When call center executives were asked what were the top challenges they faced when it came to “Intraday Management” (the day-to-day running of their call center) they picked 10 areas of concern. While part one of this article addressed the first five topics, this concluding portion will tackle five other challenges managers confront – from allocating idle time and allowing for agent’s individual initiative, to the problems in trying to carve out space in a busy schedule for employee training.
40 percent of executives have trouble allocating such tasks for agents’ idle times. 29 percent of these find idle timeframes too short or unpredictable to assign productive tasks, leaving a quarter of agents to make their own decisions about how to spent idle time. Only 17 percent use any call center software to automate the allocation.
79 percent of executives found themselves only moderately or not in any way structuring their call agents’ downtime. Only 16 percent highly structured this time.
More than 50 percent of managers say that training isn’t done at their call center—another causality of manual scheduling:
73 percent of executives reported that service level requirements didn’t allow enough time to arrange training.
69 percent of call center leaders see customer satisfaction and 62 percent saw an increase in staff performance resulting in more sales as a positive impact of training.
The proper call center software is key to meeting these challenges. Making use of the correct call center software can mean the difference between an underperforming call center and an efficient one.
To read the first part, it’s here!