October 2010
1 post
13 tags
September 2010
2 posts
9 tags
15 tags
August 2010
2 posts
25 tags
14 tags
July 2010
6 posts
8 tags
9 tags
4 tags
2 tags
3 tags
WatchCall Center Management - Agent Cheat Sheets - good or bad in the Call Center?
What are cheat sheets? Why they can be a concern within your Call Center. What to do about them. Helpful information from www.careforcustomers.com
5 tags
WatchIVR Overview - How it works and some common issues to look out for when using an IVR to direct calls in your call center.
June 2010
3 posts
3 tags
WatchOverview of FCR - First Call Resolution and some of the benefits and drawbacks of FCR.
4 tags
"We Smell Smoke" - a true & funny story
Years ago I was the Director of the Customer Activation center for Canadian Carrier. It was a fairly decent size operation of 225 FTE and like any call center we had our share of incidents.
My center was on the same floor as the Customer Care team. We were a smaller team so we occupied less than prime real estate on the floor and our area led to a walkway that connected the two office...
4 tags
What is a Call Center?
Call Centers go by different names such as Service Desk, Contact Center, Help Desk, Outbound Call Center, Sales Desk, Customer Service, Collections Department, etc, etc.
Call it what whatever you or your customers want to call it. There is no hard and fast rule to the name.
A Call Center (the name we will use here) is typically a physical location where companies group their employees...
April 2010
1 post
2 tags
March 2010
3 posts
Sometimes the Best Call is No Call at All.
A few years ago I had the wonderful opportunity to work with one of the leading network equipment manufacturers. Their products were (and still are) leading edge and the brand is well respected by todays consumer.
So as a result, they received many technical calls related to connecting and running local area networks. So many that the company had a hard time keeping up with their Service Level...
Nothing More Important Than This.
Listen to as many calls into your own call center as you can.
There is no greater learning experience available to you or your management team.
I’ll guarantee that after listing to at least 10 random calls, there will be a list of things you will want to change - immediately.
Try it, today.
Clive…
Got a Question?: http://clivewoodrow.tumblr.com/ask
3 tags
Two Phrases That Should Be Part of Every Call...
1) Do You Think or Do You Know? (Credit to M.S. November 2009)
I was challenged by a colleague of mine with this when I was trying (unsuccessfully mind you) to explain a certain situation in our Call Center.
All of us at some time need to explain a trend, or an action or an event. Challenge yourself and your team with “Do you think or do you know”. Having data is powerful.
2)...
February 2010
6 posts
Occupancy and Utilization are They Different and...
Occupancy and Utilization is basically the same measure. Someone might want to get scientific on this and debate the difference but the difference is not that big of a deal – in my opinion.
But, it is very, very important to know what that number is because if you don’t it can cost your company a lot of money.
Occupancy is the measure of how busy your Agents are in any given period of time...
2 tags
How Many Options Should I have on My IVR?
If you have to have any (think zero) then have no more than 3 IVR options at a time.
Remember the Michael Jackson lyrics “.. easy as ABC… da da dad ada da da 123” (ok not quite like that, but you get my point) , we humans deal with stuff in bunches of 3’s.
The Olympics (Go Canada !!!) Gold, Silver, Bronze (set of 3)
Make it easy on your CUSTOMERS by giving them...
4 tags
We are a Small Call Center, how Can I Find out How...
If you have a small call center, customer service office, or customer care department you probably don’t have a sophisticated telephone system, it may be hard to truly understand how many Cutomers try to call you in a hour, day, week, month.
That can be a really bad thing especially if you sell something over the phone and your ability to answer the phone quickly can be a really bad thing...
4 tags
What Do I Look for When I Miss Service Level?
Three of the most common things (that can go wrong) to look for:
1) The staffed that was scheduled for each of the half hour intervals didn’t show up when they were schedule to be on the phone (be they sick, absent, extended break, extra Aux time, longer hold times, etc, etc).
2) The call volume that you were expecting was greater than higher in a majority of the days intervals. -OR-...
3 tags
Voice Quality of Offshore Agents, How Do I Measure...
The big issue here related to the accents. If you outsource to India or the Philippines and you service North american customers, it has probably been a topic of conversation at some point.
There are a number of different language tests or testing services that can help you determine the quality of your agents before they get on the phones.
Here is a simple and low cost way to to measure voice...
3 tags
What is the Right Service Level for My Call...
First let’s talk abut the definition of Service Level: It is the number of calls answered within a certain period of time (seconds) expressed as a percentage.
Example: “80/20” or “80 in 20” Service Level is defined as 80% of all the calls answered, were answered within 20 seconds.
The right Service Level is really dependent on what’s important to your...