According to Time Doctor, 50% of customers have higher expectations for customer support today than the previous years. It goes to show that the need for reliable support is growing. However, companies seemed to be coming up short with it because only 26% of consumers had positive feedback compared to the 49% who had otherwise.
The current statistics in contact centers call for executives and managers who can manage day-to-day activities efficiently and improve the overall operations. They need to ensure that agents provide the best experience to customers, are abreast of the latest technology, and meet the call center’s objectives.
The key to a thriving contact center lies at the hands of the call center managers. Their working environment is highly stressful, so the challenge is making the employees work productively and handle the pressure. Below are some of the things a call center manager should do to be successful in the field.
How Does an Excellent Contact Center Manager Works
Contact center management includes training, measuring, and incentivizing your agents to deliver a positive customer experience. Coaching and finding effective ways to understand and learn their strengths and weaknesses and engaging with diverse content for fast and lasting learning are some of the manager’s duties.
The industry is undeniably stressful, so managers should cultivate a positive working atmosphere, motivate their team to succeed, and know best practices. Their job does not end there because they also need to provide tools to their agents to ensure on-time support and quality customer service.
Excellent contact center managers assist their team members in identifying their milestones and chart their career paths. Here are some points to check into to know if your contact center executives know the best.
1. They Talk to the Support Agents
The call center agents serve as the mouth and ears of your company. They are on the front line, placing them in the best position to give feedback on things essential to customers, colleagues, and themselves. They can also tell what solutions are working and those that are not.
Agents are invaluable research tools and can tell the points of improvements in contact centers, so managers should reach out to them to make them feel heard and that their opinions matter. With this, they will think that they have a vital role in the organization.
2. They Act as a True Leader
Take note that contact center executives are team leaders, and they only prove their purpose when they can lead their entire team towards the company’s objectives.
Their job is more than just signing timesheets and arranging work schedules. They also need to build trust with their team, boost morale, and appreciate their unique traits and efforts. Managers, too, should provide coaching, development, advice, and support to guide them to success.
A short round-up meeting daily to get the team member hyped can make a difference in their performance.
3. They Make Contact Centers a Conducive Workplace
The satisfaction and happiness of employees are essential in every organization. Managers should check up on their members because it is hard to hide negative emotions over the phone. Moreover, happy agents are contagious and can improve the workplace environment and the customer experience.
Motivating staff and providing positive and welcoming feedback helps in agent retention and encourages them to be more efficient and productive. It is also proven that happy workers tend to leave their companies less frequently.
4. They Keep with the Latest News and Technology
Companies can quickly adapt to legacy methods and technology. However, managers should not get too attached to a single way of handling things and should test their systems daily.
When it comes to this, start-ups have the edge as they have the flexibility. They can quickly pivot to new solutions that enable them to enjoy the benefits that new technologies may bring before their competitors.
Tuning into the technology around your industry will allow managers to notice right away when something is not working as well as it could before. Because of this, they can address it sooner than their competitors.
Managers should not be afraid of finding new solutions and methods through experimenting. Failure is always part of the process and knowing things that will not work is just as important as understanding those that will.
Whether it is about new workforce management techniques or computer software, contact center managers should stay abreast of the technological advancements and latest trends.
5. They Review the Contact Center’s Data
Contact centers can collect various information that makes them a vital part of business operations because of the huge amount of data passing through them.
Managers should take advantage of the information they collect. They can use it to track the contact center’s KPI— average handle time, first call resolution rate, average hold time, agent satisfaction, and CSat or NPS score. These KPIs will help give them insights into the company’s performance.
Using these five metrics will also enable them to make staffing calls on the spot and improvements later on.
Conclusion
Contact center managers are the backbone of any successful customer service operation. They need to be able to identify their team’s strengths and weaknesses, provide on-time support for customers, and motivate agents to succeed.
Additionally, they should know best practices in order to increase agent retention rates by offering tools that make work manageable while still being enjoyable. The challenge here is to execute the five points listed above to lead their company towards success.