How to Be a More Effective Contact Center Manager

“Effective contact center management means having the right people doing the right things at the right time – it’s that simple,” Mark Edwards, director of products and services at technology company Intuate Group, claims.

In reality, of course, managing a contact center is a major challenge. Call center leaders must contend with emerging technologies, rising customer expectations, strict targets and high levels of staff churn.

To be an effective call center manager, customer feedback, performance data, knowledge of the inner workings of the center, and the strengths and weaknesses of the staff, must all be balanced to provide the best possible service.

Work Force Management

Work Force Management (WFM) is described by Sabio as being the “first stage of broader Employee Optimisation and Customer Management initiatives.”

The system involves accurately forecasting the future needs of the contact center and scheduling operations accordingly in an effort to cut “unproductive” time.

The company produced ten guiding principles it claims are needed to make any WFM project a triumph.

“Knowledge erosion is perhaps the biggest threat to longer term WFM success,” Sabio explained, recommending regular training to focus on both best practice and keeping skills up to date.

WFM is not an instant solution, but rather an ongoing process which must be monitored and refined.

“Ensure that you’re always monitoring data accuracy from your various sources at regular intervals, and make sure you incorporate them into your calibration process,” Sabio explained.

WFM does not have to the restricted to front office functions either, but can be deployed within outbound centres and back office to produce effects which can be felt across the whole organization.

Engaging Employees

Ensuring employees are engaged is a key quality of an effective contact center manager.

WFM performance should not be kept within a limited team. Publishing the results will provide “a great way of sharing success and challenges with the wider organisation,” while ensuring other key decision makers are always kept within the loop.

Members of staff can see direct benefits from some aspects of workforce management, such as the automation of holiday requests, which Sabio said are “highly valued by agents”, as well as being valuable in cutting the amount of time spent on administration.

Targets are an important feature of WFM, but if employees are not fully engaged then these can have a detrimental effect. Staff at the Jobcentre call centers in the UK went on high profile strikes in January 2011 over their working conditions, which they said was too target driven and was leading to sickness and absences.

When implemented well however, WFM can have a positive impact on virtually all aspects of the contact center.

Thames Water, for example, deployed WFM technology to great effect. Annual savings of £250,000 and improved customer satisfaction scores were achieved through optimised scheduling, a reduction in absences, and doubling forecasting activities.

Moving Beyond WFM

WFM only forms part of being an effective contact center manager. Leaders must also continue to engage with staff and customers on a day-to-day basis while such activities are taking place.

Agents will not respond to assurances changes are being made behind the scenes, they must personally feel their working day is being improved.

“It is often the line manager who is predominantly responsible for the mood of the team, and an effective, encouraging, engaging manager can motivate the team to produce excellent results even when times are difficult,” Dilys Robinson, principal research fellow at the Institute for Employment Studies, said.

As consumers increasingly look to multiple channels to interact with companies, contact center managers must also ensure they’re providing a consistent service across all these platforms.

Research by BT and Avaya found half of consumers believe the queries they contact a firm with are becoming more complex, as they initially search for answers online, however 69 percent felt reps were in a rush to get them off the phone.

“By connecting these agents with the latest social media and unified communications tools, contact centres can share their knowledge across multiple sites — including homeworkers — to create networked experts’ who are much more able to satisfy enquires from increasingly demanding customers,” Andrew Small, global head of customer relationship management at BT Global Services, said.