While most managers do not consider commuting distance in their recruiting and hiring decisions, the following data challenges this norm.
read more
The over 5000 agents surveyed for our study broke down as follows between Full-time and Part-time:
read more
Parsing out agent satisfaction by tenure provides some interesting results:
read more
Agents participating in this survey N = 4,683 (90.4%) Leads participating in this survey N = 497 (9.6%) The role of “Lead” or “Team Lead” varies from center to center. In general, however, the Lead is a senior agent who supports newer agents, handles ...
read more
The skills of ‘taking initiative and taking ownership’ are being evaluated on more performance reviews these days at all levels of responsibility. Some organizations nurture these skills and harness the results more than others. Agents, like all employees, ...
read more
This area is of obvious importance to agent satisfaction. Agents tend to stay and be satisfied where they feel valued and appreciated.
read more
Communication is the grease that makes things happen smoothly in contact centers. It is also an area in which there is often the greatest variance between management and agent perceptions. Managers sometimes feel they are doing a good job of communicating to ...
read more
Research shows that the relationship between a contact center agent and his or her supervisor is a crucial component of agent satisfaction. Fostering good working relationships at the team level is one of management’s most important functions.
read more
Contact center professionals are, in general, people who feed off of the approval of others, both external (customers) and internal (managers and colleagues). Superiors who understand this dynamic and who act on it help foster positive feelings and superior ...
read more
The success of any service organization depends on continuous improvement, and the key to improvement is found through listening to the voice of the customer via direct surveys. There are numerous methods available to collect customer feedback, which include ...
read more
Listening to the voice of the customer is not just a cliché - - it is a key for measuring performance and for determining areas requiring improvement. Successful centers usually have open channels and open minds when it comes to gathering information, both ...
read more
Agents exist to satisfy the needs of customers. Most agents feel this keenly and appreciate working for a company that is structured to support the goal of superior customer service.
read more
Superior coaching is a key differentiator for contact centers. Content, delivery and follow up are all important to a great coaching program. Technology and training that facilitate the coaching function make sure that the participants have the information ...
read more
Quality is key to customer satisfaction and loyalty. It is important that agents perceive a true commitment to quality on the part of their organizations, and that they feel the processes aimed at guaranteeing quality are working properly.
read more
As every lawyer knows, the three elements of a contract are “offer”, “acceptance” and “consideration” (compensation). A clear, common understanding of what the offer entails is key, and a reasonable level of mutual satisfaction with the compensation is ...
read more
Properly selected and trained agents require the support of good technology to allow them success with customers. Proper IVR and routing capabilities, good Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, well-chosen and continuously maintained Knowledge ...
read more
Job initiation and career prospects are both very important to contact center agents, as they are to all employees. This category starts with questions about initial training and transition and then asks questions about the individual’s professional and ...
read more
Location, location, location! Whether for new companies trying to establish their first center, or existing operations looking to expand or relocate their centers, the business of site selection and optimization presents some challenging issues. Our panel of ...
read more
Contact center agents are, generally speaking, “people people” who like to interact both with customers and with their colleagues.
read more
Perceptions of work environment are important factors. The topics that make up this category are often the “buzz” of call center talk, and are easy to bring up with agents in casual conversations.
read more
This category takes a close look at agents’ perceptions regarding the scheduling function - - its fairness and its ability to facilitate a balance between work and personal life. It also addresses senior management’s effectiveness in ensuring that required ...
read more
”Leadership means never having an off day.” Not many leadership teams can live up to this high standard, and contact center leadership is no exception. However, we have to try! The questions in this category focus on whether leadership listens to employees, ...
read more
Vision is what helps employees see beyond the day-to-day tasks that confront them. It links them to something more important, more engaging and more energizing.
read more
How often and true become the words, “If there were only a few more hours in the day…” As with any other form of management, time management involves a series of processes depending upon it goals. Whereas the trend is to consider time management as a balance ...
read more
Our Agent Voices blog posts are drawn from the results of research on over 5,000 agent surveys conducted in North America.
read more
Our Agent Voices blog posts are drawn from the results of research on over 5,000 agent surveys conducted in North America.
read more
“Happy agents make for happy customers.” As custodian of the largest database in the world of contact center metrics, BenchmarkPortal can vouch for the statistical relationship between agent satisfaction and customer satisfaction. Satisfied customers, in ...
read more
Everyone knows Zappos. Not everyone knows Zappo’s took its name from zapatos, or “shoes” in Spanish. One of the reason’s for Zappo’s success is that they not only supply shoes to customers, they work hard to walk in the customers’ shoes, literally and ...
read more
Is your company more focused on skills or on process? Most managers say they concentrate on processes. Our experts suggest that when organizations become very process-oriented they also become very compliance-based, which leaves little room for valuable ...
read more
By Mark Coudray and Bruce Belfiore
read more
Never underestimate the importance of your IVR. It is often said that good service starts at the front door. Just like a good hotel, where the doorman greets you and the whole experience is set by the ambiance of the lobby and the welcome received, for call ...
read more
Across all industries the complaint ratio is approximately 7.5% of all calls, with complaints in the auto manufacturing industry touching nearly 20%. Regardless of their nature and origin, the proper handling of complaint calls is one of a call center’s most ...
read more
Call center leaders want well-trained employees who are good performers, but they need practical training solutions that can be implemented quickly, without breaking the bank. IF they can be assured that the investment will yield the desired results; call ...
read more
Check out this Interview with our CEO Bruce Belfiore from CEOCFO Magazine. Bruce answers some questions like: “Why would it be important to a company to have their in-house call center certified?” and “How do we come up with all of our statistics?” and “Why ...
read more
To members of our BenchmarkPortal community, we invite you to celebrate 20 years of contact center excellence with us! Our benchmarking activities began as a student project at Purdue University in 1995, and we have been expanding our activities ever since. ...
read more
Auxiliary time (or AUX) is an agent state (when logged into an ACD system), that is used to make an agent unavailable for incoming distributed calls. Its basic purpose is to manage the workload of non-call activities. It is important in managing service ...
read more
Training is an essential component of call center operations. It is important at all levels and is often the secret weapon for getting poorly performing centers to “Top Drawer” status. Research at BenchmarkPortal suggests that when building or reviewing ...
read more
Team meetings are regularly scheduled, compulsory gatherings of the contact center team that usually last at least an hour. They are often perceived as being drab and boring – or they become the hurried huddle where a manager or supervisor hastens to push out ...
read more
Agent burnout is often correlated to the culture of the call center and to the culture of the people working in the call center. Sweatshop centers and “crisis call” centers have particularly high levels of burnout. A statistical proxy for burnout is agent ...
read more
Studies show that the majority of call centers set their agent compensation purely to meet that offered by the “call center down the street.” Experts, however, say that compensation should be viewed as a corollary to company strategies and mission. Therefore, ...
read more
Companies need to have a defined strategy toward Social Media in order to leverage it properly. This means managers must understand SM and feel comfortable engaging with the SMNs such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. To avoid disaster and gain the optimal ...
read more
By definition, schedule adherence is the percentage of time agents are where they are supposed to be, according to their assigned schedules – – which can include work time, lunch and break time, training time, team meeting time, etc. Poor adherence can be ...
read more
Across all industries the complaint ratio is approximately 7.5% of all calls, with complaints in the auto-manufacturing industry skyrocketing to a high of nearly 20%. Regardless of their nature and origin, the correct and proper handling of complaint calls is ...
read more
First call resolution (FCR) is a double-edged metric in that it relates to the quality of calls as well as the efficiency of the call center. In terms of quality, FCR is a customer-facing metric, as customers are very aware as to whether their call was ...
read more
In a competitive market, the ability of a company to be customer-centric and develop strong relationships with its customers through its customer service channels becomes a prime differentiator that favors success. It is therefore essential that companies ...
read more
Benchmarking is a tool best used for optimizing the performance of the contact center. Through its use, managers can pinpoint areas of opportunity for improvement, and support those initiatives that will result in the best ROI for the center and organization. ...
read more
Base pay and benefits should be competitive given local market conditions and the skills of the agents. Do comparative surveys to know how your package plays in your employment basin. Where appropriate, consider pay differentials to recognize less convenient ...
read more
After call work time (ACWT) is a component of call handle time that deserves managerial attention. It usually involves completing the customer record before taking the next call. This is normally done via electronic systems, but may, in some centers, include ...
read more
Call abandonment is often considered as a lower-level metric, and thus people do not focus on the implications of abandoned calls to the organization, which include staffing issues (too few agents indicates that staffing levels are not in alignment with ...
read more
The success of any service organization depends on continuous improvement, and the key to improvement is found through listening to the voice of the customer via direct surveys. There are numerous methods available to collect customer feedback, which include ...
read more
Empower your agents and increase productivity through good dashboards. Studies show that while over 60% of call centers have management dashboards, only 40% have agent dashboards. Research also indicates that when agents are properly trained, properly ...
read more
In e-mail centers, where voice communications take a back seat to written communications, the soft-skills requirements to “smile as you dial” or “keep a smile in your voice” have little importance. However, in those centers where asynchronous communications ...
read more
Service Level is the granddaddy of call center metrics. Traditionally, answering 80% of calls in 20 seconds was considered a best practices goal. While some remain attached to this metric, experts increasingly see this as a metric that needs to be put into ...
read more
There is a growing trend by call centers to transition, in whole or in part, to using home-based agents (HBA). The management of home-based agents, however, requires skills not commonly used in the traditional center. Understanding these skills can lead to ...
read more
As social media networks gain in importance for companies, so do the myths and rumors about them. The three largest myths are (1) social media does not affect customer service; (2) there is no ROI (return on investment) for social media in customer service; ...
read more
A healthy approach toward work-life balance is crucial for both productivity and motivation. Instead, we often see dysfunctions in the contact center workplace. At one end of the spectrum, some cultures require and reward consistent presence and continual ...
read more
While benchmarking your metrics is essential for good call center management, executives must embed benchmarking into a larger process focused on three “D’s”: data, diagnostics, and decisions: Data – Don’t get lost in the weeds. Determine what three metrics ...
read more
Quality monitoring programs often become fixated on QA forms; however, there are other necessary components that will assure you are getting the greatest value from your QA program, which is agent feedback and coaching. The coaching that happens in a call ...
read more
Recent developments on the customer side are focusing contact center management on multi-channel Workforce Optimization. While Boomers talk, Gen X/Millennial customers text. The Millennial milieu is fast overwhelming the marketplace and thus our workplace as ...
read more
We have all seen photographs of sinkholes that have swallowed buildings whole. Weak underpinnings can have tragic consequences; what you don’t see can really hurt you.
read more
