Debunking Call Center Myths about Call Center Agents
Dispelling some myths about call centers makes you know what call centers are not and helps you run your company successfully. The first myth is that call center agents are excited by the opportunity to get into sales. Call center agents are not actually sales representatives. Their job is to provide customer service, not sell. They are hired to help the customer. They learn to ask customers questions, uncover customer needs, and recommend solutions that meet those needs.
The second myth is that you can build your team by hiring people the same way you always have. When you recruit, you tend to look for people with sales experience. You may hire people with outside sales experience as your call center agents, but this does not necessarily mean that they are able to build a customer relationship through a phone call.
Generally, traditional salespeople are not fond of staying at the same desk all day. So when you hire people, you need to look into the career fit, what is best for the candidate; cultural fit, what is best for the team; competency fit, the talent, skills, and knowledge the applicant has; and the character fit, the applicant’s integrity. These are The Four Cs which you should consider when you recruit.
The third myth of call centers is that you will be successful when you get quality control and assessments down to a science. This myth has to do with measuring the performance of your call center agents. It is true that you can get quality control and assessments down to a science by measuring factors such as abandonment rate, but it does not mean you obtain desired results.
The agents of your call centers need to know how to handle calls effectively not only by saying the right words but also by possessing interpersonal skills, the ability to listen, and the knowledge of how to respond to subtle clues in a customer’s manner or tone of voice. These are the underlying factors that determine the assessment of how your agent takes a call.
There are three criteria to assess how the agents of your call centers handle a call. Engagement has to do with how the agent communicates with the caller. Productivity refers to how the agent gets the job done efficiently and effectively. Competency is the necessary talent, skills, and knowledge an agent is equipped with.
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