One of the most critical components of a telephone sales training program is making sure the staff have the right “service to sales” mindset. If they have the mindset that “I was hired for service. I don’t like selling and you can’t make me“, then all the best sales process training is going to be [...]

Which is more effective for call center training — classroom or e-learning?
As e-learning delivery technology becomes more widespread in the call center, particularly as a feature of today’s quality monitoring technology, many organizations are delivering more training via this self-paced online mechanism.
But is computer-based e-learning proving to be as effective as classroom training for  knowledge [...]

How do you measure the level of forecasting accuracy in your call center?
A common mistake that call centers make is to measure the accuracy of their workload forecasts with a simple percent difference and the results can be misleading.
For example, let’s assume that Monday’s forecast was 12% under the actual call volume for the day, [...]

How does your call center measure workforce management (WFM) success?  WFM is all about getting the “just right” number of people in seats at the right times to meet service goals while minimizing cost — but what are the most appropriate metrics to ensure the workforce team is doing a good job?  Most call centers [...]

A common mistake that many call center supervisors make is to start out a feedback interaction with a positive remark, then provide the needed critique, and then finish up with another positive.  We’re all naturally inclined to “sandwich” any bad news with a positive on either end to make it more palatable to the employee [...]

Do your call center staff stagger into work?  No, we don’t mean a beer keg in the parking lot.  Just have your schedules begin at smaller intervals (15-minute) versus traditional 30-minute or 60-minute start times. By staggering start times to more frequent intervals, you will naturally be spacing breaks, lunches, and other activities for better coverage. [...]

How often should you do a schedule bid?
The frequency of schedule creation and bidding is mostly a function of how volatile your workload is.  For a call center whose volume and patterns don’t change all that much, creating schedules once every three to six months may be just fine.  However, most call centers need to [...]

Some companies spend a significant amount of money to do benchmarking studies against their competition’s call centers.  But you may be looking in the wrong places to determine if you’re meeting the customer’s service expectations.
Unless they’ve been doing some comparison shopping, your customer has probably not talked to your competition recently.  If you’re a cellular [...]

Include the time value of money when calculating the payback period or return on investment for a call center project or purchase.
Net Present Value is the foundation of any financial calculation when either costs or revenues/savings will be spread out over more than one year. Without it in the calculation the payback period for a [...]

Beware of saying the words “you must” or “you have to” when providing instructions.
You want to sound like you’re providing help, not homework, for your customers. Try replacing the words “you must” with “you’ll want to” or “the best option would be to” to sound friendly and supportive and still convey the necessary instructions.
To learn [...]