Hello All,
I am currently in a role where one of my objectives is to enhance the quality of our customers experience across a number of outsourced call centres.
I am looking primarily at soft skills covering retention, creating rapport, and empathy etc.
Does anybody have any suggestions or advice?
I'm also looking for what I can do to enhance the overall quality of development of call centre people. I've thought about E-Learning as a possibility but am unsure of what else works? Suggestions?
Feel free to email me or post your email/phone no on here and I will be eternally grateful for any help!
Many Thanks!
Peter
Peter Charlesworth
5 Responses
help is here
Please email me;
fiona@vital-impact.co.uk
so I can let you know how I can help.
Fiona
Maximum impact : Minimum time
Peter,
We have worked as training and communications consultants specialising in the call centre industry for some time.
One of the major problems our clients face is balancing training needs against the desire for maximum call centre efficiency.
It would be great to talk to you about some of the other challenges we have come across and the various ways in which we have resolved them.
Please don’t hesitate to get in touch via e-mail if you are interested: tom.evans@salix.biz
Best wishes
Tom Evans
Blended Learning
From the brief description you posted, I would suggest that you look at developing some kind of blended learning approach, coupled with a staff learning recognition & reward scheme. The aim would be for staff to take responsibilty for their own learning, which will be encouraged by the R&R scheme. This may prove more difficult with outsourced personnel, but could be achieved in partnership with your outsource suppliers.
You could list the key skills and knowledge that the personnel require and then create a sylabus of programmes (receivable via varying mediums) that address these key issues. Staff can then be recognised / rewarded when they attain certain standards and the entire programme can be funded out of the performance improvement.
I’d be happy to discuss this matter with you,if you’d like to talk it through. Just drop me a note of your contact details
Thanks!
Thanks to all who have posted offering assistance, it’s greatly appreciated.
Mark you can contact me at Peter.charlesworth@freeserve.com
Regards
Peter
A question of defined goals
I have worked in outsouced call centres for 8 years and have worked on a similar project.
Firstly I think that your objective needs to be more clearly defined.
Is it 1. To enhance custoemr experience? If so define what needs to be enhanced, agents skills, better delivery of service, increased retention rates? It may be that clarity is needed here – where is it aiming are your objectives measurable?
or is it to delivery better retention as we think there may be a skills gap there? The two dont go hand in hand.
2. Is this objective directly/ fully/indirectly related to skills of agents (or are rentention issues more product/delivery based?)
My 50 page study (utilities company)basically concluded that although staff in an outsouced agency could do and were doing as much as they could to retain staff (and were trained adequately and skills sets had been correctly identified) this wasn’t followed up by action from the client. The training needs gap had been filled, the delivery thereafter (outside the agents scope) hadn’t. Customers weren’t receiving good service from the client/information packs, follow up calls, delivery of service etc even after they had been skillfully retained. Try telling that to a client who thinks they are doing a great job and its your agents who are at fault!
Feel free to contact me, I’m very familiar with all the issues in this area and train frequently in call centres (in house and outsourced).
Mark Starling
markthetrainer@hotmail.com