Workforce Management & Optimisation – Picking the Right Software for your needs

When it comes to affective workforce management & optimisation, it is imperative to use software which is applicable to your business needs and facilitates a smooth running of day to day operations. There are a number of ways to get workforce management and optimisation right including help from the AP institute.

Choosing a workforce & management optimisation method is something that certainly shouldn’t be taken lightly and it will need to be given considerable consideration to ensure that it dovetails successfully with the day to day running of a contact centre. Given the difficulty that many call centre managers have when choosing workforce management systems, it is a good idea to look at the key features which should be looked for and how these will help the efficiency of a call centre environment. There are a number of best practice rules of thumb to follow when picking the right workforce management & optimisation system for your needs and by taking these into account, it becomes much easier to ensure that a call centre’s business operations are optimised as much as they can be.

Workforce Management & Optimisation – Knowledge is Power

According to research by Q-Max Systems, choosing the right workforce management & optimisation system can make all the difference when it comes to a streamlined business and just some of the best ways to ensure you pick the right system include:

·         Training – All employees will need to be up to speed with your chosen form of workforce management and optimisation in order for it to yield the maximum benefits on a daily basis. Thinking about how the workforce management & optimisation training is to be carried is should be of paramount importance.

• Accessibility – A call centre should make sure that any workforce management & Optimisation system that they use is accessible to contact centre agents and doesn’t add to their workload as opposed to making things more streamlined as should be the case.
• Price – Another key consideration when it comes to workforce management & optimisation is to make sure that it represents valuable for money and it economically viable for the contact centre in question. Workforce management & optimisation systems can be highly beneficial but it isn’t necessarily the right solution in every scenario.
• Growth – The workforce management system that is implemented within a call centre should facilitate future growth and should grow organically as the company expands.

Call Centre Siting and Location – Northern Ireland is Booming

When thinking about call centre siting and location, Northern Ireland is “cheapest for recruitment in the UK”, but that is not the only reason to set up a call centre in Northern Ireland. To find out more visit http://realbusiness.co.uk/magazine

According to international recruitment firm Beeswax, Northern Ireland is the “UK's cheapest region for hiring staff”.  The average salary paid to a customer service agent in Belfast is around £13,000, and the average salary for a team leader would be around £19,000, making it prime for call centre siting and location. 

Businesses should know that call centre siting and location really does matter - and for the right reasons, certain areas have proved to be more popular than others.

But it's not just cheap wages that makes the extremely popular call centre location, Northern Ireland flourish in the telemarketing industry.  The region is rich with multi-lingual speakers who are fluent in French, Italian, German and Spanish.  This diverse and extremely cultured population provide an advanced service that other regions cannot. 

Call centre siting and location can affect so many aspects of a business including staff wages and quality of staff.  Is your call centre in a prime business location?  Is it close to amenities?  Is there nearby access to public transport? 

Regional accents should also be considered when thinking about ideal call centre siting - and location within a region will also affect the way a business performs.  The Yorkshire accent was once deemed the accent of choice for call centres and Leeds is one the UK's largest centres for telephone-based customers services.  Leeds is home to First Direct, Britain’s first 24 hour telephone banking service, and there are call centre operations in several sectors of the economy, including financial services, retail and customer services management, telecommunications, breakdown services and utilities.

Today, Northern Ireland is booming in the contact centre industry and is an ideal call centre location for many businesses in the UK.  While some predict that this cash cow will inevitably go into a steady decline, those involved in the industry are confident that it can avoid the outsourcing fatigue suffered by many other regions. 

Call and Voice Recording – Customer Versus Call Centre

It's a battle between you and the customer when it comes to customer service in a call centre, so when “the customer is always right”, a call and voice recording technology could save your job. To find out more visit http://talkbusinessmagazine.co.uk/

These days, the size of a complaints department does not indicate the downfalls of a company, but often the successes. 

Disgruntled customers and negative feedback is just something that all businesses will encounter with growth, whether they are catering to the consumer market or in the business-to-business world.  However, businesses that rely on contact centres to manage their sales and customer services happen to have the highest level of unhappy customers - could the wonders of call and voice recording technology turn that around?

Call and voice recording is used to record calls made by contact centre staff.  The purpose of call and voice recording is to monitor staff performance, monitor the content of incoming calls, and for training purposes.  But with consumers becoming more and more demanding, call and voice recording could save your job.

Is the Customer Always Right?

Businesses that rely on contact centres to manage their sales and customer services are reported to receive a high level of complaints.  But is this fairly reported?  Would we discover any shocking revelations about the consumer world if we listened to every call and voice recording in the telemarketing sector?  Or would the outcome be the same?  After all, the customer is always right.

Marshall Field, founder of the department store, Chicago and Harry Gordon Selfridge of London's Selfridges first put into practice the mantra we know as, “The customer is always right”.  First applied 100 years ago, businesses everywhere soon adopted the concept and it has successfully led us into the twenty first century of internet shopping and lethargic mentality.  The famous mantra has become an inherent part of the retail world, the business-to-business world and most definitely, the world of contact centres.  In an environment where “the customer is always right”, call and voice recording is an integral part of training and quality monitoring.

But if the customer is always right, does that mean that the friendly lady in customer services is always wrong?  Most people could assume that 'customer services' is all about providing services to the customer.  But as it turns out, 'customer services' can often be a battlefield.  When it's you against the customer, keeping clear records of who said what could be quite handy.

Call and voice recording technology has been around for some years now and it ensures that all calls are dealt with to the highest quality.  But sometimes this just isn't enough - no matter how convenient life is compared to how it was ten years ago, most of us seem to forget this and take cash machines, internet and telephone banking, and wireless broadband for granted. 

The Benefits of Call and Voice Recording

In many enterprises, the contact centre is the heart of all customer-facing operations.  The heart of such an important part of a business, the very best training is compulsory.  All interactions with customers determine whether a customer will return again for business, whether they will tell one person how good the company is, or whether they will tell ten people how bad the company is.  There are many outcomes of a good or bad call, and voice recording software is the ultimate training tool. 

By using call and voice recording systems, high quality monitoring can be achieved.  Live monitoring and manual records can leave room for human error.  Call and voice recording ensures 100% accuracy. 

Some businesses use live monitoring, hand-written forms, and manual reports to evaluate agent performance. Businesses are finding that live monitoring is significantly inefficient compared to today’s new automated call and voice recording solutions.

The problems with live monitoring:

·      Time constraints - supervisors can take up to five times longer to monitor the same number of calls than call and voice recording software

·      Not a true evaluation - most supervisors monitor a minimum of 3-4 calls per session and this may lead to inaccuracy.  Call and voice recording software can monitor calls thoroughly

·      Inaccurate – A call and voice recording device can eliminate the possibility of human error

Call and Voice Recording – Putting the Customer First

Consumers have really seen the benefit as industries of all types have worked so diligently to put customers at the heart of what they do and how they do it.  Contact centres have entered the business landscape, with a principle that states, “The customer is king.”

Protection for a business is something that can be offered with a call and voice recording device, but call and voice recording also serves a more important purpose – achieving better customer services for the customer.  Training is an integral part of quality management in contact centres.  Telephone manner, handling difficult situations and problem solving is all part and parcel with contact centre training. 

With the aid of call and voice recording, training and call coaching will follow a consistent training procedure.  This will nurture huge respect from the customer and ultimately ensure the most excellent customer service.

Cheerfully Cheap and Not So Cheerful Customers

Today, the average consumer is overwhelmed by choice.  The divide between luxury and economy products is growing wider everyday – but the differentiation between them is not.  Very often, confusion sets in as people start to ask why their economy product isn't performing as well a high-end product.  The answer is of course in the price, but how do you explain that to a disgruntled customer over the phone?  Problems will immediately increase the difficulty of a call, and voice recording software can monitor how a customer services clerk handles a tough situation. 

Many companies have tried introducing grades of service, defining service levels and trying to match customer service expectations accordingly.  But it’s not always that straightforward.  To tackle this issue, call and voice recording systems coupled with efficient training is something that call centre management must not omit. 

Show off your Company with Quality Promotional Products

If you have a major event or exhibition coming up in the UK, try some of these ideas for using promotional products to their best effect. Always think about packaging and carrier bags too.

Every company in the UK has some kind of promotional product to advertise the corporate branding. It might be a cupboard full of branded mugs with your logo shining proudly on the side, or a sack full of T-Shirts that your staff wore for the annual company sports day. Not to mention all the usual pens, stationary, stress balls, key rings and umbrellas although what you choose should relate to your business or even be aimed directly at a specific market and demographic that you wish to impress.

If you’re proud of your company but need some extra marketing with some promotional products it’s a good idea to send your current loyal customers a ‘thank you’ gift even if it’s just once a year at Christmas. You could put your logo and message on a ice pair of warm woolly socks, a scarf or hat. You’re only limited in what you create by your own imagination. Everyone has mugs and pens, not to mention mouse mats so why not try ice scrapers in Winter or beach balls in Summer.

Choose the Right Product – From Mugs to USB People

Here are a couple of questions to ask yourself when deciding what your promotional product could be:

• What message are you trying to get across with the promotional product?
• Should it be a fun product or something practical and useful that can travel with it’s owner, thus reaching more potential market.
• Are you trying to build awareness of your company and boost sales,
• A one off gift to thank your existing customers for their continued loyalty.
• Could it be to promote a specific event or exhibition?

If you are promoting your company at a large international exhibition your promotional products needs to be able to stand out from the rest. Choosing something too large to give away on a stand like a golf umbrella (when customers are already loaded down with armfuls of literature) isn’t such a good move. Or if it just happens that there’s an unexpected torrential downpour you may find your umbrella so popular that you run out of them on the first day.

Whatever you decide whether it’s jokey like a stress ball,  or a gold USB person to seriously impress new clients, there are plenty to choose from.

House Signs: House Signs and the Emergency Services

As the amount of 999 calls increases, emergency services are keen to encourage people to ensure that all their house signs can be clearly seen from the road.

How visible your house sign is may not be something that you have ever given any thought to but the recent pleas by the emergency services for clearer house names and numbers suggest that it is something that you should consider.

Studies suggest that over the last decade the amount of 999 calls have increased and with more housing developments being planned and realised, they look set to continue rising. It is for this reason that the emergency services are continuously striving hard for ways to improve the efficiency and speed of the service that they offer and they are concerned that vital seconds, and even minutes, are being lost in the speed of their emergency service by the fact that they often find it difficult to see house signs. As a result they have issued a set of guidelines to ensure that the house names and numbers are more clearly visible, which we have briefly outlined below:

1)      Make sure the house signs can be seen from the road by ensuring they are at least 80mm/3.5 inches tall.

2)      If possible place the house sign on a wall or gate post next to the road rather than on the door.

3)      Prune foliage regularly to aid visibility of your house sign.

4)      Make sure that the colours in the house sign contrast the background to ensure that the sign is more clearly seen.

5)      Speak to your neighbours about making their house signs clearer too as the emergency services will be looking up and down the street for your house.

6)      Speak to your local shops and ask them to include their numbers on their signs.

Remember: by following the above guidelines you may be helping save lives. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_sign