call center advice

[Evan H]

I work for a small American Economic Development Corporation in Michigan, and we are currently pursuing the idea of attracting a call center to the area. Land is inexpensive, and there are already buildings in the area ripe for renovation. If anyone has information, I would greatly appreciate the help.

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[Alan Clayton]

Having opened 4 call centers of the sort you speak of, it might make sense for us to talk.

There is a LOT that goes into this decision.

Feel free to call

Regards

Alan

[WebCntrMngr]

Hello,

Does anyone have any thoughts on employees that "walk the floor" and advise existing Associates on "real time" call procedures?

I have a few opinions on the matter (I was recently asked by a Center manager)

-With no set agenda, floor walkers generally do not contribute as much as necessary to knowledge sets of call takers.

-It lowers your market perception in terms of the customer experience, as you have removed your top performers from the customer's experience.

-The function of a supervisor is to develop call taking experts, extract knowledge from the experts and find ways to duplicate that expertise in all other call takers.

-"Floor walkers" generally do no receive the same training, education ,and resources to communicate effectively with call taking employees. Supervisors do, and that is their primary expectation.

-If you do pull a floor walker as a reward, it should be weel structured and have a definite agenda, not just "walk around and answers questions".

In general, I have a strong feeling that it isn't productive to remove your greatest customer experts and ask them to coach your "experts in training". This detracts from your customer service level ability (among other things).

Any other thoughts on this matter?

Thanks

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[Moriarte]

WebCntr,

While I understand your perception, I think it also depends on whether or not the "Floor Walker" (also referred to sometimes as a Coach) is an actual position within your company, or just a perk you offer agents.

We actually have this as a higher paid role/title where I manage. The agents have to apply for the position, and then get paid a little more to do the job.

However, if we don't have enough currently available, we will select qualified agents to "stand up" and coach. But it comes with an expectation that they actually are teaching while they do it.

I honestly feel, that if you set the qualifications high enough, this is an invaluable way to assess a potential Supervisor.

One of the many day to day tasks I see, as a Manager, is that my Supervisors spend most of their day developing agents, managing and researching issues for their teams of agents, and don't have a lot of time to actually coach/answer hands on the call center floor.