5 Steps for Improving Your Call Center Process

​​​​​​Call center operations rely on a standardized process to handle calls and ensure excellent service delivery every time. But sometimes, that process may fall short. Here are five steps you can follow to improve your call center process.

Call centers have a lot of moving parts. Between agents, teams, supervisors, technology, and your process, there is never a shortage of improvements to be made. It’s easy to get overwhelmed, so in this blog, we’ll focus on the improvements you can make to your process. 

We’ll start by defining what a call center process is. Then, we’ll discuss some signs that can tell you improvements are needed. Finally, we’ll give you some steps you can take to make those needed improvements.

What is a Call Center Process?

In general, your call center process is the standard method your service reps use when handling customer calls. That’s a simple definition, but it’s much more than that.

Essentially, your process is how you run your call center, and it plays a big role in determining your success. It’s important for your process to be as efficient as possible to lead to positive customer service outcomes.

4 Signs You Need to Improve Your Call Center Process

It can be hard to take a step back to see what needs improvement in your call center process. If you’re starting to notice any of these signs, it’s time to make some adjustments.

Sign #1 – Low Customer Satisfaction

One of the easiest and most distressing signs to spot, a dip in your customer satisfaction is a clear sign that your process may need improvement.

Low customer satisfaction may come in the form of negative reviews online or lower customer satisfaction rating (CSR) scores from surveys. No matter how it reaches your attention, you need to act quickly to make improvements

Sign #2 – Poor Call Quality

Going hand-in-hand with low customer satisfaction is poor call quality. Call quality suffers when agents struggle to clear calls with a positive resolution, or the conversation quality needs improvements. Either way, tweaking your process can help.

Sign #3 – Long Customer Wait Times

The longer customers wait, the more unhappy they become. If your call center is struggling with long wait times, that is another clear sign that it’s time to improve your process so your agents can clear more calls.

Sign #4 – High Call Volumes

Lastly, high call volumes are another clear-cut sign that your process needs improvements. Making some minor adjustments to your process can help agents clear more calls to handle the increase in volume.

5 Steps to Improve Your Call Center Processes

If you’re starting to notice any of the above signs, take some time to look at your process for areas where you can make improvements. Here are five high-level steps to get you focused in the right areas.

Step #1 – Consult Your Metrics

Tracking and reviewing relevant metrics gives you visibility into the state of your operations. 

When looking to improve your process, the first thing you should do is get a baseline of how your call center is performing with regards to agent performance, customer satisfaction, and call-specific metrics.

There are plenty of metrics to track in a call center, so identify the metrics that are most impactful to your business success and go from there.

Step #2 – Set Your Goals

Once you have a baseline of how you’re performing on important metrics, you can begin to identify what you need to improve in your process. Create goals that narrow in on the KPI improvements that would impact your business the most.

For example, a goal could be to reduce call times by 20 percent.

Step #3 – Train Your Agents

Now that you have goals in mind, it’s time to train your agents to reach those goals.

Going back to the call time example above, that corresponding training should focus on techniques your agents can use to resolve calls faster and more effectively. Keep your training clear and focused, and always communicate the reasons for the training to your agents. 

Training your agents is a great way to show you’re invested in their success. That investment in their career gives them more satisfaction in their job, which goes a long way towards preventing turnover.

Step #4 – Improve Your Tech

In the same vein as training your agents, you also want to equip them with the technology they need to succeed.

Each time you review your call center process, you should always look for ways to update the technology your agents use to complete that process. 

One of the easiest improvements you can make to your call center tech stack is with Computer Telephony Integration (CTI). Contact center CTI allows a computer to control a telephone and integrate with other systems so that your agents are armed with the information they need to successfully complete a call.

Step #5 – Review and Update

Improving your call center process is an ongoing project. There are always ways to tweak and tune your operations to keep improving and delivering better service to your customers. Always review what is working and what isn’t keep using these high-level steps to guide your improvements.

Conclusion 

Your call center process is an essential piece of your business. It’s important to have a way to institute needed improvements, whether that’s staff training or technical improvements. 

Ready to get started? Available on AppExchange, CDC Software provides integrated solutions for transforming your call center technology.

About the writer: Mark Jaworski is the Business Development Director at CDC Software. With over a decade of successful experience in the telecom industry, Mark specializes in sales management, new business development, sales proposals and contracts, client relations, and evolving global partner programs. Mark collaborates with clients to develop contact center and customer relationship technology solutions that improve overall customer experience and agent productivity.