Call Center Incubators
It was only a few years ago when call centers were considered to be something of a necessary customer service cost. You rarely considered using the call center as a means to increase company revenues. You considered the call center as a way to handle phone calls. Today this is simply not the case — or should not be the case.
Call centers are strategic to the success of any company that wants to be effective in their respective market segment. As the value of call centers has increased over the last few years, so has the need for those in call centers to respond quickly to changes in the business. It is an essential element of being strategic.
Call centers have to be quick to respond to:
- changing competitive demands
- new product launches
- variations in customer expectations for sales and support
The Question: How do you make sure your call center operation can be as responsive as possible to an ever-changing business model and demands from internal and external pressures? We have spent much time thinking about and acting upon this question.
Our Answer: Create a call center ‘incubator’ to handle start-ups and changes in your business that requires a quick response. You are thinking, “incubators are for preemies in hospitals and eggs on the farm but not call centers”. Using the metaphor of an incubator can truly help you be quick to make change. Frequently, core operations are eroded while attention is paid to initiating a new process, function or introducing an entirely new line of business. An incubator can isolate disruption to core operations, as it is important to minimize disruption to your core call center operations while change is underway.
Here are some of the important elements to think about in creating a call center incubator.
Separate Structure:
Set up the incubator structure outside of day-to-day call center operations and where possible, provide the incubator with its own space. Operations folks are great at working to deliver consistent service day-to-day to ensure response time is on target and the quality is just right. These people may not be the best to involve in a start-up because the rules are different – speed to market is better than perfect to market. Good operations people work at perfecting. Good start-up people work at perfecting speed to market.
Specific Team:
Create a project team headed up by the most entrepreneurial leader you can find who understands your business and your call center operation. The rest of the team should consist of every major call center discipline necessary to be successful: leaders, supervisors, reps, technical call center staff (e.g. workforce management), business analysts, trainers, and IT folks where necessary. This cross-functional team can be brought together to develop and launch the new process or service. The key measure for this team is teamwork.
Stated Objectives:
Enable the project team to break the common rules of doing business and to work to deliver the results (e.g. email channel incubator). The team must develop the business rules, support, training materials and procedures while they initiate the new service. They typically would be involved in the technology purchasing decision and implementation. The team is accountable for early implementation. By putting reps on the team, the team can move from concept, to design to early experimentation or pilot phases all within the incubator. The team remains involved through to the implementation to core call center operations. Make the team accountable for a seamless transfer of the start-up into day-to-day operations. This ensures that at the end of the incubation process you do not end up with an orphan.
Think About the Horizon:
The incubator period will end. Plan on it and manage to an end date. An end date may mean that everything is completed and it returns to status quo. It may mean implementing the results of the incubator call center across the entire call center. Thinking beyond the focus of the incubator will help the team to deliver beyond the immediate and implement for the long term.
This is not an exhaustive list of suggestions. We could go on at some length. These are just a few ideas that we hope will act as a catalyst for you to think creatively about what an incubator might do for your operation and your company. The concept of an incubator is at work in other industries such as new vehicle design, manufacturing and consumer products. The use of incubators can achieve amazing speed-to-market results and it could well please the boss!
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Posted: January 21st, 2007 under Operations.
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