Starting a new job - help!

[GQTimmy]

I'm starting a job as a call center manager for the first time in about ten years. I want to put my best food forward, and do a good job, and could use some advice on this. It's a small call center, 6 reps, and there really hasn't been any management there yet. The call center is about 2 years old and I know I need to instill structure. I would appreciate any advice you may have, I know to be on time, work hard, etc., but I need words of advice on starting as a call center manager. Please help.

Thanks!

[mhaqqi]

Hello GQTimmy,

I would like to congrats you for joining the field. With respect to your question, I think you need many things to start with such as KPIs.

1) Establishing Key Performance Indicators
Enter KPIs (Key performance indicators). The purpose of KPIs is to enable you to climb above the detail and assess overall performance- a compelling concept to call center managers buried in a data. Unfortunately, the high-level nature of KPIs is also their biggest weakness as measures that summarize a lot of detail, they don't pinpoint specific problems. However, if chosen and interpreted wisely, they can indicate general trends that will often point the way to more detailed reports that, in turn, will enable you to isolate and address specific problems and improvement opportunites.

Following are summaries of 12 KPIs recommended by ME, along with brief descriptions of how these KPIs are evolving to address the demands of today's changing customer interaction environment.

1) Customer Satisfaction/Loyalty
2) Agent Satisfaction
3) Turnover
4) Service Level/Response Time
5) Percent Abandoned
6) Cost Per Contact
7) Errors and Re-word/ First-Contact Resolution
8) Actual to Forecasted Call Load
9) Actual to Scheduled Staff
10) Adherence to Schedule
11) Average Handling Time
12) Average Value of Contact

Any individual KPI, by itself, can be misleading. Like the key flight instruments on an aircraft instrument panel, KPIs must be interpreted together-the best managed call centers are continually looking for connections and relationships between the variables. But together, they paint a fairly complete, high-level picture of your call center's performance.

2) Establishing Responsibilities

Here are some of the job descriptions that I personally use:

1. AGENTS:
* Adherence to schedule
* Quality (contact by contact) including:
a. Identifying and handling customer inquiries
b. Applying customer service policies
c. Peforming business retention activities
d. Resolving customer problems
e. Educating customers on products and services offered
f. Matching product benefits with customer needs
g. Entering coding and tracking information completely and accurately

2. SUPERVISORS:
* Team adherence to schedule
* Quality produced by the team
* Providing monitoring and coaching for individuals
* Working with management to identify systemic quality problems and opportunities
* Performance reviews and team meetings
* Performing the work of the agents during peak periods (as applicable)
* Representing teams on special projects/initiatives

3. QUALITY SPECIALISTS
* Leading and managing monitoring processes
* Ensuring consistent calibration (e.g., for assessing the quality of contacts)
* Synthesizing monitoring input and preparing timely reports
* Identifying individual and process improvement opportunities
* Tracing and analyzing monitoring results vs. customer satisfaction measures

4. WORKFORCE PLANNERS
* Creating accurate workload forecasts
* Organizing schedules that fit well for workload and agent requirements
* Assessing budgetary needs and implications of resource requirements
* Taking the initiative to coordinate plans with other departments
* Ensuring proper use of work modes (e.g., after-call work, auxiliary modes, etc)
* Presenting key performance results to executive management
* Recommending system improvement opportunities

5. MANAGERS/DIRECTORS:
* Ensuring the call center meets key objectives related to:
1. Quality
2. Accessibility
3. Efficiency
4. Cost performance
5. Strategic impact

any many others .... e-mail me for more information mhaqqi@cookdoor.com.eg

I hope this information is helpful to you.

[professional-lists]

GQ:

Great advice above!

I'd suggest comein quietly and observe the team you have in place. You may need to shake things up.

Ensure each area of the business in supporting the people on the phones is on par with industry standards. Are they supported with the tools they need?

Also, what types of campaigns are people working on?

Regards,

Lance Best

[abd1]

The first poster has some great tips on how to create some structure. I was the first manager at our call center back when we had 15 employees, now there are over 50. I'm wondering if you were a rep previous to being a manager? If so, one of the biggest challenges you might face is gaining the respect of your peers. Whenever I promote a rep to supervisor there is almost always a bit of a backlash from their previous peers due to jealousy and disappointment that they were not promoted instead. My advice is to look at your promotion as a challenge to work harder than anyone else and to treat your subordinates with a lot of respect. Remind them that you've been where they are, but you have new challenges to deal with and you'll be as fair as you can be while meeting your new goals. Tell them some things will change, but ultimately your goal is to improve the callcenter as a whole. Again, don't use the promotion as a way to go on cruise control -- lead by example. As a rule, I tell new supervisors that they need to hold themselves to higher standards than they do their reps, work twice as hard, and if they do that then they will earn their respect. Remember, being the boss is getting people to do things because you're the boss and they have to -- anyone can do that. Being a leader is getting them to do things because they want to.