personal phone calls

[onetwothree]

I'd like some feedback on personal phone calls at work stations. Currently our policy is no personal calls(outgoing or incoming) at any of the workstations. This policy applies at all times, regardless if our agent is on a break or at lunch. There is one phone provided in our building for CSR's (we have 100+ agents) to make personal calls.
We would like to maintain our service levels but at the same time we understand that people have lives and there are personal issues that must be dealt with. The policy works to some extent, but we are finding through our monitoring process that many agents are making personal calls from their workstations. The company policy is to issue written warnings for each infraction.
If an employee is expecting an important incoming call, then the call will be routed to his/her manager and the employee can take the call in the managers office. Employees are complaining that this policy is degrading and takes away the professionalism they try to achieve with their work. The agents believe they should be able to take or make calls from their work station.
How do you deal with personal calls in your organization?

[Frank A. Engle]

In the call centers I have managed, especially the large ones, no personal calls were allowed to or from workstations. All your staffing and call handling models go out the window if you allow your agents to do it.

Do you have performance standards for the agents? If so, you may want to treat this issue like a rest room break. If the agent spends too much time away from their station making personal calls they are bound to slide in their performance and will either eliminate themselves from your staff for not meeting the standards or change their behavior.

I do believe that you need to add a few more phones for their use and perhaps put a time limit on its use. You may even want to provide them a unique access code to get an outside line so you can track abuses.

As for the incoming call procedure being a degrading process, be sure that the managers are not asking the caller WHY they are calling or try to probe into the importance of the call. That would be demeaning...and none of their business.


Just my opinion...good luck!

[kstrainer]

We had the same problem in our inbound call center. Recently, our IT department refitted all our reps phones so that they no longer had voicemail, and they were no longer able to receive incoming calls (except through the queue). For any outbound calls, the rep must be logged in to their phones and any outbound calls are logged by our system so it's quite obvious if they're making calls they shouldn't be. We also have several phones throughout the call center available for making local outbound personal calls. We are a cellular company so if a rep needs to make a LD call, they can do it on their cell phone. Additionally, we have an emergency number set up and business cards printed for our reps to give to anyone who would need to get in touch with them in an emergency. This call goes directly to the front desk, or our Ops department (I can't remember which), then the message is passed on to the rep either directly, or through their supervisor depending on whether the message is deemed a 'true emergency'. There was MUCH grumbling about the loss of vm, etc. but after 6 months, it seems to have died down to nothing. My understanding is that in most call centers, what we've just changed to is the norm.
Hope this helps.

[kissangie]

Employees are people too. Your expectiations for your empoyees are unrealistic. At our call center there is no such policy and all calls are being answered and the work gets done efficently. How would you feel if you could not answer any of your personal calls and it was routed to your supervisor? Also I am really suprised that for a 100+ employees you would only have one phone.
I agree with the agents, they should be able to make and receive calls from their station. Giving a little freedom to your employees will improve the quality of the call center and will improve morale.

Good Luck.

[hallbj2]

I would agree with kissangie here with some exceptions - of course.
#1 - We should always treat our employees with kindness and respect and understand they too have lives. I'm sure managers / supervisors who have their own seperate office and phone DO make and receive personal calls from one time or another (I know I have from my daughter's school, family, etc). When we get from the mentality of "agency" thought as to "warm bodies" when in fact they ARE human and DO have lives - things run smoother.

#2 - In the past, I have implemented a "no personal call policy" except for emergencies. It's one thing for a rep to make a call to chat with a friend with the que is full and another to make a call to home to make sure their child arrived home from school safely.

#3 - You have to draw the line in the sand. Many of my reps had cell phones and during breaks / lunch they could call all they wanted. If personal calls - of a NON emergency level were made while calls were in the que or they were supposed to be making X amount of outbound calls - then we had a chat about it.

#4 - I can remember 10 years ago as a single woman manager with no kids sometimes getting purturbed at reps doing the personal call thingi. When I adopted my daughter (at age 11) I then began to see the nature of WHY these parents were concerned.

Personally, I could not stand to work in such a stiffling environment where most "everything" was "controlled". Give them some freedom with realistic expectations and you might just might hang on to your reps a little longer. Stifle them - and watch them leave!

[lamoore]

The problem with most managers, is they are not very open minded. The last post was great, she had not been very understanding , until she in turn became a parent. Should agents be allowed to make calls to their buddies? NO. Should they be allowed to call home and ask their husband to fix dinner, or run to the store, or ask how little Johnnie, or Sarah did in school today, YES! The morals of families has slipped so low in the past ten years or so, that when you see a mother "just checking" on her children, GOOD FOR HER!! Or him, as the case may be. Your producutivity will not falter, if your agents are content that everything is hunky dory on the homefront. It will suffer, however, if they are concerned that they left the coffee pot on, or whos gonna pick up the dry cleaning. This is real life. Personal calls are gonna be made by real parents, wether you like it or not, either in front of you, or behind your back. Just like smoking. You may not personally like it, but its gonna happen. Your best bet is to deal with it, and accomodate it, or you and your employees will be miserable, and I guarantee, you will have a faster turn around on agents. I have been both. An agent for a call center, and the owner/manager of a restuarant. My employees that opened the doors with me, stayed til the end, because I recognized that they had personal lives too. If one of them had a problem, I took their place and waited tables, or cooked or whatever. A good manager, should be willing to go to the extremes to make their employees happy. Employees want more than a gold watch when they retire. They want stories to tell their grandchildren about their days on the job. Being tyranical, isnt gonna help you AT ALL! You may never run short on applications coming in your door, but your gonna get tired of looking through them and hiring. Why dont you managers, make it pleasant enough for your employees so that they will STAY for a change.

[cjw17]

Our call center has 90 agents & 5 personal call phones. Agents can take personal calls if short (like...hi mom i'm home from school) at their station. Anything longer they're expected to put themselves on aux work & go to a personal call phone or use their cell phone. Our lines are recorded. No one really wants their personal calls recorded anyway.
We have to be able to handle call volume & staff appropriately, but we try to treat our agents like the adults they are. They have to hit their utilization numbers. If they can do that, let them go smoke, chat on the personal call phone with a buddy about weekend plans, or whatever. We're running an office, not a boot camp. If the phones get busy, they'll hop on the phones pretty quickly.