| The Challenge of Ongoing Agent Training in a Multi-Media Contact Centre
For any organisation, its workforce is the most important asset. But there is a constant need for to groom the workforce to gain optimum results. This need is felt more urgently in the call centre industry—an industry that thrives purely due to its manpower. This has led to the implementation of more thoroughly integrated applications, especially in the area of workforce management.
These applications have enabled the call centres to gather more detailed and precise information in terms of agent performance. These applications, provide the management with that all-important overview of the entire operations that minimizes the chances of any blunders.
The end objective is only to provide excellent service to the customers, and that can only be achieved when every individual puts in excellent performance. As Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher and scientist, remarked, “Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” Excellence, thus, requires an ongoing learning process. And in a contact centre, such a learning process will call for thorough planning as well as adaptability to fulfil the training requirements of the agents.
The multimedia call centres, therefore, have an upper edge over their counterparts, as they have been able to effectively employ these applications to deliver excellent service to their customers. But the implementation process wasn’t a piece of cake. As Vinni, (28) a manager in the Department of Transaction Monitoring Process at one of the leading multimedia call centres in India, reveals, “It has been difficult to create interest among the agents and the team leaders of the call centre regarding the quality issues and their respective parameters”.
Actually, most multimedia call centres faced this problem in the initial stages of the application. The team leaders and the supervisors were only interested in achieving their targets. As a result, even the agents also concentrated only on the figures and all the guidelines were put to the winds. But the solution lies in formulating the approach to quality as an integral part of the process rather than implementing it as an add-on to the process.
The best way to implement is to approach it in a step-by-step manner. First of all, the team leaders should be asked to study their processes and make the necessary modifications that would help in minimizing the errors in monitoring, feedback, and every other area. Once the team leaders become quality conscious, their whole team would also start assigning more value to quality over quantity. But what is this application that the multimedia call centres are implementing to provide an all-round solution for workforce management? This technological advancement is better known as customer relationship management server. The term—customer relationship management, or CRM—itself signifies the best possible relation with a customer at every stage of interaction.
The CRM system works on technologically advanced and customized servers that provide IVR for callers, ACD functionality, and voice messaging. It works on the same ports concept used in voice mail, except for the fact that the ports inside the PC server provide the voice connections.
Now, when a customer calls into a CRM server, the call proceeds in this manner. In the first place, an automated attendant will answer the call and give out self-routing options to the caller. If the caller selects this option, he/she is connected to the IVR to access the required information. But if the caller wants to speak to a customer service representative, then the stacking and queuing rules of ACD are applied. The system would then play the recordings as per the requirement, such as reminder recordings, or asking the customers to be on hold, or music and advertisements while they are on hold.
The calls are uniformly distributed among the agents who are logged-in. The agents interact with the CRM server through a window on the screen of their computers. All the incoming calls, pending e-mails and faxes, as well as the voice mails that need to be responded to, are all displayed on their screen. This multimedia queue is programmed in such a manner that it prioritises the issues for the agents to handle.
For example, if a voice call is on hold, then it will be shown at the top of the queue, or if the caller happens to be a valued customer, then the call is separated to give more importance to it. E-mails are usually queued after phone calls, as they are less urgent in nature. But if the protocol says that all the e-mails should be replied to within two hours, and there is an e-mail that hasn’t been answered and it is approaching its time limit, then it would be automatically listed above the voice calls.
What’s more, the CRM system also provides several other benefits that simplify and quicken the work of the agent. As soon as an agent takes up a call, the CRM system would load the customer’s details from the database, and it instantly appears on the screen of the agent handling the call. Thus, the agent has all the information about the caller without having to waste any time searching for it. And not only the agents, even the supervisors are greatly benefited by the CRM system. With the help of the CRM system, supervisors can have an overview of all the pending calls, callbacks, outbound calls, and any other type of calls, along with the entire conversation between the agent and the customer, all instantly available on their computer screen.
Apart from the CRM system, the behaviours that enhance the customer’s confidence include taking responsibility for the callers’ issues, and giving out the right information. These parameters are not abstract; they can be seen or heard, and so, can be correctly measured.
The implementation of all these factors involves self-study, or e learning, for practice. For example, with lots of new information or features being included into the existing processes, an agent might need help with how to operate new screens in a system or where to enter information in a new screen. A self-study or on-line version of the process helps the agents by providing them the requisite information as and when they need it, even while they are at work. This can be topped by a quiz to gauge the level of knowledge among the agents, and those who need some extra training can be provided so. This helps the agents quickly understand and implement the expected use of the new screens and data entry. As Dr. Peter Honey, renowned for his learning style theory, says, “Learning has a beginning, middle and no end”.
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