Managing Your Call Center in an eCommerce-Centric World
Most businesses are continuing to experience a decrease in phone orders due to the increase in eCommerce orders. Now more than ever, it is important to manage your call center to reduce costs and maintain your high quality of customer service. Here are some suggestions to take into account as you ramp up for peak season as well as for post-season to make your call center more efficient and serve the customer better.
Perform a Post-season Assessment
After your busy season, determine what went really well, not so well, and where there were severe problems. Make an operational assessment of metrics, productivity, service levels, attrition, revenue generation and process improvements that should be considered.
Use Benchmarking
Set up internal benchmarks to track and reduce your cost per order, cost per call, cost per contact and cost per transaction. Translate these down to department and individual work standards.
Adjust Staffing Models
Labor is your single biggest call center expense. Take a good look at your current staffing ratio of full time, part time and flex time. Full time, if not kept productive, may be costly. Change the mix.
Improve Training
Make sure agents are trained in training sessions, not on the job! A solid, well thought-out training plan will pay great dividends, create shorter “ramp up” times for new hires and improve customer service.
Streamline with Quality Assurance
If you are not already, conduct a review of your processes from a QA point of view to drive out those that are not needed. Your Quality Team should have three main constituencies in mind: 1) the paying customer; 2) the company; and 3) the supervisors and agents for training and coaching.
Enforce Adherence
If you are suffering during scheduling intervals, make sure your personnel are in their seats at the right time.
Optimize Occupancy
Manage this gingerly. Done correctly, you’ll run a well-oiled machine; if not, you will hemorrhage money. Scheduling is key to maintain optimal occupancy rates.
Invest in Workforce Software
Many companies still use Excel for their staffing software, but a good workforce program can save you money year after year. Team your call center up with your supply chain logistics operation in a shared system for a very quick ROI.
Review Service Levels
Are you at the right service level for your customers’ needs, or are you following a standard that is too high—and unnecessarily spending too much?
How Many Supervisors?
Review your supervisor-to-agent ratio. Are you overstaffed or understaffed with supervisors?
Conduct a Telecom Assessment
Make sure you are not paying for services, numbers or locations that you don’t have any longer. It is also estimated that over 50% of all corporate telephone bills have errors.
Use IVR
Are you using Interactive Voice Response (IVR) to the best advantage? Identifying and segmenting callers (orders versus customer service) allows tailoring of services to the customer request.
Review Call Flow/Prompts
Too many branches or prompts will confuse and irritate the customer and cost you telecom charges. Keep it simple.
Try At Home Agents
Add flexibility to your staffing model and reduce the call center’s occupancy costs, save money and have happy employees. But first understand the legal and supervisory ramifications, home work environment and technology aspects.
Use Agency Temps for Peaks
If you just can’t staff for the peak, seek out a good temporary agency, and manage like you would your own staff.
Software for Email Management
Get onboard with an ASP (Application Service Provider) and you can start saving on labor for email and chat functions—a win for both the customer and you.
Cross-sell and Upsell
Your agents are the eyes and ears to your customers in most cases, so make them your best sales force. Look at this as a way to increase average order, possibly using incentives to achieve higher results.
Drive Out Unneeded Call Drivers
Do an analysis of call reasons to understand why the customers are calling. You might have found an area that needs to be reengineered.
Call or email Jeff Barry at 804-264-8040 or jbarry@fcbco.com if you would like to discuss how we can assist you and your call center/customer service issues.
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