Call Center Time Management – If you ask your call center team leaders/supervisors about their most important and primary duties, they would generally reply as “Ensuring the motivation of our agents”, “Responding to our agents’ questions and meeting their needs”, and “Taking calls when necessary.” No doubt, these are very important but the people who are the direct managers of call center agents (Team Leaders / Authorized Officers / Supervisors) have another role that is as important as the roles mentioned above. “The Real Time Management” Call Center Time Management means to follow-up the incidents that are going on at your call center at that very moment, and when the parameters go out of your expectations, to intervene in that situation according to your previously made plan.Carrying out a management in real time can be likened to a pilot’s use of a plane. The pilot and his/her co-pilot get through many planning and controlling stages (fuel status, flight plans, passenger and load distribution etc.) before they take off. Similarly, call centers also have to get through many planning stages before they start working (in other words, before they start taking the calls). Making correct workload forecasts with half-an-hour-time intervals, thus, calculating the human resource and making correct shift plans constitute the foundation of these stages. We made the plans and controls. Now it’s time to fly (in other words, it’s time to take calls at the call center). Pilots generally take the plane on autopilot mode after they make the plane take off and reach a certain altitude. Pilots (fortunately) do not leave the plane. Pilots wait in the plane on the watch and on the alert to intervene in the case of an extraordinary situation. Though not always, pilots sure check the relevant data (altimeter, speed etc.) from time to time in order to make sure that their planes fly in accordance with their expectations. A similar situation also occurs at call centers. After the calls start to come to the call center, team leaders do not leave their places. Team leaders must constantly keep an eye on the “relevant data.” They follow the data. They must intervene in case of an extraordinary situation (such as more instant calls than expected, less number of employees coming to work than expected, break-time discordance, sudden sick leaves etc.). Just like how pilots cancel the autopilot mode in order to intervene in a sudden problem in the plane. In that kind of a case, pilots immediately intervene in the situation (for example, sudden loss of altitude) by following “their pre-defined plans and their repeated actions that they carried out for hundreds of times before” (by not doing whatever they want to do!) and perhaps by doing so they save hundreds of lives. During the intervention, they check some data within the scope of a certain logic and priority and interpret them right away. First, they probably check the altimeter dial which shows how distant they are from the ground and at the same time they also check other data including their speed and suchlike. Similarly, call center team leaders must check certain data in real time and interpret them before they take the relevant measures in accordance with their previously made plan (just like how the pilots do, in other words, not like just how they want to do)All your call center team leaders and managers must similarly interpret the data in real time and together take the same actions within the scope of their interpreted data. To this end, documenting what measures to take in a crisis situation and turning it into a procedure will naturally make things much easier for you during a crisis. It is of great importance that everyone (all team leaders) take the same actions (for example, canceling the break-times, taking calls despite being a team leader etc.) at the same time. When there is no written and agreed plan available, of course still favorable actions will be taken but as they will be taken unsystematically they won’t lead to the expected result. As a result, there is one important thing at call centers that should not be forgotten: The first expectation of our customers is that we are reachable. You won’t be reachable even if you have the right number of agents as long as you don’t make sure that those agents are “in the right place at the right time”. This can only be possible with an efficient and continuous real-time management.
10 CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES OF SUCCESSFUL CALL CENTERS
*They maximize the call center’s strategic value in the company
*They take the necessary budget
*They create a positive atmosphere
*They correctly plan their customers’ reaching strategy
*They put their customers at the core of their business
*They focus on quality and constantly improve their work and processes
*They search for optimization and productivity
*They well address the changing demands (they well interpret the company progress)
*They are open to innovations, they try out new things
*They are good and balanced in every aspect
This article was taken from the article called The Real Time Management at Call Center available at the address alphoken.com.