subject: Call Center Work Ambiance [print this page] Happy call center agents mean happy customers! There is a lot of truth in this fact, in fact more than you have surmised off late. Customer service agents have to work in a free and relaxed working ambiance because their smiles will have a lot of bearing on the sales. There is something about a smile that makes it known even across the phone lines. True to the saying that all work and no play make Jack a dull boy, you must inject a sense of light-hearted camaraderie at the workplace. To make that possible, the managers and the supervisors have to take the lead. You need not organize fun parties and escapades every other week to achieve that! Simple words and gestures can go a long way in making that happen.
Knowing your employees is the first step for the call center manager. There are many salient sides of an employees personality that you dont know about. You may have sportsmen or creative people among the customer service employees. If you can connect to that side of their personas, you can create a more transparent work environment. Knowing their dormant qualities will help you assign certain projects to the right BPO employees. If you are selling sports goods, why not have that high school football player on your telemarketing team? He may know more about the product and how to sell it than any training session you can possibly design! Practical experiences always help plan out something that works. Telemarketing services deal with real people and apprehensions. If you can read their psyche, you can be sure of having covered a long way.
Improving productivity at the call center doesnt mean that you have to hike up targets and push your employees. There are other ways to do that. When the answering service agents are happy working for you, they will be ready to go that extra distance. They will work towards better quality call center services. They will be enthused about thinking about their work and push towards innovation. There is a lot of difference in the work done by employees when they are happy as opposed to when they are ordered to put their nose to the grindstone. A great trick is to appreciate in public but criticize in private. You must be willing to invest emotionally in the well-being of the employees before they do the same for your company.
To be a motivator among the database service agents, you have to step down from the pedestal where your hierarchy has placed you. Employees will not share their problems and apprehensions with you if you continue to behave like a boss. While its not advisable for a manager to remove all the trappings of power (you cant get anything done that way!), if you are too detached from the telemarketing floors issues, you are bound to run up against hurdles. Speak to agents and employees at times and try to solve their work-related problems. Build up a team that will stand by you and deliver quality performance.
