Top 10 issues facing internal Call Centers

[Andrew Rzepczynski]

I'm looking for a comprehensive list of top issues facing internal call centers.

[Jessica K Meiners]

The top issues facing the various call centers I have had the privilege of working with have been:

1. Employee Morale
2. Turnover
3. Training
4. Attendance
5. Product Information Accessibility
6. Shortening Call Times
7. 1st Call Resolution
8. Gathering Feedback and Best Practices from Call Center Employees

[Andrew Rzepczynski]

Thank you Jessica. Have these been all internal call centers or outsourced ones? Can you further elaborate on #'s 5 and 8? What were the specifics of the challenge?

[Jessica K Meiners]

These have been internal call centers. Our biggest challenge with our outsourced call centers has typically been the interchange of information and communication between the internal and outsourced contact center. It is a challenge to ensure that both locations are on the same page and are giving out the exact same information to the customers. It is also a challenge to ensure that both locations are following the same policies and procedures and are updating the systems in the same manner.

#5 - Product Information Accessibility: Especially with technical products, it is essential that the customer service representatives have access to all of the relevant information for the products. It is therefore incumbent upon the company to make this necessary information readily accessible to the CSR's. We are constantly trying to find new ways/systems to get this information to the CSR's in an easy-to-navigate format, which can be accessed quickly while on the phone with the customer. There are so many different types of information that each CSR will need to access during one phone call, that quite a few different systems are necessary. The information is predominantly on-line, with some additional printed resources for quick reference.

#8 - The call center employees are our best resource for information on what the customers want, what the major problem areas are with the products, and where possible areas for growth with our systems can be found. We have discovered that tapping into this fantastic resource of front line information has really caused us to be able to develop new processes and systems to make us more efficient, as well as more effective with our strategies. The challenge here is to make sure that through various processes and programs, we are gathering and utilizing this essential information from our CSR's and making the necessary changes to cause our organization to consistently adapt to a constantly evolving market place in order to provide exceptional customer service in the most efficient manner.

[Andrew Rzepczynski]

It makes perfect sense. Is your company using any type of a interactive knowledge base? These have been proven to be very successful in gathering and managing access to verified/good information.

[Jessica K Meiners]

We do use quite a few of these systems, each specifically customized to the type of information being utilized. The inconsistency we have seen at times is typically the result of human error, usually due to a lack of training. We watch for these types of inconsistencies to find the areas where a particular type of training may be lacking.

[Ray Klostermann]

Good Morning. We address each and every one of these in a proactive way.. Our Call Centers do not suppport 1,000's of agents, rather we focus on the Mirco Service Center space between 10 and 100 agents. Each program is custom tailored and custom managed to meet our clients objectives and progressive service expectations. Our team takes an ownership approach to each and every client. It's much different managing a smaller group vs 1,000's of agents where one individual agent has less of an overall impact on satisfaction levels and similar.

I would be interested in discussing this further if you like.

Best,

Ray Klostermann
VP, Centris Information Services
[e-mail]

[Andrew Rzepczynski]

Ray, I'd be interested in further conversation on this subject. We can take it out of this forum, email me at [e-mail] and we can engage.

Andrew Rzepczynski
EVP - ICON Business Solutions

[Rick Austin]

To add to this list"

-Frequent shift bids are not conducive to work/life balance.
-Flat org chart tends not to allow for much advancement potential.
-Getting quality candidate with both customer skills and computer literacy.
-Keep up with the costs of technology advancement.
-Load balancing between centers.
-Call spike and lull management.

[John McCoy]

Jessica and Rick have provided a very comprehensive set of issues. What strikes me is that they are the same issues I was concerned about 10 years ago!

Here's a question: have we made no progress or are we just always striving to be better?

This has caused me to start thinking about permanent changes that could help. I can think of quite a few but they are all costly. There are some that would take very little capital to implement but would distract employees from their work. Following that thought, I wonder if some planned distraction would actually make employees more productive. What are your thoughts?