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Call center is a terrific job. Many young professionals work in call center because of higher chances of boosting their career to the maximum level. Customers are expanding their channel in contact in which call centers are on top of the list. It is a challenge to every contact center to integrate strategic planning in order to maintain its presence towards the global trend in this industry.

Working in a call center is not only aiming to receive higher pay. There are dos and don’ts in order to set limitation to the workers. If you are one of the millions of people connected in customer service, you should know the guidelines to avoid committing violation. Call center companies always make sure to deliver efficient services to their clients worldwide as possible. Because call center is a promising industry, keeping the best employees and hiring more service representatives should always set part of expanding the business. Hiring the right people is very important. The call centers should provide ongoing training to the agents and employees; practice the transparency like communicating openly with the agents and managers, discovering the quality performance of the best people, investing to the state-of-the-art technology to increase customer satisfaction.

Any contact center should have a strong organization in achieving the long-term goal of the company. Making the call center dynamic and flexible can promote better output all the time. The call center management should always strengthen the relationship with the customer. Maintaining customer relationship is important above anything else.

There are many good things you can do to support the call center industry. Avoiding the don’ts in this industry can lessen the burden that may bring to the customers and the company you work for. The following are the don’ts that call center employees should do:

Avoid Tardiness

Time is precious. Never be late in your duty. Though you are one of the best agents in the company but with your constant tardiness will give you the honor to be recognized by your team leaders or supervisors. Also, you are not the asset of the company because call center is a fast paced regulated industry that time is important. Your tardiness can affect the operation of your company.

Don’t Slack Off

Do your job promptly. Slacking off the floor by letting other people do the job which is supposed to you is simply a bad impression to you not only as a person but to your job performance. Be productive always and serve as role model to your fellow agents. Show them the real you that you are happy with what you are doing. There are many call center agents who were terminated because of this bad impression despite several times of IR (incidental report) issued to them.

Avoid Obscene Behavior

Displaying your obscene behavior while you are inside your company’s premises is a big NO. When taking to the customer, talk with them with pleasure and with care. Never throw seducing words which sounds like you are doing phone sex to your customer. If caught, this may the end of your promising career in your in the call center. And worst, this may left bad wound in your previous job and to your co-workers.

Stop horsing around

Think of your responsibility as an employee of the company. While you are on duty, avoid playing around and horsing with other agents. Respect their privacy while they are on call and focusing on their job. This behavior can cause immediate violation because you are disturbing your co-workers instantly. Always put the fun in the right time. Implementing self-discipline is the best way to get rid of this disturbing behavior.

There are so many don’ts that you we need to implement. This can make the job easier if everybody is following the simple orders stated under the rules and regulations. It is important that the discipline must start on our own. Later on, other people who are new in the call center will learn the virtue that you showed. If you love your job then keep it.

The call center industry continues to give outstanding opportunity to everybody. It helps the economy prosper and lower the unemployment rate in the world.

Roberto L. Bacasong, 27, works as Customer Interaction Associate in a biggest contact center in the Philippines.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Roberto_Bacasong

By Myra Golden

The call record method is, in my opinion, one of the best approaches to coaching agent phone calls and ensuring quality. Here’s a 9-step plan for effectively coaching call center agent phone calls:

1. Randomly record 2 –3 telephone calls. Random recording is important. Do not record 3 calls back to back or on the same day, as your employee may be having a bad day and this may be reflected in all of one afternoon’s calls, but is not necessarily reflective of their typical performance.

2. Review the calls and note strengths and opportunities. Before meeting with your employee, listen to the calls and note what they did well and identify 1 –2 opportunities for performance improvement.

3. Play one tape and let your employee listen. During the playing of the tape, you do not need to respond.

4. Have your employee respond to the tape. After the tape is played, ask your employee to respond. Most employees will be overly self-critical. Your employee will likely note many opportunities for improvement and struggle to articulate what they’ve done well.

5. Coach the call. Use the “sandwich” approach. Tell your employee what s/he did well, followed by constructive feedback, and then end with positive feedback. When offering constructive feedback, share only one opportunity for improvement. The employee has likely observed and stated several improvement opportunities so there is no need to bring these up again Try to mention one thin g the employee did not bring up and offer this as your constructive feedback.

6. Gain commitment for performance improvement. Ask the employee, “What specific steps will you take over the next 5 days to improve in this area?” Write down what the employee states and repeat it to her. Summarize the session by reiterating strengths and offering a vote of confidence that she can improve in the identified area.

7. Repeat steps 2 – 6 with a second and perhaps third tape if necessary. The point of numerous recording is that an employee may respond defensively stating that was just a “bad” call. If that is the response, you may choose to review a second or third tape.

8. Follow-up before the next agent coaching session. Check with your employee in between coaching sessions to keep the commitment top of mind. You can touch base with your employee via email or a personal conversation.

9. Discuss improvement in next coaching session. Before listening to calls in the next coaching session, ask your employee how she’s progressing toward the goal of the last session. Look for improvement on calls reviewed in this session.

This 9-step call center agent coaching model is simple, clear and it both praises employees and offers support for improvement opportunities.

When you follow this 9-step process, you will set clear performance expectations, coach effectively and consistently and at the same time you will be motivating your employees.

Myra Golden is an award-winning professional speaker and principal of Myra Golden Seminars, LLC, a customer service training firm serving clients in food and beverage, banking, healthcare, hospitality, and other industries. Her client list includes McDonald’s, Johnson & Johnson, Coca-Cola, Frito-Lay, Michelin Tires, Pirelli, and Procter & Gamble, among many others.

For hundreds of ideas for customer service improvement for use in customer service training, visit the customer service training resource portal by going to http://www.totalcustomerservicetraining.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Myra_Golden

Well its basically true that most Call Centers in the Philippines offer high salary and competitive benefits, but how can these companies stop their employees from leaving them?
This article is from Kristel Nicole Eniego, a contributor of ezinearticles.com. Hope we learn a lot from it.

This job pays you a lot of money for your people skills. There is no other way of looking at this. You can work at a call center without a college degree as long as you are proficient with computers (and in this day and age, who is not proficient with computers?) also, you have to be good with people. However, the qualities of a call center agent extend to more than people skills. Before you get to be a regular call center agent, you have to undergo a lot of trainings and tests that examine not just your English proficiency but your technical and problem-solving skills as well. A lot of aspiring agents get kicked out in the first few months because of lack of productivity and their inability to keep up with the changing schedules.

In this kind of job, most agents feel stressed. This is partly attributed to the fact that 50% of call center agents do not exactly choose that career path. They would most likely jump to a better opportunity when it presents itself despite their current pay being higher than industry standard. So it is important for call center companies to keep their agents happy and satisfied with their jobs.

How do you keep quality call center agents from leaving?

• Improve testing and hiring practices

It is always wise to start with the process of hiring. You can hire all the wrong agents and have them turnover before they get regularized. If you start smart with the testing of applicants up to the process of hiring them, you’d have fewer problems to worry about in the long run. Managers usually test and interview the applicants, however this job should be filled up not by the managers who should spend their time focusing on employee development but by well-seasoned or the company’s top agents. Only those who are already good at what they do can decipher what is a potentially good agent.

• Increase training period

Most companies rush through the application process because of the high turnover rate so much so that they spend less time training their agents. Ideally, the agent’s training period should be around 3 to 4 months. Anything less than 3 to 4 months would be cutting it short and sacrificing quality management. In the training period, concentrated team system should be closely monitored for better results. Also, during this training period, the management can see which agents are comfortable with their work.

• Pay attention to Employee Morale

Experience shows that call center agents respond positively to immediate monetary rewards. If once in a while the company holds a little contest that pushes agents to reach their quota in the fastest time possible in exchange for monetary rewards, agents would have something new and fresh to aim for in that given day. Aside from monetary rewards, recognition of job well done and accomplishment of goals is also necessary. Nothing will make an employee happier than to have his efforts recognized. Creating a good atmosphere on the floor boosts employee morale and would make him work harder.

• Maintaining Quality

A lot of agents who leave their posts have the assumption that the company is not interested in improving the quality of their business functions. That is why it is important for companies to constantly ask their agents for ways of improving their services. Being in the front line makes them susceptible to the immediate needs of customers. This insight would prove to be helpful for both employer and employee.

Keeping quality call center agents from leaving is not really a trivial matter. But it is not exactly to be taken lightly either. It is important to keep good call center agents as constantly hiring new agents take up a lot of resources out of the company’s pockets. Training them takes time, effort and money so you have to be sure you’re spending these resources wisely. A call center agent’s job can be stressful but if the company manages to balance the stress and the rewards then you get to keep your quality call center agents for a long time.

Kristel Nicole Eniego is part of VONCORE’s creative writing team. If you want to learn more about the call center jobs in the Philippines and other business viewed with expertise and related in an easy to digest manner, visit Great Business Planning

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kristel_Nicole_Eniego