expectations if used efficaciously. Moreover, it also helps in identifying areas that need improvement for agents and the business.

Speech recognition for call centers
Speech recognition for call centers

Speech analytics software can also be used to monitor and coach agents. It can further be used for assisting in managing customers and their data. In the case of call monitoring, speech analytics software can help identify selling opportunities and track script adherence and regulatory compliance. When inculcated in the training module, this software can help to improve first call resolution and shorten call times. Operational and performance issues can be found and managed effectively through customer as well as agent monitoring.

Training agents
Training agents