Call Center Staff: Full Potential, Training and Knowledge Database

The importance of call center staff qualification 

The success of any call center depends first on upon the staff. The success of every company directly connected with the qualified staff, and it’s especially important for call centers, where operators deal with people all the time. Staff qualification is even more vital for a company’s success than proper equipment and software. Successful call center staff’s mission is to provide the highest quality of the customer service. That is why the most important thing is to train your employees and provide them with the necessary manuals or knowledge database. What does it mean? It means that an employee should learn all the information about the goods and services before he starts working.

The skill level and knowledge level, though being interconnected, are the two sides of the medal. No matter how skillful an operator is if he lacks information i.e. knowledge, he won’t be able to provide good customer service.

Staff training and knowledge databases

Annual research in call center services had shown that some contact centers still have paper manuals and knowledge databases. Is it convenient? Is it really helpful for a single operator and for the whole team? How often can the information be updated?

It’s quite clear that nowadays it is more convenient and easy to keep all the necessary information in an electronic form connected to computer network where any operator can have access to his portion of information depending on the level and necessity. You can easily and quickly edit this database without extra efforts and expenses regarding printing and copying. Moreover, many businesses have special software that allows finding data and making changes online, and even during the call. Some software allows users to see who made changes and when. That’s how call center staff can judge if the information is up-to-date or not.

Evaluation of call center work

The management team may use different tools to evaluate efficiency. Call monitoring, control testing, team contribution worksheets, and observation on how the employees’ work may provide management with necessary data. Regular listening to call recordings will help to see the progress. Also, it is helpful to discover who of the operators is capable of taking on more serious managerial work. And you’ll know who needs more training. On the one hand, it needs an extra person to perform these controlling functions. On the other hand, this practice allows checking how the operators cope with the work, and what call scripts should be changed in order to provide better service.

Unusual calls and how to deal with them

The most important thing in the call-center service is to provide callers with maximum information and all possible ways of call deviations and directions. Of course, you can never foresee all the questions your customers can ask. Call center staff can tell a number of funny and hilarious stories of inquiries they got. Customers may ask where they can buy a pink elephant with purple ears or a jelly-fish pillow. Also, a good operator can handle a call of a well-advanced in years lady who is a bit short of hearing. Operators should know how to manage the situation and avoid call escalation in any incident.

Actually, the ability to avoid call escalation is one of the most important skills of a call center operator. Companies should regularly provide training in order to develop that skill. Of course, no one can predict how a situation can go and write a precise script for it in advance. But there is a basic model according to which an operator makes certain steps. As we know, no wind is favorable if you don’t know where to sail. A call center operator can’t provide a good service if he doesn’t know what steps to make in this or that situation.

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Front Desk Helpers Co, 2019. Change your business mind!

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