4 Ways to Increase Productivity in Your Call Center

Call centers are usually considered cost centers, evaluated primarily based on the results they produce. Particularly, the metric- cost per contact: it measures the expense associated with each individual customer interaction. Given how competitive and demanding the industry can be, it’s one of the trickiest environments to manage. That’s why maintaining high productivity, both for […]

Given how competitive and demanding the industry can be, it’s one of the trickiest environments to manage. That’s why maintaining high productivity, both for the call center as a whole and for individual agents, can be challenging. But with the right approach and a bit of effort, managers can find ways to keep things running smooth and efficient.

If your call center isn’t performing as it should, and you want to enhance its performance, this guide can help you get on the right track. We have compiled our tips and tricks to enhance call center agent performance, which you can use to boost productivity and achieve agent performance goals.

How to Achieve Peak Productivity in Your Call Center

As a call center manager, are you finding it hard to keep your team productive? Are your agents struggling to help customers, and do you often have to step in to solve issues they can’t handle? You’re in the right spot. Here’s how to increase productivity in call centers and ensure your team performs at its best.

1. Set Goals and Motivate Employees

Setting goals helps call center agents stay focused and motivated throughout their shifts. You can set specific targets, such as achieving high customer satisfaction scores or resolving issues within a set time, to give agents clear objectives to work towards. Well-designed goals should be motivating but challenging enough to create a sense of accomplishment when they hit them.

To keep agents even more motivated, you can offer incentives such as gift cards, bonuses, or extra time off for agents who meet or exceed their goals. These rewards provide an extra push and make the workday more rewarding.

2. Provide Training and Resources

Average handle time has dropped due to improved training and technology. This shows that the time it takes to handle each customer interaction has decreased because of improved agent training and advanced technology.

Here are more reasons why providing training programs and adequate resources to your agents is important for their productivity:

Access to resources: Agents should have quick access to resources like manuals, information databases, and scripts. These tools help them find answers to customer questions fast, so they don’t have to search for long. This speeds up response and talk times and reduces frustration for both agents and customers.
Regular training: Ongoing training is important for keeping agents updated with the latest policies, procedures, products, and services. Regular training sessions ensure that agents are knowledgeable about any new updates or changes, which helps them provide accurate and current information to customers.
Increased confidence: When agents have access to comprehensive resources and are well-trained, they feel more confident in assisting customers. This confidence translates into better service and a more positive customer experience.

3. Monitor Performance

Monitoring agent performance involves tracking different measures to ensure that agents are working efficiently and delivering quality service. Key metrics include:

Average Handle Time (AHT): This tells you how long it takes for an agent to complete a call from start to finish. Shorter times can show efficiency, but it’s important that the quality of service remains high.
Average Speed of Answer (ASA): This tracks how quickly agents answer calls. A lower ASA means customers get their calls answered faster, which can improve customer satisfaction.

By watching these numbers, managers can identify patterns and areas where agents may be struggling. For example, if AHT is higher than usual, it might mean that agents need additional training or resources to handle more calls.

You can also review recordings of customer calls and interactions to help you:

Identify training needs: Listening to calls allows managers to identify specific areas where agents may need extra training or support.
Recognize best practices: Managers can also see which agents are excelling and determine what strategies they use that could be shared with the rest of the team.
Address consistency issues: Consistent assessment of agent performance ensures that all of them maintain a high standard of service and follow company protocols, helping to provide a uniform customer experience.

Overall, by combining these methods—tracking performance metrics and reviewing call recordings—managers can better understand their team’s strengths and weaknesses. This understanding enables you to create effective training initiatives to further support the team.

4. Focus on Customer Satisfaction and Experience

The most important aspect is to prioritize customer satisfaction in every interaction. Making sure that customers are happy and content with their experience should always be the top priority.

When they have positive interactions with your company, they are more likely to become repeat customers and recommend your services to others. It’s important to note that call center agents should be not only knowledgeable and efficient but also friendly and empathetic. Make sure they are:

Friendly and helpful: Agents should greet customers warmly and be willing to assist with any inquiries or concerns. A friendly tone can significantly change how customers perceive the interaction.
Resolve issues quickly: More than 60 percent of customers think that quickly resolving issues is one of the most important parts of a great customer service experience.1 The faster agents can resolve a problem, the more satisfied the customer will be. Efficiency in handling calls reduces wait times and guarantees that customers’ needs are met.
Maintain a positive attitude: Agens should remain calm and positive even when they are dealing with difficult situations. A positive attitude can help de-escalate tense situations and leave customers with a good impression of the company.
Provide personalized service: Adding some personal touches, like using the customer’s name and understanding their history with the company, can make the interaction feel more special.

These practices lead to satisfied customers who need less follow-up support. This eases the workload for call center agents and helps them handle more calls while focusing on other important tasks.

EXPERIENCE THE DIFFERENCE OF UNINTERRUPTED PRODUCTIVITY WITH SALEM SOLUTIONS

We eliminate downtime by providing you with expertly matched, highly skilled agents. Our advanced solutions and support keep your team performing at their best without interruptions, allowing you to handle more calls and provide great customer service. Partner with Salem Solutions to maintain continuous productivity and achieve outstanding results. Contact us now to learn more!

Reference

Pavlovskaya, Elizaveta . “70 Powerful Customer Retention Statistics You Need to Know in 2021.” Semrush Blog, 16 Apr. 2021, www.semrush.com/blog/customer-retention-stats/.

Jule Doran
•
Posted on
January 11, 2023

Great Call Center Agent Qualities

A great call center agent is the backbone of any customer service team. The ability to listen, problem-solve, and remain calm under pressure is essential for success in a call center environment. But what makes a great call center agent? Let’s look into the six most important qualities that make up a fantastic customer service […]

Ability to Keep Calm Under Pressure

Working in a call center can be stressful. When customers are frustrated, it’s important that agents keep their cool and find solutions to help them. This can mean diffusing tense situations with professionalism, understanding, and patience.

Active Listening

Agents should be able to listen actively to what customers have to say before responding directly rather than jumping in with solutions right away. This skill helps agents stay focused on the conversation and ensures they respond directly with what customers need instead of guessing at solutions.

Problem Solving Skills

Being able to think on your feet is essential for any call center agent. Agents should be able to quickly assess problems and come up with potential solutions or next steps for customers so that issues are resolved as efficiently as possible.

Empathy

It’s important for agents to understand the emotions behind customer calls and respond accordingly. Empathy shows customers you care about their needs and can help put them at ease during difficult conversations.

Adaptability

Technology changes quickly so agents should be comfortable learning new systems and processes as needed in order to provide the best customer service possible. Being open-minded also helps when it comes to adapting customer service strategies based on feedback from clients or supervisors.

Product/Service Knowledge

Agents should have a solid understanding of products or services being offered so they can address questions or concerns accurately without having to research answers during a customer call.

Hiring great call center agents requires looking for individuals who possess the qualities discussed above—the ability keep calm under pressure, active listening skills, problem solving skills, empathy, adaptability, and knowledge of products/services being offered by your business or organization—in order to maximize efficiency when dealing with customers both over the phone and via other digital channels such as email or chat support platforms. Incorporating these qualities into your team will help ensure that your customer service representatives consistently provide excellent experiences for every one of your customers every time they interact with you!

Jule Doran
•
Posted on
January 3, 2023

Contact Center Trends for 2023

The last few years have seen unprecedented changes in how contact centers are staffed and managed. Many of the challenges faced in 2022 revolved around many agent’s desire to work from home. While a great benefit to offer employees, it comes with slew of challenges including agent engagement. How do we keep agents actively engaged […]

The last few years have seen unprecedented changes in how contact centers are staffed and managed.

Many of the challenges faced in 2022 revolved around many agent’s desire to work from home. While a great benefit to offer employees, it comes with slew of challenges including agent engagement. How do we keep agents actively engaged in what they’re doing and up to date on policy changes, etc.? All of this is necessary so the CSR can be the best rep for the end customer.

On the other hand, a remote workforce gives contact center operations significantly greater flexibility. Companies are not limited by space requirements and can easily have agents located in specific time zones to support their customers.

The great debate on remote work is not going anywhere as we head into 2023, but there are a few other contact center trends to look out for as well. Learn more from the experts at Salem below.

Trends and Predictions for 2023

Increased Utilization of AI

Many customer service professionals fear that AI will take over the role of CSR’s. At Salem, we believe the opposite. If used correctly, AI can help enhance the CSR’s role and make them more efficient. For example, AI can be used to detect the tone of a caller’s voice and route it to the appropriate CSR who will best handle the specific case.

AI allows organizations to take customer satisfaction to the next level. This helps your reps deliver quality customer service, reduce the service wait time, and make the customer journey smooth and hassle-free.

We believe we’ll see a lot more companies adopting AI in 2023 to help boost agent productivity.

Omnichannel Support

Although we’ve seen omnichannel support increase quite a bit over the past few years, its importance cannot be overstated.

Nearly all consumers own and use more than one device and have a multitude of communication channels. They want to be able to interact with a brand on social media, live chat, calls and SMS messages.

Omnichannel communication allows contact centers to help customers on multiple platforms. Using a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system enables your customer service teams to consolidate interactions in a centralized interface.

This way, they can easily access information on customer communications, regardless of the touchpoint they use, to connect with the customer.

We hope to see even more contact centers offering this in 2023!

Increased Skillsets for CSR’s

Agents need a comprehensive skill set and quick thinking to fully navigate contact center demands and deliver exceptional service. Beyond having good phone communication skills, agents must be able to navigate a lot of different computer applications and be resourceful.

With omnichannel support becoming more prevalent, agents also need to have good written communication for texting, email and live chat.

Aside from excellent communication skills, they’ll need analytical problem-solving skills, strong project management — and in some cases, technical training to understand the finer details of the product or service.

Agents Working from Home

In 2023, we’re predicting contact centers will still have a mostly remote workforce. In fact, about 90% of the contact center placements we’re doing at Salem are remote.

But if you are looking to have your CSR’s return to the office, it’s important to incentivize them and encourage the sense of camaraderie that only comes from an in-person role. It’s tough being a CSR, and that sense of shared community with colleagues can be extremely beneficial.

Conclusion

These call center trends can help you enhance agent productivity to address all customer concerns proactively. Adapting to the latest contact center trends will help your agents provide your customers with top-notch service and streamline your operations.

Jule Doran
•
Posted on
December 9, 2022

How Contact Centers Can Prepare for the Holiday Season

As the holidays rapidly approach, now is the time for contact centers to start preparing for the influx of customer calls and queries. The holiday season is typically one of the busiest times of year for businesses, and contact centers are no exception. By taking some time to prepare now, you can ensure that your contact center is ready to handle the increased volume of calls and deliver excellent customer service throughout the holidays. Here are a few tips on how to prepare your contact center for the holiday season:

Hire Seasonal Employees

Bringing on additional staff during the holiday season can help lighten the load for your regular employees and make sure that all calls are answered in a timely manner. Hiring seasonal employees also allows you to bring in people with relevant experience, such as retail customer service experience. Seasonal employees can be a great asset to your team and can help make sure that your contact center is running smoothly during this busy time.

Train Your Employees

If you’re bringing on new seasonal employees, make sure to provide them with adequate training so that they are prepared to handle customer queries. In addition to general training on your company’s products or services, you should also provide them with specific training on how to deal with holiday-related issues such as returns or exchanges. By investing in training for your seasonal employees, you can help ensure that they are providing excellent customer service throughout the holiday season.

Plan for Increased Call Volume

The holidays typically result in an increase in call volume for contact centers. To make sure that all calls are answered in a timely manner, consider implementing a call queue system or increasing the number of lines available. Planning ahead for increased call volume will help reduce wait times and make sure that your customers are able to reach someone when they need to.

Conclusion:

By following these tips, you can help ensure that your contact center is prepared for the holiday rush. Hiring seasonal employees, providing adequate training, and planning for increased call volume will all contribute to a successful holiday season for your business. Don’t wait until the last minute to start preparing—now is the time to get started so that you can focus on delivering excellent customer service throughout the holidays.

Jule Doran
•
Posted on
November 21, 2022

The Importance of Wellbeing and Health in the Workplace

The workplace can be a stressful environment. From tight deadlines to demanding bosses, there are many things that can cause our stress levels to increase during the workday. When we’re stressed, it can have an impact on our physical and mental health. That’s why it’s important for employers to create a workplace that promotes wellbeing […]

Reduce Employee Turnover

When employees are happy and healthy, they’re more likely to stay with the company. According to a study by the Society for Human Resource Management, the average cost of losing an employee is about $4,000. Not only does this impact your bottom line, but it can also disrupt your workflow as you scramble to find a replacement. Promoting wellbeing and health in the workplace can help reduce employee turnover and save your business money in the long run.

Increase Productivity

According to a study by Gallup, companies that invest in their employees’ wellbeing see a 5% boost in productivity. When employees are physically and mentally healthy, they’re able to focus more on their work and be productive members of the team. Additionally, happy employees are more engaged in their work and feel like they have a stake in the success of the company. This leads to higher quality work overall.

Attract Top Talent

In today’s competitive job market, top talent is hard to come by. When candidates are looking for a new job, they’re not just considering salary and benefits; they’re also looking at the company culture. A workplace that promotes wellbeing and health is more attractive to top talent than one that doesn’t. If you want to attract the best candidates, you need to create a workplace that makes them want to come to work every day.

Create a Positive Workplace Culture

A positive workplace culture is essential for any business that wants to be successful. When employees feel like they are valued and their wellbeing is a priority, they’re more likely to be engaged in their work and motivated to do their best. Additionally, a positive workplace culture can lead to increased employee retention and higher levels of productivity.

Conclusion:

Well being & health should never be considered a burden but an investment because if an organization’s most valuable resource is its people then it makes good business sense protect & nurture them however you can within reason & budget of course! insufficient resources devoted this area will undoubtedly have downstream effects on profitability via increased absenteeism presenteeism staff turnover decreased productivity.

Jule Doran
•
Posted on
November 9, 2022

7 Secrets to Outstanding Customer Service

Every business says that they provide great customer service, but what does that really mean? How can you be sure that your company is giving customers the best possible experience? Here are seven secrets to outstanding customer service. Always Be Willing to Help Your customer service team should always be willing to go above and […]

Always Be Willing to Help

Your customer service team should always be willing to go above and beyond to help solve a customer’s problem. Whether it’s providing additional information or walking them through a complicated process, your team should be patient and helpful at all times.

Follow Up Quickly and Effectively

When a customer contacts your company, they expect a quick response. Whether it’s an email, phone call, or live chat, your team should follow up as soon as possible. In addition, the follow-up should be professional and address the customer’s issue effectively.

Train Your Employees Regularly

Your employees are the face of your company, so it’s important to make sure they’re properly trained in both product knowledge and customer service skills. Set aside time for regular training sessions so that your team is always prepared to provide outstanding service.

Take Advantage of Technology

There are a number of different technologies that can help improve the customer service experience. Live chat, for example, allows customers to get answers to their questions in real-time without having to wait on hold or for a return phone call. Consider what technology would work best for your business and make sure your team is properly trained in how to use it.

Encourage Feedback from Customers

It can be difficult to identify areas where your customer service needs improvement if you don’t hear directly from customers. Make it easy for customers to provide feedback by including links on your website and in follow-up emails. You can also hand out surveys after each interaction or include a question about the customer service experience in your regular satisfaction surveys.

Address Complaints Quickly and Effectively

Even the best businesses will occasionally receive complaints from customers. It’s important to address these complaints quickly and effectively so that the issue doesn’t escalate. Start by apologizing for the inconvenience and then work with the customer to find a resolution that satisfies them. Remember, the goal is to turn a negative experience into a positive one.

Excellent customer service is essential for any business that wants to succeed. By following these seven secrets, you can be sure that your company is giving customers the best possible experience.

News

Industry news, advice and insights from our experts.

Top Staffing Trends for Federal Programs in 2026