Your call centre employees have hard jobs. Each day, they’re required to get on the phones and make cold calls – or accept incoming calls – and speak to people they’ve never met before. However, their jobs entail that they speak to their leads and customers almost as if they were best friends. Tone, inflection and wording are all huge. Putting forth an equal combination of friendliness and professionalism is of major importance to any call centre worker.
How can you ensure your phone agents are performing at their best? Here are four ideas:
1. Start each day with a fun morning meeting. If you want your phone agents to sound happy and energetic on the phone, you’d better inject some energy into them right as the day starts. Your morning meetings should certainly include objectives for the day that include sales targets and call volume numbers. However, the meetings should also be light and enjoyable. It’s your job to provide your team with the motivation they need to be as productive as possible.
2. Have your phone agents monitor each other. This is usually a training tactic used for new hires. Have them monitor another employee so they can get an understanding of how to do the job. That’s the general point, is it not? But, who says this practice should be exclusive to new hires? Give your phone agents opportunities to monitor their peers so that they can share ideas for best practices and pass along helpful advice when necessary.
3. Have your phone agents listen to their own calls. It’s truly difficult to know what you sound like when you’re on the phone. That is, of course, until you actually hear yourself on the phone. Allowing your phone agents to listen to recordings of their own calls gives them opportunities to adjust and rethink some of their practices. By monitoring themselves, they will be able to better recall the changes they need to make in order to improve their performances.
4. Provide ample feedback. Earlier, we mentioned that call centre employees have hard jobs. And that includes your job too! As demanding as the phone agent position is, your role as a call centre manager requires a lot of you. Naturally, it’s your responsibility to oversee the performances of a large group of people. It’s also your job to provide feedback to each and every member of your team.
Your feedback includes positive reinforcements. Never shy away from offering a “job well done” to an associate who has met and exceeded expectations. Public acknowledgements, in fact, will help to encourage both the honoured associate and his/her co-workers to work that much harder. As well, your feedback will obviously include some constructive criticism. Knowing how to communicate your concerns without deflating one’s confidence is of paramount importance.
At MeloTel, we offer the fantastic Monitor/Whisper Control Panel. It has proven to be a revolutionary tool in the world of call monitoring. The “monitor” portion of the service enables you to listen in to the phone calls your agents are on live and as they happen. The “whisper” component allows you to subtly provide information to your phone rep without the party on the other line hearing you.
That way, you’re able to offer feedback that can improve performance on the spot! If the calls need to be accelerated, the Monitor/Whisper Control Panel also allows you to “barge in” on the calls to take them over. This speeds up the process of having to get a supervisor on the phone. All in all, the service greatly assists call centres in improving both phone agent productivity and overall customer satisfaction!
For more information about Monitor/Whisper Control Panel, please don’t hesitate to contact us at 1-888-MELOTEL or use the Live Chat feature on our website!
