Why Do Call Agents Talk So Loudly On The Phone?

Why Are Call Agents Always Talking Loudly?

Call center agents seem to love talking loudly when on the phone. The call center noise is unbelievably loud sometimes. Like, REALLY loud, to the point where it's actually quite difficult to understand what they're saying. This background noise makes it so obvious it's a call agent when they phone you.

Call Centers are Noisy Places

Surely the microphone is next to their mouth, so why can't they talk at a reasonable volume allowing me to understand them? Instead, I feel like I'm fourteen again, and my Mum is telling me off for drinking straight out of the milk bottle. (We've all done that, right?)

Call centers are usually loud places, with a lot of background noise: people talking, phones ringing, printers going, music playing, bosses shouting, kettles whistling - you get the idea. The noise soon builds up. In any situation, when you can't hear another person, you automatically assume that they also can't hear you. It's human nature to raise your voice when you can't hear someone.

Nightclub, and you can't hear your friend? You shout.

Building site, and you can't hear your boss? You shout.

Call center, and you can't hear the caller? You shout, but you don't need to.

Even though the call center has a lot of background noise and the agent can't hear the caller very well, the person on the other end often can her the agent perfectly. Yes, they have a headset with a noise-canceling microphone, but that doesn't stop the average call center agent shouting down the phone!

It's Human Nature

We are in a loud environment, so we speak louder than normal. It's something which we haven't evolved out of. It's not surprising that they can't hear the customer on the other end of the line very well with all the chaos going on around them. How can they even concentrate with all that noise going on?! One person talks loudly, so the person next to them feels the needs to raise their voice to be heard, and then the next, and the next. This results in the customer getting shouted at down the line, and a horrible overall customer experience. It's a bit like when you're speaking to someone in a foreign country. Because you can't understand the person very well, you start talking louder and slower, sometimes slipping into an awful accent to try and be understood. Just like in the call center, they don't mean to do it, it just happens.

How Do You Reduce Background Noise in an Office?

1. Get Everyone To Maintain Their Voice Levels

As obvious as it sounds, asking people not to shout is a simple method to reducing background noise. It is straightforward and it can be very effective. Sometimes people don't realize they are talking loudly, so making them aware of it can often result in them lowering their voice to a more suitable level for the office they are in. If one person isn't shouting, then the person next to them doesn't need to and so on.

2. No Chit-Chat Behind Someone's Desk

Another simple idea is asking agents not to talk to colleagues behind another agents desk when they are on a call. Going to a quiet corner where no-one is working, or moving to another room altogether will bring noise levels down and make it easier for agents to hear the caller.

3. Acoustic Foam

Sound masking! By installing acoustic foam around the office can help to dampen the noise without dampening the mood. It's relatively inexpensive to buy and install but will make a big difference by stopping echo and noise bouncing around the room. This is a common sound masking system that is very effective.

4. Use Chat Systems

The use of a chat system for agents can come in handy, so they don't have to shout across the room to one another; they can silently type it. It is a good idea to monitor, however, to make sure people aren't just gossiping all day instead of working.

5. Partition Screens

Another way of sound masking is by installing partition screens can help to reduce noise. Not only that, but it also gives agents a little more privacy and even a place to pin things. It's three for the price of one - we are treating you today!

6. Noise-Canceling Headsets

Using equipment like headsets which have two headphone cups can allow agents to hear the caller much easier while blocking out background noise surrounding them. Most good call centers use headsets with noise-canceling microphones, so the caller shouldn't hear the commotion happening in the rest of the call center.

7. White Noise Machines

By installing white noise generators, you can create artificial levels of noise, which can help mask the jungle-like sounds of a call center. Staff will be able to understand customers much clearer not being distracted, helping to reduce mistakes. Of course, as mentioned there are other sound masking options, but this is one of the cheapest.

8. Don't Have Noisy Machines Next To Agents

Sure, we need printers and servers, but do they need to be next to the agents? No. Instead, have a separate room for these loud machines. Sure, you'll have to walk for an extra 10 seconds, but I'm sure not having a machine buzzing and beeping in an agents ear will be worth it.

Don't forget, there are actually regulations surrounding the noise levels your agents are surrounded by. Make sure you're complying with them!

The Wrap-Up

So call agents often talk very loudly on a call, but it isn't always their own fault as background noise builds up or just human nature taking over. Reducing the noise in a call center will help the agent hear the call more clearly, and often they will not feel the need to shout to get their point across, creating a much more pleasant experience for everyone. If they're happier (and quieter!), they can provide customers with a better experience (and with Cxceed helping out, they'll be unstoppable!).Everyone's a winner!

We hope these tips help and if you have any more, or have used any of the ones discussed, leave us a comment telling us how you got on.

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Uncategorized - 08/09/2019

How to Improve Your Contact Centers Customer Experience

More than ever, delivering a fantastic contact center customer experience provides a crucial competitive advantage and one which organizations strive for. Technology is changing the business landscape and evolving customer needs and expectations. Not only do customers want faster methods of contact, but they also don't want to be left frustrated by robotic-like people talking at them. To keep customers happy, they need to have the correct contact center strategy in place! How can a contact center ensure they provide the ultimate experience for the customer? Here are some must do's on how to improve the customer experience your contact center provides!

Multichannel Communication

With access to anything and everything at their fingertips, customers expect to be able to make contact with a company however they like. Being a contact center that only operates on a small handful of channels is an issue. You need to ensure you have the multichannel communication methods your customers want. Phone calls and emails are traditional methods that have problems — long waiting times, being passed from agent to agent, information being misinterpreted or taking too long to reply, to name a few. That's why a lot of customers (especially millennials) prefer to use chatbots, yet still, a lot of contact centers don't use them! If this is the case, customers may be too impatient for emails, or not want to speak on the phone - and just like that, a potential client is lost. The more contact methods you provide, the more customers you can keep satisfied. The last thing you want to do is immediately upset them by not having their preferred method of communication.

Don't Be A Robot!

If your agents are just sticking to a script when talking to a customer, it can make the interaction feel impersonal and a bit wooden. Every customer wants to feel as if their issue matters, and the employee on the other end of the chat wants to make sure it is resolved. It's okay to be relaxed and slightly more informal when talking to a customer; in fact, it's often better for both parties! Each conversation doesn't have to be the same monotonous, boring script chat. Instead encourage your agent, to go off-script, it creates a much more personal experience for the customer. Even if the issue takes a little longer to be sorted, the customer should be happier, feeling personally catered to. When agents strictly stick to the script; it can give the impression that they aren't listening to the customer's needs and don't care. Rather than having a script for agents, it may be more beneficial to incorporate guidelines instead. This allows agents to have more freedom in communications while still knowing some specific actions and procedures must be followed in certain circumstances.This can help ensure that every interaction can remain personally tailored and professional! Of course, sometimes organizations do actually use a robot (chatbot) to initiate conversations (before being passed to a real agent) or try to solve more straightforward queries. This is fine, and can be useful! But you have to tell the customer it's a robot! Is there anything more annoying than talking to a chatbot that pretends it's typing and gives the impression it is a real person? And then give answers that only vaguely relate to your question! I wonder how many people have had a one-sided, heated discussion with a chatbot because it won't provide them with the answer they are looking for...

Don't Delay, Respond Today!

One of the most frustrating things for a customer is having long waiting times in between dialogue with the call center agent. If you had to:

Wait in a long queue and have your issue resolved fairly quickly.
Wait in a short queue and have your issue resolved fairly quickly.
Be the first in the queue, but not have your issue resolved for a long time.

Which would you choose? Customers want their issue resolved quickly: so you have to be able to fulfill this need. Of course, sometimes there is nothing you can do but put the customer on hold. However, an agent who possesses a wide range of helpful information will be able to eliminate unnecessary hold times. Don't be afraid to tell the customer you have to look something up or ask someone else. They would rather you take a little longer to give a definite answer than instantly guess the answer and most likely get it wrong! The faster the response helps to show the customer that you do care about them and their needs, and this is what any customer experience orientated company should be aiming for. If a customer isn't going to be able to get a quick response from yourselves, then there are usually plenty of alternatives for them to choose! If you are short-staffed and struggling to answer customer queries in a timely manner, then don't just leave your customers hanging. Apologize and let them know when you will be able to respond.

Fluid Processing of Information

It's sometimes the case that an agent can't help a customer. In such cases, they may instead need to pass them over somebody else who can. The key here is honesty! If you know you can't answer the question, tell them and pass them onto someone else who can. Customers are understanding of this and will be happy to be transferred if it means they have the best person to deal with their query. However, they won't be pleased if they have to repeat all the information they just gave to the original agent! It's a waste of everyone's time! All agents must be able to access a client database and make notes as the conversation progresses. This way, instead of having the customer spend another five minutes repeating themselves, the agent can quickly review their file and help. This will also come in handy for future cases when the customer comes back for support. If the issue is related, the agent can see what actions were taken last time to help get the issue resolved quicker. Everyone's a winner!

Learn From Every Communication

And I mean EVERY communication, whether good or bad, can be used to improve. Every form of multichannel communication provides a great opportunity to learn, and managers should engrain this strategy into their organizational culture. Contact center agents should be able to review their own interactions as well as other colleagues while getting feedback from the customers they communicate with. It doesn't matter how the agents communicate with your customers; they still need to be able to review the interactions and improve them in the future. If you can highlight low scoring feedback for evaluation, then the possibility of being able to find areas for improvement increases. If agents can self-evaluate, then they will be more accepting of the mistakes they find and will work harder to improve them. Peer-evaluations allows colleagues to learn from each other, and everyone can better themselves. Transparency of evaluation ensures that all agents feel involved in the process and trust the results that are received. This kind of environment is much more appealing for any employee! The result? Reduced staff turnover, more experienced staff, and the ability to provide a better customer experience! Encourage your agents to improve, and your business will follow suit.

The Wrap-Up!

Those were our must-dos for any contact center to be able to provide the ultimate customer experience. Something every organization must aim for when just one bad interaction can be blown out of proportion and be amplified online. Contact center customer experience can make or break a company. Don't it let break yours. Have a comment or any of your own tips? Let us know down below!

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Uncategorized - 08/09/2019

CX Strategy - Go Big or Go Home

A warning to you business owners out there - clients today are less likely to stay loyal to you and your services because of three things:

There's more competition than ever before.
Customer expectations are drastically rising.
Information about competitors is accessible within a click of a button.

These make retaining clients a considerable challenge and the creation of a customer experience (CX) strategy a must.

A 2011 customer service impact report showed that up to 89% of consumers began doing business with a competitor following a poor customer experience.

Customers today are quick in their decision to switch a supplier after having a bad experience, often posting about it on social media which can affect businesses.

Word quickly spreads online, and one dissatisfied customer could influence potential ones who read and take the negative reviews as fact (even if it isn't).

If you are worried about negative reviews or have been subject to them, don't worry! We've written a guide on how you can deal with them!

Not only that, current customers often have second thoughts after reading the bad experiences and decide to go elsewhere. Don't worry though, there's good news! A well designed CX strategy can help us use social media and new technology to our advantage.

Don't get left behind the pack - find out how you can adapt your service to meet your clients' ever-changing needs and have them coming back for more!

Customers Have The Power

The internet has allowed clients quick and easy access to information, giving them a voice and a choice. As a result, they know they have alternative options, and expect excellent service from companies. A good CX strategy should consistently provide an outstanding customer experience to make them happy.

It's no use only having a competent complaints department; each employee who speaks to a customer should be excellent (and you hopefully won't even need a complaints department). Customers posting negatively on social media is an indication that your strategy has failed, but what is that that they expect from a brand?

A survey commissioned by RightNow and conducted by Harris Interactive, showed that 73% of customers appreciate contact center agents’ friendliness, which is at the heart of the customer satisfaction strategy.

More than half (55%) of surveyed users demand easy access to information and support which makes businesses offer a multi-channel service, social media visibility, and high response rate.

Finally, 36% said a personalized experience with useful updates was a thing they cherished. Businesses need to understand and interact with individual customers in personalized ways, at scale.

In a nutshell, to be successful, the supplier must deliver timely, contextual, relevant and personalized information or knowledge to every customer across every engagement channel.

This isn't easy to do, but it is achievable.

Don't Sit Back - Take Risks

The world evolves too fast for anyone who is unwilling to take risks and try new approaches. Below is a simple framework that serves as a guide into the creation of a new CX Strategy.

Face Your Flaws

We all think we know our business like the back of our hand, but some things are not always as we think they are.

To find out where your team is falling short, reach out to your customers, ask them what they are happy with and crucially what they are unhappy with. Use these conversations and the data collected from them to understand which business processes are working and which are not.

Focus on the processes that frustrate your customers the most and start to make improvements to those areas. Along with getting familiar with your clients’ sentiment, we’d suggest also looking at your staff’s.

Our experience has taught us there's a strong connection between employee motivation and customer retention with your brand, as the phrase “happy staff – happy customers,” suggests. So talking with your staff before you figure out the processes that need improvement is an excellent idea to put into practice.

Gain a Culture For Growth

What do we mean when we talk about culture?

For a start, our company’s values direct the decisions our employees make. It's crucial that every single person from top to bottom pulls in the same direction, guided by the same core values.

We want to make sure our customers have the best experience possible, and we do this by making sure client satisfaction is at the highest it can be. Our manager's role is to set an example, and coach every team member to apply this culture to their daily tasks.

Metrics Make Your Life Easier

You can't improve what you don’t measure. To avoid getting bogged down with too much information, pick the most important metrics for your business to monitor and develop actions for change.

We've previously spoken about how to use metrics as improvement tactic indicators, as well as the most common downfalls companies have with them, so we won't go fully into it here. The critical take-out point is to use the metric's results as improvement tactic indicators.

Provide Support, Everywhere

Customers today contact you through multiple channels such as e-mail, chat, phone, or video-call, and expect the information they provide on one channel to be immediately available to staff working on the other channels.

As the number of touch points rises, companies face the challenge to deliver consistent service across them all. A failure to provide it often results in augmented AHT, low FCR rates, poor CSAT scores, and the business starts to suffer.

Omni-channel support has always been challenging to achieve, but recent technology is enabling companies to automate some of the processes and make consistent quality interactions possible.

QA Software is Your Right Hand Man

Manually adding calls and emails is inefficient, so when choosing software for your business, select one with API's that can be easily integrated with your servers or PBX.

In such cases, Cxceed software can help integrate QA into your business processes. Interactions made through multiple channels are gathered, neatly indexed and accessible to you, to evaluate and use for training.

The Wrap-Up

Customers today have more power than ever before. Their expectations are rising, and they are willing to chop and change suppliers until they find one which meets their demands.

Use this guide to create a CX Strategy which suits your business and watch your clients' happiness increase. Don't shy away from it. Be proactive, and give your customers what they want, when they want it.

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Uncategorized - 08/05/2019

The Customer Experience Provided by Budget Airlines

Travelling for business, having elderly parents living abroad and the odd holiday overseas means that I regularly fly short-haul.

The air miles quickly mount up, and in the past year, I've caught 26 flights - all with budget airlines.

I'm a simple man, the cheapest airlines will do for me.

Flying so often with Wizz Air, Ryanair, Jet2 and easyJet, I've noticed quite a lot of differences between them and the customer experience (CX) they deliver.

Plenty of blogs out there discuss the baggage allowances each airline allows but I'm going to miss that out. Instead, I'm going to give you an airline comparison focusing on the customer service each provides and how much I enjoy traveling with them.

The Experience

Each airline has a different feel about it; if they were all flying the same route, I would choose them in this order:

1. Jet2
2. easyJet
3. Wizz Air
4. If you were forcing me, Ryanair

Let's do an airline comparison to see why.

Ryanair

Starting on a positive note; Ryanair's coffee is superb. They serve you Lavazza filter coffee in clever meshed lid cup which allows you to drink from them, without taking the lid off.

The planes are always modern, but the legroom is just OK (bear in mind, I'm 6 foot).

It's one of the cheapest airlines if you're flying light.

Now the negatives.

They fly to some second-tier airports that are not even close to the cities that bear their name, such as Frankfurt-Hahn Airport which is a 77-mile drive to Frankfurt City Centre.

I'm always on edge when booking Ryanair. They appear to delight in catching people out and making them pay a fine. The staff always appear tired, their uniforms look like they have seen better days, and many of them give the impression that they are looking forward to their shift finishing.

Despite the great coffee, you can never relax, with more announcements than a racecourse blasting over the tannoy, and they are always trying to sell you something, such as their "charity" scratch-cards (which according to The Sun, you have a 1.2 Billion to 1 chance of winning the jackpot, and they give just 0.3% of the profits to charity).

Ryanair seems to love treating people poorly, and I've met plenty of people who refuse to fly with them.

Wizz Air

Wizz Air is an Eastern European airline whom I would describe as professional and functional. Based in Hungary, they tend to fly to Eastern European destinations, and every plane I've flown on has been modern.

The staff are professional but a little stand-offish and very matter of fact. They welcome you onboard and do their job, but there is no conversation or attempt at interaction, although this could be because English is usually their second language.

Wizz Air sometimes flies to second-tier airports, which are far out of the city they are named after. I made the mistake of booking a flight to Paris, Charles de Gaulle Airport and then flying out of Paris Beauvais Airport.

Paris Beauvais is 55 miles outside of Paris, and when I travelled, the trains weren't going there on Sundays! They have cheap coaches going there from Paris-Porte Maillot, but they take at least 80 minutes to get there, and we had to queue for over 50 minutes just to get on one! Even though there was a 6-hour gap between flights, I only just made it.

Their coffee is barely drinkable, and you are unlikely to order a second. The legroom is adequate, and the flight usually uneventful. They regularly have 20% off days, so it's worth being signed up to their email list to be informed of these.

easyJet

easyJet is a UK based budget airline whose staff always appear a bit stressed and harassed to me, although I've always found them to be professional.

It is a bit pot luck as to how the staff treat you. Some of them really make an effort, but others don't appear to care.

The flights usually go to the main airports, so even if the cost of the flight is higher than Ryanair or Wizz Air, you can easily save more than the difference by not having to fork out for onward travel.

Every journey I've made with them has been on a modern plane. The legroom is just about OK, but the thing which stands out in my mind is that the coffee has always been disgusting.

Jet2

Yorkshire based budget airline, Jet2, runs a mixed bag of planes. Most are new, but it has some older ones, with the oldest being 32 years old - although I've been on this plane and found no problems with it.

Aeroplanes are designed to last indefinitely, and I think I would prefer to fly on this well-tested plane than a brand new one (especially a Boeing 737 Max).

For the last couple of years, I've had plenty of legroom, but previous to this, on some journeys I've been too cramped.

They serve Starbucks coffee, which is good, but it is instant Starbucks coffee and not a patch on Ryanair's filtered Lavazza.

Why I'd Always Choose Jet2 First

The Customer Experience provided by Jet2 is fantastic. They have reasonable baggage limits that are not designed to trap you into making a mistake so they can penalise you.

The cabin crew are well dressed, smile and make you feel welcome as soon as you board the plane. Everything appears to be designed to make for a pleasant experience for the customer. They play relaxing music before take off. On my last flight, I remember it was My Girl by The Temptations.

The Pilot occasionally lets you know where you are and keeps you informed about the flight, and when you land, they thank you for flying with them and wish you a safe onward journey.

My colleague always complains that they are constantly playing Jess Glynne, who he dislikes, which just goes to show, you can't keep everybody happy.

To Conclude

"Over the last year, sentiment around airline stocks has eroded. Ryanair is down 32 percent, EasyJet has shed 23 percent, and Wizz Air is also 17 percent lower. Meanwhile, shares in Dart Group (Owner of Jet2) - while far off its highs of last summer - are up 22 percent."

Running an airline is challenging, but it's apparent Jet2 understand that in such a competitive industry, providing an excellent customer experience is essential if you want to grow.

Michael O'Leary's team has built Ryanair into the largest European budget airline carrying more international passengers than any other airline. But if they want to carry on growing in a competitive market, they need to start putting as much effort into their customer service as they do their coffee.

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Uncategorized - 08/01/2019

Why You NEED To Ditch Performance Appraisals

Performance Appraisals. Love Them or Hate Them?

To some extent, appraisals do work but are usually too far apart and take a significant amount of work to organize. Although the results can be positive, employees worry about them, and if you bring up something negative which wasn't recent, it looks like you are picking on them.

We want our agents to be happier when doing their job, not more stressed and demotivated.

When I was on the receiving end of performance appraisals, I never liked them, and the delay was the biggest problem.

My opinion was if I do something wrong, the sooner you tell me about it, the sooner I can fix it, and if I do something right let know, and I'll do it again.

COME ON, IT'S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE!

Imagine if you were training a new kitten or a puppy to do its business outside, or in a litter tray and you waited for three months before you gave them any feedback. You would end up knee deep in sh**!

With that said, here are five reasons to show that appraisals are hurting your business and not helping it!

The text ‘Houston, we have a problem’ followed by a rocket.

1. Appraisals Take a lot of Work to Organise!

Oh spreadsheets, how much I hate them. I've wasted so much time preparing appraisals because of them; time which could have been spent coaching and improving the performance of my team.

Not only spreadsheets but finding all of the data which I needed to show to my staff. The examples of good calls, bad calls, the complaints, the positive comments and drafting out how they could improve. It was hell preparing for them.

For the fast-paced businesses out there, appraisals can be rushed and done ineffectively. You might as well have not bothered at all!

Think about the process you have to do to perform appraisals: Analyse the employee's performance, look at their data, complete the forms, hold the meeting and take time out of everyone's day. It's believed performance appraisals take up around 2 million hours a year.

Can you really afford to spend this much time? I'd rather do it more effectively, and quicker!

2. Staff Leave Before They Get to Their First Appraisal

High staff turnover is a harsh fact for almost all call centers. Some agents leave before they even get to their first performance appraisal, wasting the money spent training them.

Why does this happen?

Lots of reasons, but one is that everybody wants to be told 'well done' once in a while. Waiting months for an appraisal to acknowledge an individual's efforts is madness and can leave some new hires with the impression that you don’t care about what they are doing.

This delayed feedback is also something which as a manager, I struggled with. I cared about and valued my staff. I wanted to give them praise, but I didn't have the means to collect the necessary data easily and couldn't spare the time to collect it to give them performance feedback frequently.

3. They Are Not Listening to You

So you've managed to organise all of your data into a spreadsheet for an appraisal. It's now time to get to work. You sit down with an agent for their appraisal and start discussing the mistakes which happened in the past months with them.

The staff member can hardly remember a conversation they had a few hours ago, let alone months ago. Naturally, they feel you're unjust even mentioning them, and get defensive.

When I had to do this, I didn't want to bombard my staff with just negativity, so I tried to explain to them that I just wanted to help them improve, while at the same time, telling them what was good with their performance - but most didn't believe me and only heard the negatives.

4. Repetition is Habit Forming

If you allow your employees to do the wrong thing repeatedly, then those things will become a habit, which is hard to change. For employees, it often seems easier just to quit, rather than try and change the way they have always done things!

5. Faster Feedback Produces Better Performance

Appraisals are a delayed method of feedback, and immediate feedback is proven to improve performance.

Don't just take my word for it have a read. If you opened that, had a skim and was left scratching your head, here is a slightly less technical article.

6. Appraisals Can Actually Cause Good Employees To Leave

Yes, you read that right. Giving out an appraisal could actually be one of the most anti-productive practices you have in your workplace.

Imagine you've been working as hard as you can for the past year, putting in the extra hours and you feel you've made a real difference. Now imagine your boss comes and seems to focus on the areas you're underperforming in.

Unfortunately, this is the nature of the appraisal for many businesses. "Well done for this, BUT you need to do better in X, Y and Z.

Adobe carried out a study, and found that 52% of workers were negatively surprised by the feedback given, whilst 22% of workers cried after the appraisals. This shouldn't be what appraisals are about; encourage your employees, don't destroy their souls!

7. They're Inconsistent

Since there's no set method for appraisals and can be largely prone to subjectivity, it's going to be impossible to consistently conduct them.

Sure, you can measure them based on sales, or calls made, but that doesn't tell the full story.

If they've made more calls than needed, that doesn't always mean they're a good worker; the quality of those calls may have been nowhere good enough.

On the other hand, they may not have reached their goal due to issues beyond their control. How can you tell someone they're no good when it's not their fault?

Then of course, there's bias.

Whether you know it or not, you'll be biased towards different employees. Some you will like more than others, it's natural!

But that's not fair on the employees receiving the appraisal, is it? Everyone deserves to be judged on the same performance scale, not how much you like them.

A Never-Ending Cycle

Do you feel like you keep repeating yourself? You hire new staff, some leave before the first appraisal which you've spent a lot of time organizing, and after it, a lot more leave. Repeat.

Break Out of It - Upgrade to an Evaluation System that Works!

If you want to break this cycle, you need to ditch the performance appraisal method.

You might then ask, “How would I measure my staffs' performance?”

Good question. You could try some of the available quality assurance software on the market (we tried most of them, and none of them worked), or you can save yourself the hassle and try Cxceed.

What Makes a Good QA System?

First of all, and I can’t stress this enough, a good quality assurance system has to enable frequent evaluations - The more frequent, the better, with daily evaluations being the ideal option.

Why Daily Evaluations?

To repeat my opening words: If I do something wrong, the sooner you tell me about it, the sooner I can fix it.

Look at it this way – it’s an appraisal done daily.

You don’t need to bother with months worth of spreadsheet data, and you don’t wait months to do them. It works even better for the agents. Daily evaluations don’t overwhelm them with mistakes that happened months ago, but rather they are pointed out as soon as they happen.

The Wrap-Up

It's time for call centers and businesses to upgrade their out of date methods to a quality system that will help grow their business.

If you have any experiences with appraisals or evaluation systems that you might want to share, leave a comment down below!

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Uncategorized - 07/12/2019

Tips to Improve Your Call Center Training

Customer demands are always changing, and call centers need to modify their training to keep up.Not doing so can lead to the loss of customers because they encounter a poor customer experience.Don't get left behind. Browse these top tips on how to improve quality assurance in a call center to take your customer experience to the next level.

Use a CSAT Call Center KPI to Indicate What to Review

The clue is in the name 'Call Center Key Performance Indicators'. These 'indicators' are just that and should be used as a guide only. A lot of call centers tend to misuse KPIs, having a negative impact on their business.Correctly using KPIs will help indicate areas to be targeted for evaluation. You don't know what has upset a customer, so you should never assume a low CSAT means that an agent has done a poor job without investigating it.

A magnifying glass over a decline in a performance graph, followed by the text 'Investigate the root of the problem'

Evaluations Are Where You Identify What Needs Improving

The main purpose of evaluations is to highlight where agents can improve, and call centers should have a scoring system to help analyze the performance of their staff. A poorly designed or non-existent scoring system can contribute to high attrition rates. A well-designed system will help you identify areas an agent needs to improve and provide training and coaching material with the click of a button.

A pie chart divided on four part with a loop symbol in the middle, with each part containing one of 'identify, adapt, learn, improve'.

Self Evaluation Helps

Allowing your staff to self-evaluate their performance helps them to realise and accept their own weaknesses. It also helps lower the barrier people raise when they feel they are being criticized.Self-evaluations can be problematic if not done correctly - what's stopping agents from scoring themselves 100% for each call? It's hard to have agents self-evaluate with honesty; this is something we as a company initially struggled with when trying to get agents to self-evaluate but using Cxceed helped us to overcome this.

A part of a scorecard with a tick box followed by excellent crossed out, followed by a circled handwritten 'I can do better!'.

Have Frequent and Timely Evaluations

Frequent evaluations help identify mistakes as they happen, which together with ongoing training, solve issues before they become bigger.When we switched to daily evaluations, our problems were solved without the pressure of having to deal with numerous issues in one go.Coaching was also given at this point to stop a repetition of the problem. We saw that frequent and timely evaluations had a positive impact on our staff.

Combining These Tips Will Result in an Outstanding Performance Management System!

Combining these techniques will result in a performance management system which runs smoothly and works. A system that agents and managers identify and accept what needs improving is key and it is this working together will result in an improved call center training routine - helping grow your business as a whole.

The Wrap-Up

These are just some of the tips which helped me along the way to improving the training I gave my agents. I hope you find them useful in developing your staff! If you have any tips you want to share, feel free to leave a comment down below.

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Uncategorized - 06/14/2019

How to Reduce Average Handle Time in a Call Center

How to Reduce Average Handle Time in a Call Center to Increase Productivity and Sales

Average call handle time has been something call centers have always wanted to reduce. So many theories on just how to reduce it, so many “quality assurance practices" to follow, yet barely any of them work. In this post, we’ll get familiar with just what this metric is, and how to reduce average handle time in a call center, without losing any quality in your service, or staff.

What Is Average Handle Time, and Why Is It a Problem?

Every business attempts to reduce operating costs. Time is money, and the more time each agent spends on a call, the more it costs to run a business. Since the first call centre opened, the struggle to optimize workflow has existed. Different metrics became popular, one of which was reducing the average call handle time (AHT) for each agent.

How to Calculate Average Handle Time

Each business that operates a call centre may define it differently, but the definition we would give is:

“The average time an agent takes to deal with a call and is unavailable to deal with the next one."

Using this definition, the average handle time formula would include the following metrics:

Hold time

The time when an agent places a customer on hold while dealing with internal procedures.

Wrap-up time

The time processing data, or on internal procedures connected to the call.

Talk time

The time the agent and the customer spend talking to each other.

Follow-up in call time

The time dealing with issues related to the original call.

It would not include:

The time the customer spends on the call before the agent answers it.

The time after a customer's transfer to another colleague.

Any time the agent is available to answer another call.

Average handling time (AHT) as a mathematical formula looks something like this:

AHT Original = (Hold Time + Talk Time+ Time on Follow-Up Calls + Wrap-Up Time) / Number of Total Calls

To reduce costs, many managers set a maximum average call handle time for each agent, but does it work?

It is Possible to Reduce AHT But Not by Focusing on The Formula

The irony with average handle time is that focusing on it doesn’t help call centres improve effectiveness; it just increases the number of calls.

“But how is that possible? Almost every call centre uses the formula to reduce its call handling time!”Most call centers have high staff turnover because they use metrics like the AHT formula.When the focus is on the length of the call, agents feel pressured and reduce their call time, but they don’t worry about the quality of the call, nor the customer’s needs.

They focus on finishing that call faster and then starting another. Rushing calls can sometimes lead to unhappy clients being forced to make repeated calls to solve their problem, decreasing client satisfaction rates.

So How Do You Reduce Average Call Handling Time?

We set out to reduce our call handling time, and although we managed it, it was a bit of a journey.

First off, we followed the standard “quality assurance practice" of insisting call agents reduce their Average Call Handling time. We set targets for agents to achieve this.

We had positive results which saw AHT times down and service levels up.

Unfortunately, it also had a detrimental effect on first call resolution, customer satisfaction and advisor satisfaction which were all down. Even worse, the average call handling time went up when we combined calls from customers which were about the same problem.

CAHT = (Hold Time + Talk Time + Time on Follow-Up Calls + Wrap-Up Time) / Number of Calls From Clients About a Different Subject

Starting a consultation process, we talked everything through with our agents and supervisors, encouraging them to give their honest opinions. The conclusion was that to reduce average call handling time; we had to improve our agents' call handling skills.

Our new training mantra became:'Focus on quality and speed will happen naturally.'

Improving call handling skills while keeping your agents happy is not easy to do. We managed it by using Cxceed.

The positive results were:

AHT times down
Service levels up
First call resolution up
Customer satisfaction up
Advisor satisfaction up

An eye test containing a number of call center terms, with eyeglasses focusing on the term call handling skills, followed by the text 'Focus on call handling skills to reduce average handle time'

How to Reduce Average Call Handling Time by Improving Call Handling Skills

How we solved the problem

Most people naturally don't like criticism, and a lot of us build defensive barriers in our minds against perceived attacks. To successfully improve the call handling skills of an agent, first, you need to convince them to change their attitude to feedback. People don’t like someone telling them what they need to improve - Just because it’s called feedback, it doesn’t mean the agent will not regard it as criticism.

The big question is how to remove these barriers.

Start by including staff in the evaluation process, and making the whole process transparent. The transparency builds trust and having your staff self-evaluate their own calls, lowers their defenses. It is a simple concept; when employees evaluate their own actions and point out areas they can improve, then they are more receptive to any coaching given.

Cxceed facilitates this effortlessly.

How Exactly Does Improving Call Handling Skills Reduce Average Call Handling Time?

Let's make an analogy here: When teaching a new pupil to drive, the instructor doesn't start by teaching them to drive fast. That would be reckless. Instead, they concentrate on ensuring that the learner builds up the right skills to deal with any situation that they might encounter on the road. Driving at speed is something that develops later.

Reducing average call handling time works the same way. Agents will start by doing great calls, and with time, they will get faster, and the average time of these calls will reduce.

We hope you found this helpful. If you have any tips you want to share or have something else to add, feel free to leave a comment down below!

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Uncategorized - 03/14/2019

Businesses are built on conversations.

Improve yours.

Find out how

Why Do Call Agents Talk So Loudly On The Phone?

Why Are Call Agents Always Talking Loudly?

Call Centers are Noisy Places

It's Human Nature

How Do You Reduce Background Noise in an Office?

1. Get Everyone To Maintain Their Voice Levels

2. No Chit-Chat Behind Someone's Desk

3. Acoustic Foam

4. Use Chat Systems

5. Partition Screens

6. Noise-Canceling Headsets

7. White Noise Machines

8. Don't Have Noisy Machines Next To Agents

The Wrap-Up

Improve Your Business Today

How to Improve Your Contact Centers Customer Experience

How to Improve Your Contact Centers Customer Experience

Multichannel Communication

Don't Be A Robot!

Don't Delay, Respond Today!

Fluid Processing of Information

Learn From Every Communication

The Wrap-Up!

Improve Your Business Today

CX Strategy - Go Big or Go Home

CX Strategy - Go Big or Go Home

Customers Have The Power

Don't Sit Back - Take Risks

Face Your Flaws

Gain a Culture For Growth

Metrics Make Your Life Easier

Provide Support, Everywhere

QA Software is Your Right Hand Man

The Wrap-Up

Improve Your Business Today

The Customer Experience Provided by Budget Airlines

The Customer Experience Provided by Budget Airlines

The Experience

Ryanair

Wizz Air

easyJet

Jet2

Why I'd Always Choose Jet2 First

To Conclude

Improve Your Business Today

Why You NEED To Ditch Performance Appraisals

Why You NEED To Ditch Performance Appraisals

COME ON, IT'S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE!

1. Appraisals Take a lot of Work to Organise!

2. Staff Leave Before They Get to Their First Appraisal

3. They Are Not Listening to You

4. Repetition is Habit Forming

5. Faster Feedback Produces Better Performance

6. Appraisals Can Actually Cause Good Employees To Leave

7. They're Inconsistent

A Never-Ending Cycle

Break Out of It - Upgrade to an Evaluation System that Works!

What Makes a Good QA System?

The Wrap-Up

Improve Your Business Today

Tips to Improve Your Call Center Training

Tips to Improve Your Call Center Training

Use a CSAT Call Center KPI to Indicate What to Review

Evaluations Are Where You Identify What Needs Improving

Self Evaluation Helps

Have Frequent and Timely Evaluations

Combining These Tips Will Result in an Outstanding Performance Management System!

The Wrap-Up

Improve Your Business Today

How to Reduce Average Handle Time in a Call Center

How to Reduce Average Handle Time in a Call Center to Increase Productivity and Sales

What Is Average Handle Time, and Why Is It a Problem?

How to Calculate Average Handle Time

Hold time

Wrap-up time

Talk time

Follow-up in call time