New to call centers

[racerboy169]

I'm going to be starting a call center very soon and this is the first time. It's going to be 5-10 seats but scaling very quickly. We are doing only outbound calling and I wondered if anybody could give me some advice or sources on how to effectivly manage my call center in it's infancy.

I plan to hire out to professionals as I ramp up but I will be doing the managing for the first few months as i am bootstraping this operation. Any general advice would be appriciated. And any specific advice for when i grow, as far as what to look for in good managers and what kind of personel i will need as i expand.

Again any industry specific information or strategies that anyone would be willing to pass on would be greatly appriciated

Thanks

[Timothy G. Moore]

Congratulations, you are not the first person to attempt this! Since you are bootstrapping this, then one would assume COST is your major issue. I would recommend minimizing your up-front costs by NOT purchasing a bunch of hardware/software like a PBX, ACD, IVR, etc. Look at some hosted solutions like Cosmocom or Ineto (my company). Typically in those situations, you pay as you go; usually by the minute of use.

[racerboy169]

I thank you Timothy for your advice, and i understand your approach to selling your product in this forum, but i have most of that stuff in place.

I guess i should be a little more specificas to what i was asking. Since i will be managing this call center for 3-5 months as we scale i was wondering what kind of problems or advice, from a personel management view, that i might encounter. Industry standard problems that i might avoid or at least know about before they crop up.

I do have a bit if management experience but not with managing callers and i was wondering if anyone had any helpful advice or wisdom, if there is any, as to what management styles work best. As well as what things to look for as i hire management to replace myself when the time comes etc.

Again my query isn't how to get the company up and running, what software to use, or what hardware to purchase, while that is all good information and i might use it far on down the road, i already have products and services in place, and would be appriciative of some advice from those more knowledgeable than me in the area of call center management.

Thanks

Andy

[csteven]

Andy,

Sorry but I need to recommend you to get a phone monitoring system. I'm not a salesman. My call centre guys sounded horrible until I had some kind of monitoring system in place. Ideally via recording them on .wav files, or worse case from remote tap.

Once in place, train your supervisors how to give feedback to the agents. Create a "call mgt" form (hard or soft copy) & get input from the agents on what a good call should contain. Get their buy-in on the form. Tie their bonuses/ performance to key KPI's: Call Quality scores, number of calls handled, Make Ready / Not busy time, punctuality, attendence (if you can).

You're right, good personnel are the key, and how they sound is important. The supervisors need to be trained how to coach & give feedback to them. I require my supervisors to spend 90% of their work time coaching / observing their teams (shephards with the flocks). I minimize their chances to go to meetings as I want them walking the floor. The manager you hire should be a floor walker not a cubicle sitter.

Create teams of people. Track the teams' & individuals' performance. Let them name their teams. Share their performance stats in the break room. Have monthly meetings where you highlight the top individuals & teams. Soldiers fight not for the generals but for their fellow "brothers in arms." Make the place a fun, but competitive environment. People want to compete, use it.

Enough advise. Just do it.

[mystery]

i just opened a call center in the Philippines (10,000 miles from my home and have relocated here for 2 years) housing 500+ employees and still growing. that being said, i know what you are asking and i feel for you.

i started be monitoring calls every day and even today (6 months later) i still do this. be listening to calls you will know if your organization at all levels is doing their job (Management, Training department, IT, QA, Resource Center, etc.). for example, i was have problems with employees putting customers on hold on every call. this was causing longer Avg. Handle Time and i narrowed it down to the fact that employees were lacking Confidence in their product knowledge (a problem extending from my Training department).

the next thing you want to look at an follow to a T is KPI (Key Performance Indicators) do you have any? if not, you might want to get on this right away. for example, what's your ASA, AHT, QA, Hold Time, Attendance, Adherence, Productivity, etc.

hope this gets you on the right track.

[racerboy169]

Thank you csteven and mystery so much, that stuff is what i was looking for. Some i had prepared for and some i didn't even think to worry about! If i may pick your brains a little more i noticed that "mystery" has a call center with 500+ employees. Other than the obvious problems, or challenges i should say, of having a business with 500 employees. Is there anything in particular, that could make a very rapid growth curve up to this size as smooth as possible?

Andy

[gyoung]

Andy -

Do plan on spending time every day monitoring call quality (either you or your floor manager). As noted in a previous reply make certain that floor management spends most of their shift time out on the floor interacting with staff, monitoring on the fly or just being available. New phone reps often have many questions and floor management's prime directive there is to get them answers, make certain they've digested the info and get the reps BACK ON THE PHONE.

Have contests (either individual or team). Try the book - Motivating Without Money by Dave Worman. Depending upon what type of outb. campaign your running - shorter term, few days or few weeks works often better than long term contests.

Floor managers need to be able to remain both composed and enthusiastic throughout the entire shift. If you're on the floor, you're "on stage." A team of reps will follow their supervisors' tone and react accordingly. Urgent and focused but not desparate and sweaty. Enthusiastic and supportive but in a sincere way (fake cheerleading gets old fast). Supervisors need to be able to monitor, coach and re-direct constantly. Do not burden them with admin tasks will the shift is up and in full force. Their attention should be directed toward individual and group "mood" and skills. Supervisors need to be able to sell your company's methodology (scripts, pricing plans etc) to maintain rep confidence. So they need to exude credibility and competence. Your best reps do not always make your best managers. Whenever you pull someone off the phone to manage - do the math, if this person is not on the phone driving in business will they be able to help others enough to make up for their loss of production.

Hiring phone reps - lots of variables here. My formula is so buried in instinct and gut reaction as to be useless to try and describe. If you have a very limited lead pool to work, hire carefully, train carefully and assess their performance regularily - bad apples and poor performers need to be asked to play somewhere else quickly. If on the other hand you have mass quantities of cheap leads, you can take some more risks when hiring and the weed from there.

I can't stress enough setting a tone/culture for your outbound team. Negativity creeps in constantly and the manager (hopefully along with senior reps) must strive to maintain a positive culture that recognizes results (not just effort!) and nurtures staff still in the learning curve. Have fun with the reps but keep it goal-oriented (even if its just a pizza party...etc).


Sorry if this seems stream of conscience - years of outbound management boiled down into a few paragraphs.

Best

Jerry

[mystery]

Andy,

thanks for the opportunity to help you!

In order to avoid major catastrophes with a rapid ramp-up I took the role of Auditor. For example, everyday besides monitoring calls I make it a practice to spent time evaluating the training dept and supervisors. To take this a level deeper, I scrutinize these areas because you can avoid any training deficiencies immediately rather that later when your organization is a full on eco-system and difficult to change (if you do this early on you will find that your KPI will be met).
Further more, look for disconnects? If there is a training deficiency on the floor how will you gather the information and how will to get the information to the training dept, and how fast will they react?

[racerboy169]

thank you, thank you, thank you!! i can't tell you how helpful all this info is if you all can think of anything else please let me know!! either by post or e-mailing me at andrew.nelson@attbi.com thanks again

Andy

thank you to gyoung as well.

[csteven]

Andy, you may want to see this website to read about how to choose your successor. http://www.bcentral.com/articles/krotz/148.asp

Steve

[knschock]

I strongly recommend that you look at several of the industry veteran companies who offer training and consulting for new call center implementations.

ICMI and The Call Center School both spring to mind.
You can visit our Website: www.telecorpproducts.com to get information about The Call Center School (who we recommend frequently for our customers who are just starting out, or who need re-training in various management topics), and ICMI's Website is www.incoming.com Both are good, affordable sources of solid training and information.

Good luck!

[rmoore]

I would first focus on your companies policies and procedures that yo have in place. As you grow and increase your staffing it will be very important to have a very strong and functional operation in place. Stick to the basics, proper screening, hiring, training, coaching and supervisory support. Remember, as you increase your staff you will be elevating some of your staff to increased roles. They will set the tone for all your new hires. Mkae sure that you have a strong HR and IS dept. on board.

[ranjanik]

Hi!
I have seen some of the best answers in along time in this thread. three cheers to all of you!!

As Jerry rightly says, the culture of the center goes a long way in differentiating a successful center from an unsuccessful one.
A bit of hard work before going live is needed. define all your key processes. Ensure there is a owner for each & that he/she is trained & empowered to perform the job to its optimum level. Ensure all personells are aware of escalation process. have a strong & well trained help desk, because, dealing with down time can be critical to meeting SLA's.
You will constantly face issues related to monotony. If you have multiple programs have a rotation option. Believe me cost of training to handle more than one type of call, is far lesser than replacement.

Always measure every thing you can measure & do a historical trending even if it is over a week or month. You will see patterns that help you run your center more efficiently.

If you have any specific queries mail me at ranjani@thinkharbor.com.

Hope I have been of help.
Ranjani