My Blog

March 19, 2008

Motivation and training must happen frequently and consistently in the International Call Center. The agents are spending the maximum time in the call centers to take care of the customers. As we know human being we all need the encouragement and the motivation to perform good. Motivation is the great factor to get the maximum output from the agents for their assign work. And it's all depends on the call center management team to take care of this point very carefully. It is always good if agents are having previous work experience of the call center but it is not sure that agent will perform the best and need no motivation. Even the agents are old or new all need lot's of motivation to work. Also we believes that having call center experience isn't necessarily a sound recommendation for a customer service representative job.

Hear I am writing the Six factors to give the motivation to agents while training time.

Empower agents : It is very essential to provide the quality management tools which can easily understandable for each agents. To empower the call center agents the training of the software is very useful. Quality management tools also empower agents because they can listen to their own interactions and recognize where they need to make improvements. In addition, they can also listen to "best-in-class" interactions from their peers to learn how they can improve the customer interaction by imitating successful agent behavior. Quality monitoring allows agents to gain additional control over their performance appraisals by having the ability to review their own calls and calibrate their results with those of their supervisor.

Happy agents will give fruitful result: We can know the agents are happy or not while monitoring the calls.. It is always true if the agents are happy and relaxed then they will give good response to the customer's queries. They will never loose the potential customers. Motivation to the agent by joke, party, fun, or good movie etc will also play a big role for their happiness.

Communication Skills Motivation: The trainers is fully responsible to give the best training to the agents. Trainer can motivate the agents if they find the communication skills are not good. Motivation must be in such a way that agents can feel that this training is for their better carrier & skills in future. During training, make sure to ask for feedback from trainees throughout, and refrain from using a lecture style, she said, adding that it's important to revisit curriculum frequently to ensure that the information is fresh. Also, make training separate from the work shift, and pay overtime for it.

Self Development Led To Improved Customer Service: Change is nature, it never remain the same. As same every human being wants to keep some change in them self for the growth. Motivate  your agent to develop the ability to learn by themselves. Motivate them to be independent, this make them to take care of the customers in very well manner. This small motivation will make customer service process more satisfying to the  customers and self-development has also led to improved customer service.

Inform About The Money: Call center agents should be kept informed about financial information. Agents should  know how performance can be quantified in the call center. If your call center management team permit then you can motivate the agents by saying - The average cost per call to the agents and also inform if a customer's problem isn't solved then this call rate will be double for the company. If agents know about the money of the call or the cost then agent will take more care while interacting to the customers.

Rewards for Motivation: It is always best to reward the agents according to the performance to keep healthy competition among all agents. This is the motivation factor which can motivate the agent to perform better then yesterday.

Though this may work best in sales-oriented call centers, most managers can take a proactive approach to staffing turnover to maintain overall quality.

From-

Vcare Call Center India

Comments (7) for "Six Motivation Factors For T...

According to me, managers and supervisors rated the following job factors such as incentive programmes, Self-development, Additional trainings, Group meetings, Choice of work schedule, feedback to agents, those things they use to motivate their call center agents.The top two responses were "positive leadership skills of supervisors" and "relationships on the job".A comparison of the groups' lists provides insight into the difficulties experienced when managers attempt to motivate their agents. Managers and supervisors said that “incentive programs” are the Number One thing they use to motivate their call center agents. Agents did not even include “incentives” in their “Top Six” factors. By Rainy Thomas - 3/19/2008 2:03 PM

Hi Rainy Thomas, Hi.... I agree with your comment, I went to share some more information releated to motivation factors on the job. As I know that Environment and culture is important to motivation on the job. However, when agents refers to the environment and culture, they specifically talk about relationships on the job with their co-workers. In describing the general culture of their call centers as a motivator, managers and supervisors did not refer to the behavior or interaction between people. By Madison C - 3/20/2008 1:06 PM

Yes you are right Miss Madison C, Instead, they told us about the contests, gifts and prizes that are important characteristics of their "Culture". But it creates disconnections between them. These disconnects illustrate a clear obstacle for managers who believe they are creating a motivating environment, when in fact they are focusing on programs that have little value to many call center employees. Let me know the effects of the dicconects. Have any conclusion of motivating job factors. By Raisah Taylor - 3/23/2008 4:27 PM

Motivation is much more important in call center because working on the front line serving customers is a demanding job. And the manner in which customer interactions are handled directly impacts an organization's success. Thus, it's necessary to have a performance-based motivational management approach that measures performance against program goals, rewards top performers and ultimately results in higher customer satisfaction. By Mildred g - 3/24/2008 1:56 PM

Hi, I am Sophia.... According to me supervisor also role model for team enthusiasm. In addition to their visible presence within the contact center, supervisors motivate team members and improve performance by monitoring calls and providing feedback. This monitoring ensures that the quest to achieve rewards is kept in balance with quality and customer service. By sophia m - 4/7/2008 1:43 PM

Contact centers, whether engaged in service, sales, collections, fraud or anything else, are people-intensive organizations that require best practices and systems to improve their efficiency and effectiveness. Systems are essential enablers, but because agents interact directly with your customers, their performance is critical for your success. Motivated agents are highly productive; among the best incentives for agents are respect, recognition, variety and fair compensation for their efforts. By yeardleigh m - 4/16/2008 5:15 PM

Very interesting subject. I have found that communication with your team direct from the manager has a tremendous effect on motivation. It makes them feel included and also updated, like there are no secrets. I hold monthly meetings with my staff to go over our teams performance compared with our KPI's. And I ask them for reasons why they think our performacne is the way it is, whether that be good or bad, not looking for excuses but instead trying to find out if there are any underlying issues that management may not be aware of. By Martin k - 5/15/2008 12:34 PM