Many Call Center Answers Can Be Found on the Front Line

Over the last twenty years, I’ve had the opportunity to work with a lot of contact center agents.  I spend a lot of time on the frontline whenever I work with an organization to help them improve their operation.  I plug in and listen to calls, and do a lot of focus groups, as well.  I’ve conducted focus groups with hundreds of agents in a broad range of contact centers, and many of my solutions come directly from these meetings.   

One of the things that I often hear from managers when I start working with a new company is, “We’re different Tim.” The reality, however, is that what agents in all these contact centers tell me is typically the same.  It doesn’t matter what industry or whether you’re in big or small center.  The thing that prevents you from providing great service is common among contact centers.  If you have a call center and you have an ACD that holds calls in queue and routes them to available agents, then you face basically the same issues as everyone else. 

The bullet points below are what I hear from the frontline of almost every company I work with:   

·        Lack of communication – feel like we’re the last ones to know

·        Need additional schedule flexibility and daily stability

·        Metrics that drive wrong behaviors

·        Punishing the masses for the few

·        Too much focus on the negative

·        Need more management visibility

·        Not enough formal training after being hired

What agents are basically all saying is that they aren’t given the tools to be prepared for each moment of truth.  If your agents feel the same way (and, my experience suggests that they probably do), you’ll need to address this  before moving things to the next level.

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