What makes a call center successful?

The essential building blocks of a customer service center are strategy, processes, technology, human resources and facilities. Vendors providing customer services need to invest time and resources in building a center that guarantees not just low cost but also quality services through efficient technologies, people and processes.

According to the American Financial Network, Inc., a call center should gain expertise in the following areas:

• Transformation: The client’s customer services are thoroughly studied by the vendor, which then suggests solutions that will provide various benefits. The vendor shares the management that will carry out the transformation and executes the operations as an outsourcing partner. Transformational outsourcingenables the vendor to work on predefined process outcomes and gain benefits that are greater than the low margins provided by traditional outsourcing.
• Benchmarking: The operations of the outsourced center need to be properly monitored and benchmarked to ensure quality delivery of results. At the same time, a client may want to monitor some sample calls. Also, providing regular feedback to agents on their calls ensures the center’s operations according to the benchmark. Some benchmarking parameters are given in the section Performance Measurement in a Call Center.
• Innovation: Outsourcing vendors can improve the efficiency of their services by using the latest technology and bringing innovations in their processes regularly.
• Human resources: Human resources is the most important asset of a call center. The employees who interact with the customers in a contact center are known as agents. These agents should know the different aspects of their service and should try to solve the customers’ queries to satisfaction without any ‘do-away with the call’ attitude. To build these human resources, companies should develop a rigorous training program and should ensure that their employees are updated with the changes or modifications in the services through regular training sessions. Vendors should also motivate the agents to increase their satisfaction and optimize their productivity and retention.