What if your call centers remote working capability is slacking off? During these challenging economic times, you definitely do not have the time or money to waste on a poorly managed team! Remote working has necessitated close monitoring – accountability is key and your agents need a structured environment to thrive in. Non-productivity and inefficiency waste time and money.
Let’s face it, Remote working capability in South Africa is here to stay and call centre remote working capability need to adapt. You can imagine the damage to your brand and sales if your customers cannot get hold of you.
These lost sales cause prospects to turn to your competitors, who don’t have waiting periods of 15 minutes before they get the service they need. Is there any chance of hitting your outbound sales numbers in this messy scenario? Are your teams proactively reaching enough of your customers?
For over 20 years we have worked with over 400 call centres and have provided call centre solutions in South Africa and internationally. At this moment we are helping many of these organisations innovate and gear up for the world of remote working. We’ve also learned a lot about what many call centres are doing wrong.
When remote agents are NOT being managed
It’s human nature to do as little as possible while gaining as much as possible. A badly run call centre with an inferior telephone management system is not only a breeding ground for this type of unproductive behaviour, it actually encourages it.
Call centre agents will do anything they can to not answer a call if they don’t have to – why would they if they’re getting paid anyway? It’s never easy to hear ‘no’, so dodging those calls if you can is even understandable.
If there are no analytics or ways to check if calls are being taken, how is anyone to know who is working and who isn’t? Who is to say customers are getting through at all?
With your current business phone solution, can you see if a phone rang, if it was answered, by whom and how long the call lasted? If not, you are going on blind faith without any data or input. Is that good for business? Definitely not.
Top performers go unrecognised
Not everyone is a slacker, though. Some of your agents may be highly motivated, ambitious and truly productive, but with a limited system, you wouldn’t be able to identify and encourage them.
They would soon realise that their effort, consistency and productivity is not being recognised and is therefore pointless. They feel invisible and cannot be encouraged or incentivised if their positive output isn’t easy to recognise.
There is no scope for stability or growth if there is no motivation to be a better agent. So, why bother?
Without the ability to measure and report on analytics, how will you know where your strengths are and who or what is falling behind?
Miserable customers move elsewhere
Bad customer experience is sacrilege for sales. Unhappy customers simply go to the competition, but not before vocalising their dissatisfaction with others, often all over social media! It’s the opposite of advertising. It’s a situation in which your brand gets dragged through the mud and your potential for growth is crippled while your potential for loss is reinforced.
Connectivity is an issue. This agent is on a dongle, that one has wifi, another has load shedding.
Customers can’t get through. When they do the call drops. If the call doesn’t drop the agent takes down the incorrect information because it’s a bad line. It’s just a hot mess.
A bird’s nest of contracts and ‘service’ providers
If there are too many telecoms systems and “solutions” in place then often one system doesn’t talk to the other properly or is downright incompatible. Some of these are pay-as-you-go and others are binding contracts tying you down for years. Nevermind the admin that goes with all of this, which is a fulltime job on its own.
Being locked into a contract with terms and conditions that are difficult to be free of hampers flexibility or systems alignment. Employees also get stuck with outdated legacy tech that isn’t conducive to remote working.
These systems are not agile enough to adapt to something like a global pandemic, limiting access to tech that actually can connect them and lead to sales.
Instead of being trapped in various lengthy contracts from different providers, each with their own admin requirements, wouldn’t a month-to-month system be a better option?
Data breach and noncompliance are on the cards
If you don’t have a system in place with effective data storage sensitive information becomes extremely vulnerable. Data breach is a daily threat for most companies but an inefficient telephone, data capturing and archiving system makes it even more so.
The implementation of the POPI Act and the potential for being in breach of compliance could cost you huge amounts of money in fines as well as costing you the integrity you require for customers to trust your brand.
Contact us for a game-changing contact centre solution with a powerful built-in Telephone Management System (TMS) – one that puts you in total control and ensures increased accountability, growth and productivity.
