Call Centre Training: Introduction To Call Centres

What is a Call Centre?
Call centres are used by companies and governments to provide customer service and support by telephone. Call centres can be:
-  in-bound
-  out-bound
-  both

In-bound centres, or help desks, answer customer questions and/or give technical support.

Out-bound call centres call customers to promote products or services – the traditional telemarketing job.

Call centres started out as basic telemarketing centres that used cold-call selling to get you to buy products over the telephone. Now call centres are rapidly becoming transaction centres, places to get service, support and products. As a result, customer service has become extremely important.

Call centres are based on telecommunications and computer technologies.

Some of theses technologies are:
-  automatic call distribution: answer and queue (pronounced “Q”)/hold calls
-  interactive voice response: prompts (for example “Please push 1 for service in English)
-  predictive dialers: this automatically dials telephone numbers and, if the telephone is answered, the call centre agent is notified

These changes, together with reduced telephone rates, make call centres an attractive business option. They allow companies to improve on their customer relations. This builds customer loyalty in a cost-effective way. Call centres save companies and consumers money and time. They help customers who want to phone anytime, day or night, to do business such as banking transactions.

Recent Trends
The number of call centres has increased in the last decade because business transactions around the world are increasingly handled by telephone. As toll-free numbers grow and 24-hour services increase, so does the number of people needed to answer the calls and manage the centres.

Call centres can be found servicing almost every industry these days, including insurance companies, financial service institutions, health care institutions, the hospitality industry, utility companies, government departments, telecommunications companies and retailers. Some of the strongest demand for call centres is coming from banks and long-distance providers of loyalty programs.

Call centres have become very important strategic marketing tools, providing companies with a link to customers, and giving them an advantage in an increasingly competitive economy. To stay competitive these days, companies need to be ready to engage a customer at any time of the day or night and, in a global economy, anywhere in the world.

Call Centre Jobs
Sometimes, a person who works in a call center is called a Customer Service Representative (CSR).

Common call centre job titles include:
-  customer service associate
-  inquiries assistant
-  business information associate / clerk
-  public relations associate / clerk

These clerks answer questions and provide information about a business’s goods, services and policies. They provide customer services such as receiving payments and processing requests. They gather the information required to provide services.

They are employed by the retail sector, insurance industry, telephone corporations, utility companies and by other establishments throughout the private and public (government) sectors.
Customer service information and related clerks generally work in the company’s reception area or in call centres. Much of the work now occurs over the telephone. Interactive voice response, predictive voice response and automatic call distribution are changing the nature of the work. Only one percent of people in this occupation are self-employed. Most are employed with large organizations or small businesses.

Duties of CSRs fall under the following categories: order entry, customer service, telemarketing and help desk. It is in the Help Desk field that you can use your expertise in trouble-shooting with computer keyboarders.

As the use of home computers increases and the world of the Internet enlarges, this type of call centre work is increasing.

Call Centre Working Conditions

The call centre workplace is a fast-paced customer service or sales environment. Call productivity is the most important thing in running a successful call centre. The more calls a CSR can handle, the better.

CSRs must be self-disciplined and have the ability to manage challenging calls and cope with the resulting stress. They might answer up to 100 or more calls per day, although fewer calls are answered at the technical help desk, where customer needs are often very complex.

CSRs are monitored to identify training needs and measure performance.

Calls are monitored in order to identify whether or not a CSR is performing the job properly, and up to company standards. Further training and coaching may be required to help the CSR to do a better job.

Drive-by
Remote monitoring
Side-by-side coaching

Types of Call Centre Coaching
The coach or supervisor overhears the CSR’s response to a customer while walking by.
The supervisor or coach listens to calls from a location away from the rep’s workstation.
The coach or supervisor sits beside the rep, usually listening in on a headset to both sides of the call.

Some CSRs find call centres stressful places to work. Call volumes, feedback and call monitoring by managers, and a structured schedule sometimes intimidate them. Every minute is money in call centres and a schedule must be followed. The schedule will include start and stop times at the beginning and end of your day, as well as breaks and lunches. It is important that CSRs stick to schedules. They should also be able to multitask, using different software packages and technologies.

CSRs can advance to the position of team leader, supervisor or manager and can progress from the call centre to the larger organization. CSRs can advance to team leader or supervisor positions fairly quickly due to high demand and staff turn over.

In addition to technical help desk positions in call centres, there are opportunities for technically-trained people including trouble-shooters and technical trainers. Experience with call centre industry technology may be required, backed by two or three years of general experience.
Call centres are changing to include more services, improved access to customer databases, and integration with the Internet. Multimedia call centres are likely to grow, requiring workers to adapt their skills and knowledge to improved technologies.

Call Centre Skill Requirements
Hiring the right person for the job is very important in the call centre industry. In many instances, the representative on the phone is the first contact the customer will have with the company. Call centre work is definitely a people business requiring good communications and customer skills as well as the right disposition, personality and temperament.

“We hire attitude and we teach products and skills. A lot of the ability to handle the call is through the systems, through effectively managing the databases.”

The above quote shows the importance of starting off with the right type of person for call centre work. Once the person has been hired, it is the call centre’s responsibility to ensure good training and ongoing motivation of agents.

Candidates for an entry-level position in telephone sales or customer services need to have the following skills: excellent speaking and listening skills a professional manner persistence and tenacity computer and keyboarding skills bilingualism is considered an asset can multitask

On a more practical level, call centre agents need to have: tolerance for stress the ability to work well under pressure the ability to sit for long periods with a computer and headset

Basic typing skills are required. However, as call centres change some of their focus from an oral/telephone service to a Web-enabled service, more demands will be placed on employees for writing skills and for computer technical support. With the general technology advances in the industry, there is a growing need for employees who can provide this technical support. E-mail service is growing rapidly and this is an area where written skills are more important than oral skills.