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Improve Contact Center Productivity without Losing Quality

by Carl Noblitt, VP Account Management, AireSpring - December 2, 2014

Improve Contact Center Productivity without Losing Quality
By Carl Noblitt, VP Account Management, AireSpring,
carl.noblitt@airespring.com


One of the most important challenges for a contact center is improving the level of agent productivity while keeping a high standard of service. Every customer interaction requires attention, but it becomes difficult to keep up as communications spread to multiple channels. Eventually, contact centers find themselves stuck in the unenviable positions of either not being able to respond to every single customer and lead or having to lower the level of service to get through every interaction in a timely fashion. However, these are better options out there. By employing best practices alongside the right software platform, a contact center can successfully improve both agent productivity and the quality of service.

Here are five ways in which a contact center solution can improve productivity:


1. Allow skilled agents to multi-task

Veteran or skilled agents are capable of handling multiple interactions simultaneously and there’s no reason to hold them back to just one. In a multi-channel environment, a skilled agent could be on a phone call and responding to several chats at once. While not all agents will start at this level to begin with, multi-tasking is a good way to maximize productivity by taking advantage of the abilities of your advanced agents.

2. Use a blended queue to handle multi-channel interactions

It used to be that all interactions between a call center and customers took place over the phone. While phone calls are still the main form of interaction for many customers, the communication channels available have grown to include email, chat, social media, and more. There is a double challenge in not just handling all these different channels, but handling them with a consistent level of service. A contact center platform that provides a blended queue allows the same agents to handle to all interactions and provide faster response times without having to manually move between channels.

3. Monitor agent performance

A crucial part of managing productivity is keeping track of how your agents are performing in real-time. It is important to know time spent idle, response rates, waiting time for calls to reach an agent, and more so that you can see where your call center is succeeding and where there is room for improvement. Supervisors need to be able to drill down into individual agent and performance statistics to get a clearer view of the overall organization.

4. Employ remote agents for more flexibility

Traditionally, call centers employed full-time agents all working under one roof. However, contact centers are now exploring the alternative of using part-time agents who are working remotely. Not only does using remote agents eliminate a lot of the overhead costs of running a call center, but it also offers more flexibility when it comes to adapting to sudden changes in call volume. You can quickly bring in more agents when you need them during peak times to keep a high level of customer service, without having the cost of more full-time employees.

5. Publicize Productivity

Perhaps the simplest way to improve productivity is to make the data visible so agents are informed of the contact center’s current status. A wallboard can accomplish this by showing real-time metrics such as longest call waiting time and the breakdown of interactions per channel. This data helps increase productivity by putting a spotlight on agent activity and can also be combined with goals and incentives to further encourage and reward high performing agents.


To successfully implement these strategies, the ideal solution is to turn to a cloud hosted contact center platform. AireContact provides cloud contact center software that delivers a blended solution allowing for agent multi-tasking and multi-channel coverage, including social media. Features such as real-time reporting and wallboard give you the insight you need to improve productivity without sacrificing the quality of the service you provide to customers.

 
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