The Top 4 Call Center Performance Drivers
What is a Call Center Driver?
Customers dial call centers when they are having an issue with a company and need it resolved. This drives the customer to call to speak with agents for technical support or to ask any questions that they might have.
Popular Call Center Drivers
There are three main reasons people call to speak with agents in a call center.
- Payments: Callers come across issues with the payment methods online or simply want to update their billing information and need some assistance on how to do this properly.
- Charges: Customers call for questions about charges made to their account, and request breakdowns for what they are being charged for.
- Questions: Customers call in to ask additional questions they have about the product/service they are purchasing that typically couldn't be found on the companies website.
Reducing Calls to Your Call Center
While it is the job for call center agents to speak with customers dialing in, reducing the call traffic is ideal. You want your agents to be able to properly handle all of the calls they receive and it can become overwhelming and frustrating to receive the same calls over and over again. Having a more advanced IVR to direct a caller to the correct department to reduce the number of transferred calls is one way to reduce the call volume in your call center. Another easy way to reduce call volume to the call center would be to have a detailed FAQ section on your companies website or to set up a knowledge base for the customer to seek out a fast solution to their problem. Monitoring your call metrics is important to see how many customers had to call back. This is a great way to develop a new strategy to reduce the number of times a customer had to call back.
Costs of Call Centers
There are four main costs categories for call centers;
1. Labor
Labor costs include all the typical expenses of hiring an employee such as benefits, PTO, social security, pay rate/ salaries, etc.
2. Technology
Technology costs include all of the expenses that come from the technology the IT department decides is necessary. For example, an automatic call distributor (ACD), routers, servers, any additional platforms used to run your call center.
3. Management
This includes all in-house cost such as trainers, supervisors, etc. This also includes training and recruiting resources.
4. Property, Plant & Equipment
This incurs all the costs for the physical location of your company such as rent, insurance, etc. This can also include smaller costs such as office supplies and miscellaneous expenses.
Call Center Performance Drivers
Call center agents are a key aspect to many businesses. However, the turnover rates for agents are some of the highest in the industry, so how do you change that statistic and motivate your agents to continuously improve their performance metrics? We understand how crucial this information is which is why we went ahead and compiled a list of call center performance drivers.
Achievement Recognition
Dealing with customers can be difficult especially when handling an angry customer. When an agent is able to resolve a difficult customer issue and end the conversation with a happy, satisfied customer on the other end, their efforts should be recognized. There are several different ways to show off your agents achievement:
Recognize Excellent Practices
When an agent completes a strong call this is a great opportunity to share the call with other agents. Call recording is a great tool where you can playback the call and point out exactly what makes this conversation so exceptional.
Goal achievement
When an agent reaches their goal there are two different ways to your appreciation; Monetarily and Non-monetarily
- Monetary: This would be any type of reward that included money such as raises or bonuses.
- Non-monetary: These are ideas to show their achievement without dishing out money. You can highlight their achievement on social media or give them perks such as flexible work hours and choosing their scheduling.
*For additional ideas on how to reward your agents take a look at our blog on motivating call center agents
Set Goals
In order to recognize your agent's achievements, you have to first set the goals for them to work towards. These goals should challenge the agent while also being practical. Having check-ins with your agents to see their progress on their goals is vital way to increase morale. During these check-ins, it is important to see where the agent might be struggling to reach their goals and why. This is also a great opportunity to build a relationship with your agents and reduce the statistic of call center agent turnover.
Work Together
Teaming up your agent is a great way to not only boost employee morale but help agents build internal relationships. There are a few different ideas to take into consideration when teaming up agents:
Mentors
Pairing newer agents with exceptional ones will give them one-on-one exposure as to what makes such a strong agent. This gives the newer agents to not only learn with one-hand experience but also offers them an opportunity to ask questions and receive the training that best suits their learning style.
Teams
Creating teams within the call center to achieve goals such as the highest conversion rates will drive agents to work together to perfect their team's skills. By setting team goals and deadline the winning team would receive one of the achievement recognition methods we discussed earlier in this post.
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