Call Centers are providing the best services to the customers. The numbers of the call centers have increased rapidly in last 4 years. As the number of the call centers are increasing the dissatisfaction level between client and the customers have also enlarged. To fulfill the all require information and to prove the best call center service few call centers end up with great failure in the business. So here the question arise that what is the reason?
Here we are mentioning the three distinct Phases of a Call Centre’s life which is the cause of the call center failure.
- Failures Operational Phase
- Failures Expansion Phase
- Integration Phase
Operational Phase:The process and time during which took place before starting the call centers. Lot of reason is here for this factor. The people who are working in the call centers are not well trained. The call center company hires a less skills people for the process. The experienced people can support to minimize the failure cause. If the documentation of the company is not proper then the team member could not get the exact target and the motto of the call centers company. For example: motto could be like “if you don’t care the customers then some else will take care of him”.
These kinds of example will increase the moral of the employee to work properly. If call center is running sort of process then again it is also one reason of failure. The senior of the companies plays a very important role. The whole process is designed by seniors so the design must be proper and according to the benefit of the clients.
Expansion Phase: The second cause of failure is lack of the special efforts. If the communication between the client and the customers is decline then it reflects as the drawback factor for failure. The communication channel of both sides must be strong ands clear. The comfort zone must be on second priority the first priority should always goes to Customer Satisfaction, if it not measured then it is another factor of failure.
Integration Phase: The third cause of failure is mismanagement of time and not giving the satisfactory reply to customers. The data of customer contacts should be correct so that the agent could call to right person at one time and the company could save the money. If not exceeding the customer expectation then it is again the cause of failure. Sometime it happens that the purpose of the call centers not followed by the agents. If the management is not taking any quick action for the wrong happening then it will be a one more factor of call centers failure.
These are the factors of call centers failure and if company use the correct strategy and take action at right then the failure can be stop.
Quality Monitoring:The collection and analysis of data for selected indicators which enable managers to determine whether key standards are being achieved as planned. Quality monitoring is all about process improvement, and in addition to the initial gains organizations achieve through deployment, there’s an ongoing opportunity to secure continual incremental improvements. It’s essential for organizations to stick with their quality monitoring programs, as once you’ve successfully base lined activities the gains keep on coming.
As call quality scores rise, you will invariably see a commensurate improvement in key business measures, from sales conversion rates through to improved customer retention. In turn, agents seem to benefit from working in a more efficiently managed environment, resulting in reduced attrition and falls in sickness and unscheduled absence.
Quality monitoring can also yield important insights in to activities that take place outside of the contact center. Speech analytics techniques can be used to support sales by uncovering data relating to current campaigns or by identifying customer churn triggers, while the early capture of escalated calls to supervisors can alert the business to possible customer service issues.
Another key opportunity comes through the use of quality monitoring to highlight just why calls are coming in to the contact centre. If, for example a large number of calls relate to accounts issues, then effective root cause analysis can spot a repeat pattern and alert contact centre management who can then escalate the issue to the billing department.
Call Center supervisors are also able to listen to and/or record phone conversations with the standard digital voice recording agent monitoring utilities at the same time they are viewing the agent’s desktop activities. Supervisors can silently view as many agent desktops as is possible to be effective.
Quality monitoring steps and its implementation can leads to a wider workforce optimization infrastructure, has the potential to be the most powerful tool that a contact centre can ever buy.
Meeting is the word with which every one does hate in an organization. Time is precious for everyone so to save the time is the best option to do with today’s technology, there’s more than one way to conduct a meeting. For a long time the Telephone conferences have been taking the place of face-to-face meetings, but they leave a lot to be desired.
If you are able interact the peoples then it will give lot of satisfaction. E-mail chat is also supporting for some useful message communication but the purpose of conference meeting is not solved with it. In business the voice is most important thing.
Now the 500 fortune companies are using the Videoconferencing to communicate their business. The planning and preparation is always required discussing some useful points.
1. The Hardware
Video teleconferencing systems are complex because they transmit both video and audio streams in real time, and in most cases, these streams are compressed and decompressed for more efficient travel over the network. Good quality hardware equipment can make the difference between a productive conference and one in which you spend so much time adjusting the equipment and trying to get a good picture or sound that you miss the content of the conference.
To input the data each participant should have a video camera or webcam, microphone and projector with speakers for output of incoming data. The quality of the hardware must be good. You will get frustrated if there is some important video conferencing is taking place and your hardware gives error at the same time. It’s very important to have
Webcams and the other necessary peripherals put videoconferencing of best quality.
2. The Software
The most important factor in choosing software is to ensure that it will do what you need. Some conferencing software limits the number of conference participants, for example. If you need to be able to give PowerPoint presentations, transmit whiteboard diagrams, share applications or the desktop, distribute files to participants, etc., be sure that the software you pick supports those options.
Dedicated systems will come with their own software, but if you’re going the poor-man’s route with webcam-equipped PCs, you can choose from a variety of software programs. If you’re meeting with one person, you can use free software, such as Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, AIM, or Skype, among many others.
3: Do Advance Checking
To save the time of you and others it is good if you check equipment and test it before the video conferencing network. Let’s take a example, A pilot goes through a preflight checklist prior to every takeoff, you should test your equipment prior to every conference. This advance checking will save your time and give the best impression on your conferencing group members.
4: Check The Firewall
A common cause for failure of videoconferencing software is that the protocols it uses are being blocked by the firewall. If you don’t have sole control over your company’s firewalls, you could find yourself in this position at any time.
5: Bandwidth Speed
For Videoconferencing the good bandwidth is min 128 Kbps and it puts big bandwidth demands on your Internet connection. If the bandwidth is low then you may have trouble transmitting clear video and audio signals.
6: Use The Self-View Window
See you’re self in monitor before starting videoconferencing with client. See yourself in a self-view window. Use this feature to check how you appear to others in the conference. If you know that how you are looking the other side then your confidence will also increase. You must have the professional appearance and between the meetings it will be good if you keep checking the self-view window.
7: Remove distractions ahead of time
The video conferencing is very costly and effective. Suppose you are busy with the conference and someone distract you when you are giving some useful information to the clients. Think what kind of impression they will get about you. So it’s very important to distraction before you start the video conferencing.
If you’re at your desk at work, close your office door and lock it if possible or consider placing a sign on it to prevent co-workers from bursting in during the conference. Turn off the ringers on your mobile phones. And give instruction to your secretary that no one disturb you.
If you are video conferencing from home. It is important to inform your spouse and kids know that you’re going to be in a business meeting and should not be disturbed for anything short of a real emergency. Lock pets out of the room; even the best-behaved animals seem to have a knack for barking/meowing or jumping up onto your lap at just the wrong time when you’re on camera.
8: Dress Code
The dress which you are wearing in video conferencing must be professional and neat and clean. Yes it is the true that a telephone conference take place with voice but such thighs like dress code are not important in telephonic conference look. You can conduct telephonic conference even you are not looking good and your hair’s a mess and you’re wearing your grungiest sweats. That’s not so for a videoconference. Even if you’re working from home, the best practice is to dress professionally, as you would if you were meeting with these people face to face. Choose the liter color clothing.
9: Avoid Multitask
You are doing the important task when you are in video conferencing so try to avoid the other works. It may happen that you are surfing net or using some other gadgets for communication while conference is on. But remember it will give the negative impact on other group members of video conferencing, so be careful. Sometime we think that when my turn will come then I will share the point meanwhile I can do some other things. So, again it is very important to take care of these things because it may happen that you miss some important point of the meeting.
10: Show etiquette
Your patience is important in the video conferencing meeting. The same rules apply as when attending a “real” meeting: Don’t be late; don’t interrupt or speak when others are speaking; don’t get emotional. Introduce yourself the first time you speak State your positions or comments clearly and concisely — don’t ramble on or hog the floor, and don’t bring up issues that aren’t related to the agenda of the conference.
To appreciate the employees and to make them happy few companies understand that they need to have fun in their staffers at least sometimes. Management shows employees they are valued with dance parties, field trips, unexpected financial giveaways and lots of free food.
That is not a priority for many employers. But it should be. Many say they are fretting about how expensive it is to advertise, recruit and train new employees, not to mention the toll it takes on morale. They're racking their collective brains over how to attract and keep the best talent. It's become such a key issue because unemployment is low, and the supply of jobs is high. That adds up to lots of options for employees.
Throwing money at staffers isn't always the answer. Neither is throwing a party every few months. Having fun at work and creating a organized team is just one element. The most successful companies also realize flexibility, values, career development and providing meaningful experiences are also important elements to minimizing turnover. The interesting thing is that many of the companies that value having a good time usually incorporate those other elements too.
It’s important to creating a great working environment instead of spending lot of money. It's an investment, and you can't figure out a return on investment on that event, but as long as we're, it's worth every dime.
You have to touch the heart of what is considered fun for the people that work for you. Companies that are good at retention are engaging people. They hire people who fit in there. The ones that are good at it tend to be a bit odd. They do things that are different.
Throwing money at people will only work for a little while. Pick people who fit into the organization both professionally and personality-wise; form small work teams that have their own authority and if you get a good result you get a bonus. He also allocates a "fun budget" for each team. They've used it for all sorts of activities including tubing, laser tag and videogames.
The next step is to advertise the culture of the company. Use those events as a way to recruit talent. The best thing to do if you're a company is make it clear what you have to offer. That way, when a candidate receives two job offers, and everything else is equal, they might go to the company that has a culture similar to theirs.
After all, bosses want employees to look forward to coming to work every day.
Some companies are realizing that their call center staffing processes are not only inefficient, they are also very costly. Many are seeking an alternative and are turning to RPO (Recruitment Process Outsourcing) as an option. Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) is a growing trend in which companies outsource all or part of their hiring functions to find better-quality people to staff your call center. RPO can be used successfully to fulfill a range of hiring needs for organizations; and is particularly well suited to call centers Specifically, RPO delivers benefits for call center operations that include sourcing higher-quality candidates, improving fill ratios and “show rates”, decreasing turn-over, and reducing hiring costs.
Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) is a form of business process outsourcing (BPO) when an employer outsourcers or transfers all or part of the staffing process to an external service provider.
An RPO engagement can be structured in one of three ways depending on the needs of the company: Enterprise, Selective or Project RPO.
In Enterprise RPO, the partner manages the entire process across all skill categories and all locations. Selective RPO involves managing a subset of locations or a subset of recruiting processes, such as sourcing, screening, interview scheduling or offer letters.
In Project RPO, the RPO provider delivers hires for a one-time hiring project.
In all three scenarios, a dedicated RPO team works directly with the hiring manager to create a tailored program to meet the call center’s specific needs. The team can work on-site at the client’s locations, off-site in its own facility or a combination of the RPO Benefits
Organisations that partner with RPO specialists can realize a range of significant and sustained business benefits, all of which can be measured.
These benefits include:
Securing the best talent: Competition for the most talented individuals is increasing. Organizations need to secure the best people quickly and efficiently to help them build competitive capability.
Cutting recruitment costs: By transforming processes, utilizing best practice, and replacing a fixed cost base with a variable charging structure, RPO can significantly reduce the cost of recruitment.
Removing the administrative burden: RPO providers take on the burden of operational recruitment activities, making organizations free to focus on value-creating and strategic activities.
Delivering higher quality services: There are many stakeholders in a recruitment process; through improving processes and measuring experience and outcome, RPO providers can demonstrate highest quality services.
Mitigating operational risks: Risks come in many forms, and the expert knowledge of an RPO specialist can help organizations mitigate the risks associated with an inability to scale their business operationally to meet changing market demands, and the risks of non-compliance to legislative and regulatory change.
The more sophisticated and experienced RPO providers will also have a system of “forward-looking” analytics to ensure that hiring goals will be met for each “hiring class.” This predictive process analyzes how many candidates are in the pipeline.
How to hire an RPO provider: If you think an RPO partner could measurably improve the quality of your call center hires while containing costs, research several firms and choose carefully. The field is expanding quickly but there is a wide range of experience, knowledge and track record of success/failure. Specifically, you may want to ask potential providers some key questions, including:
How many RPO clients do you have?
How many hires do you support annually?
What experience do you have with call centers? And what types of call centers?
What percentage of your clients is reference able?
Are your recruiters dedicated to one client or do they work on multiple clients at the same time?
Do you have the flexibility to scale up and down as my needs change?
What is your client renewal rate?
As call center recruiting, hiring and retention remains a challenge for many companies, RPO is emerging as an important option. With turnover down. Significantly decreasing costs -- an increasing number of call center and human resources professionals have embraced RPO as an innovative strategy and a smart business decision.
While call centers have evolved into multi-channel contact centers with various initiatives and technologies, telemarketing is still a basic concept within many of these centers. For those conducting outbound calling, there are certain "basics" that never change, and if followed can help to generate successful practices.
One of the first things to consider when designing a call center that will perform telemarketing services is the design. This is not to say the design of the building, but the design of the center. Will it be a traditional brick and mortar building or will it be a virtual center supporting home-based agents? Will it be onshore, near shore or offshore? And, will it only conduct outbound calls? Clearly defining the design of the call center helps to determine the correct approach to other elements within the center.
Next, the center must consider its most important asset – its agents. The center must be able to clearly define the type of individual they are looking for to fill the role of the agent; the duties that will be assigned to the agent; and what tools the call center will provide to ensure that the agent is able to perform his or her job well. The call center also needs to consider technology. Whether it is viewed as a blessing or a curse, technology is now essential for the call center. It can help to reduce time and costs, while improving productivity and customer service.
Metrics are very important in the call center arena. A complete understanding of practical metrics and how they are effective is essential to success. The center must also be able to explain the practicality of the offer and the demographics of the market that it is being marketed to in order to be effective. Costs are also an important consideration in the call center. The organization must be able to figure its return on investment, which is easily the most important aspect. It must also know its telemarketing costs, quality assurance practices, and effective reporting.
Without clear and close attention to these aspects, the telemarketing practices could easily get out of control and cost the organization more than the benefits they are established to provide. Such a contradiction can also lead to unhappy customers that eventually lead to the loss of business.
Author: Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMC
Source: Telemarketing Basics Can Lead to Call Center Success
It is a continuous thought priority to all call centers to know how they can save money in their contact centers and throughout their operations.
Few tips which is step by step to go for the cost reducing
Make a Team: Make a team which will do the review. Because call centers efforts are heading for at customer service, process improvement and potential cost reduction, form a team that can bring different disciplines to the process. Also include general training and quality training, human resources, center scheduling, telecom traffic, IT, marketing, and returns and replacement if all of these areas are within responsibilities.
Take the opinions and input of all of team members. Challenge them to assess how things could be done differently, and make them answer the question, “How can costs are reduced without lowering the standard of customer service?” These meeting we can keep in the starting of the year to set up the target.
Marks the Achievements: By marking your achievement, it will be indicator to know the performance measures up against set standards and plans. The major achievements include contacts per hour; service level; abandon rate; attrition/turnover rate; call-handle time; talk time; after-call work time; contact-to-order ratio; transaction volumes for Internet, phone and mail; non-phone volumes and others.
Review: Labor’s cost, quality and availability is becoming an issue for many call centers, particularly in seasonal businesses where the selling curve is more compressed. Review advertising media costs and results, and exchange information with other human resource departments. Review pre-hiring testing, employee selection criteria and practices. By review process we can know the possible improvements and cost reductions for the process. It will help us to know more about a place for temporary agencies rather than relying completely on in-house hiring.
Revenue Generation. As part of their mission, many contact centers are charged with becoming revenue centers in addition to taking orders and providing customer service. By revenue generation reports we can show about success with cross-selling, up-selling, outbound selling and increasing the company’s average orders. It will be really help full for the cost saving in call centers.
In today’s contact center, where the overwhelming majority of ongoing expense is related to staffing, optimizing the personnel resource is critical. Getting the “just right” number of staff in place to answer incoming calls, place outbound calls, respond to emails, and handle web contacts. is critical to call center success and profitability. Over staffing results in spending needless dollars for additional staff, while under staffing will affect service and have a detrimental effect on morale and contribute to staff turnover.
Call center managers have a wealth of performance and service statistics available to them from the ACD and other contact center technologies. Call volume, time-of-day call distribution, and contact handle times are now available, along with much information about individual and team productivity. All this information can be used to estimate future call volumes, predict how many staff will be required to handle the contacts, and determine schedules that best match the workforce to the contact workload.
The Need Workforce management tools: The changing mix of contact volume, coupled with the growing complexity of staff scheduling (longer operating hours, weekend shifts, mixture of full- and part-time staff, etc.) make the problem of workforce management ideally suited for the computer. Workforce management (WFM) software, combined with the historical and real-time statistics of the ACD, is an essential tool for today’s professionally managed call center.
Workforce management tools are used to keep sales and customer call center resources happy. I am familiar with two separate areas where this is most often used:
1. Sales force incentive management – assuring that sales and business goals are aligned and that sales staff are properly motivated to deliver the right results and avoid compensation issues and disputes.
2. Call center staff optimization – assuring that resources are properly managed and scheduled to deliver superior customer service, provide incentive, track progress and increase retention.
The basic functions associated with a workforce management software system are as follows:
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Call volume forecasting. A WFM system uses historical and current call information from the ACD and other contact center systems to predict future call volume based on overall calling trends, seasonal factors, and other predictable calling patterns. Forecasts are automatically updated with new information about contact patterns through a direct interface with contact center systems such as the ACD, outbound dialer, or email/fax servers.
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Staffing calculations. A telephone traffic engineering technique is used to determine the required number of staff based on the forecast workload for incoming calls. This technique, called Erlang C, takes into account the random arrival of calls into the center, as well as the “hold for the first agent” queuing that typically takes place. Other mathematical models are used to factor in the sequential workload of emails and/or outbound calling.
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Staff scheduling. “Bodies in chairs” staff requirements along with non-productive time estimates (for breaks, trainings, meetings, etc.) are used to determine a schedule requirement for each half-hour or quarter-hour period. A set of optimal schedules is then created based on these requirements and a call center’s unique scheduling rules and constraints. These schedules are then assigned to staff based shift bid rules and employee preferences.
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Day-to-day performance tracking. Perhaps the most critical component of a workforce management system is the intra-day comparison of actual performance against the plan. Call center management must actively compare actual workload by half-hour to the forecast, and actual number of staff on the phones to the schedule plan. The call center manager needs to see these changes as they are happening, in order to make necessary adjustments to meet service goals.
Cost Justifying Workforce Management Tools
Not all call centers need an automated system to accomplish workforce management tasks. Need is a function of size and operating complexity. Generally call centers with more than 30 agents with an increasingly complex scheduling environment (round-the- clock operations or an increasing volume of emails/faxes, for example) can cost justify automating these functions.
An automated workforce management system generally produces measurable improvements in the following areas:
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More efficient scheduling. The savings associated with more efficient scheduling can take many forms, including reduced overall staff hours, reduced need for overtime, and identification of overstaffed periods to offer time off without pay. Workforce management system users generally experience a minimum reduction of staff hours of 2 % and average potential is in the 5 – 10% range.
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Automation of workforce management tasks. Depending on how often forecasting and scheduling tasks take place and to what degree they are currently automated, there is a wide range of potential savings in staff time by automating these tasks with a full-featured workforce management system. It is generally expected that at least 25% of administrative and managerial time currently devoted to the manual performance of these tasks can be saved.
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Reduction in workforce shrinkage. Many hours of staff time are lost in most call centers due to excessive amounts of non-productive time (time spent not handling calls). An automated workforce management system can provide historical and real- time information on schedule adherence and schedule exceptions for better management and control of staff, reducing workforce shrinkage by 2-5% in most call centers.
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Reduction in network costs. By creating a set of schedules that minimizes under staffing as well as over staffing, implementing workforce management results in a more consistent level of service to callers and may reduce queue time and toll-free network costs.
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Increased revenues. For call centers that realize revenue by answering calls (catalogs, reservations centers, etc.), workforce management automation can help reduce queue times and improve service, thereby reducing the number of abandons and increasing the number of revenue calls completed.
(To determine an estimated payback period, take the estimated savings from Items 1-5 above for estimated annual savings or divide by 12 for an estimated monthly savings in the first year of implementation. The payback period on such a system can be calculated by dividing the one-time purchase price by the average monthly savings.)
In addition to these measurable cost savings, there are many intangible benefits. Perhaps the biggest of these is the addition of a sophisticated “what-if” planning capability that allows management to forecast and plan staff needs for the short term to respond to unexpected changes, as well as long-term budgeting and planning.
Selection Guidelines
Organizations considering a workforce management purchase should heed the following guidelines:
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Cast a large net. Invite all qualified vendors to present their products. Insist on a detailed demonstration and ask lots of questions about how the package would work in meeting your center’s specific mode of operation
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Talk to others that have done it. At a minimum, talk to four or five other organizations similar to yours (in size, type of operation, ACD brand) that have implemented a system.
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Consider the support capabilities of each vendor. Workforce management software systems are not simple, off-the-shelf packages.
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Don’t suffer “sticker shock”. Prices for workforce management systems cover a wide range, depending on whether you are considering a single module, or a comprehensive integrated system. Some of the more comprehensive packages may seem expensive, but don’t lose sight of the fact that each agent employee may have a fully burdened cost of anywhere from $30,000 - $50,000 annually. Saving just a couple of employees’ labor expenses can quickly justify the most expensive package.
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Plan for a successful implementation. During the purchase process, it is critical to communicate and motivate everyone in the center to participate in the process. While implementing workforce management results in a more efficient operation and a less stressful environment in the long run, it is important to realize that such an implementation may mean a cultural change for agents, supervisors, and management in the short term.
Accomplishing Profitability and Service Objectives
Whether large or small, the objective of every contact center is to accomplish the most work at the highest level of service at the lowest cost. This objective is achieved through workforce management. The larger the workforce, the more complex the task, and the more suited the problem is for automation.
Not only do automated systems save substantial management and clerical time, but they can also reduce personnel costs dramatically by optimizing the staffing resource. Benefits include a more precise forecast of future call volumes showing peaks and valleys of calls, exact determination of staff needed for each period minimizing over staffing and under staffing, and the ability to monitor call center performance and make adjustments as needed within the day. The end result is the ability to handle more calls at a better level of service to the caller at a reduced cost.
February, 2008
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