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3 Steps to Find Your Call Center Efficiency Sweet Spot

Published: October 11, 2012 | By: Matt McConnell

There’s no getting around it — the role of a workforce manager is tough. Whether it’s the daily tug-of-war between service levels and enterprise demands or figuring out how to balance the schedule to accommodate a long list of activities – finding your call center’s efficiency sweet spot probably seems impossible. But, it’s not.

Here are the three steps to find your efficiency sweet spot:

Step 1. Think differently. Simply “maintaining” the status quo and doing things the same way will not get you very far. For the past three decades, the call center hasn’t changed much despite the huge changes in customer and agent expectations. Customers are now more informed due to self-service technologies such as social media. And as a result, agents are more pressured than ever to be faster and more knowledgeable. However, 73% of call center leaders say agents are not receiving training because there isn’t enough time. So, how can agents help meet the demands of today’s customers if there is no prep time? Improving call center efficiency in 2012 and beyond will require you to think differently about how you find and manage agents’ time.

Step 2. Balance and better utilize your time. Did you know the average agent spends 11% of their day idle, waiting for a call? That means for 49 minutes every day, your agents are unproductive and counting against your efficiency efforts. To reach your sweet spot, transform that wasted idle time into productive activities that help improve your KPIs. Off-phone activities such as coaching, training, communications and project work all contribute to helping you not only improve service levels, but also meet enterprise demands such as profitability.

Step 3. Find a support system. Finding a technology that supports all of these efforts is imperative. Intraday management technology allows you to find and manage time to increase efficiency. In addition, delivering off-phone activities such as training and coaching become easier due to its ability to find unproductive wait time and deliver personalized and prioritized off-phone activities to agents. Providing continuous customer satisfaction becomes more possible.

To learn more about how to increase operational efficiencies, check out the video below.

 

 

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