Your call center is constantly evolving as the industry and technology change. As the external factors change constantly, it can be easy to fall behind and go stagnant with how you manage your team. This doesn't have to happen with your management style though; we have the best call center management tips that will integrate well with the most recent changes.
What Is Call Center Management?
Call center management is the way in which the manager of the business conducts/handles the call center operations. Including the training of employees, implementing business strategies, delegating work, forecasting, analyzing data, ensuring compliance with telemarketing regulations, and much more.
What Is the Key to Success in a Call Center?
Of course, there are many aspects that contribute to the success of a call center; however, a key element to that success is the management style. According to Gallup research, 70 percent of the variance in employee engagement is related to the management style. This percent can either be reflected positively or negatively in the company, but we know that it has a major influence.
There are a few different call center management styles that lead to success. For instance, transformational management seeks to motivate and build charisma, which is proven to radiate positivity and success throughout the business. On the flip side, an autocratic management style leads to high employee turnover rates, less creativity, and loss of initiative.
What Do Call Center Managers Do?
As briefly mentioned before, call center managers handle all of the day-to-day tasks like monitoring, coaching, analyzing data, creating budgets, learning about the industry/market changes, etc. Call center managers also handle the big picture tasks like what campaigns and advertising outlets are used for targeting the desired audience. Call center managers ultimately give their agents the right tools and guidance, so they can execute successful telemarketing campaigns and bring leads further down the sales pipeline. In other words, to help them make the sale!
7 Best Call Center Management Tips:
Although the goal is to have independent call center agents who have the capabilities to make good decisions and think critically, strong management is also desirable for a successful call center. Leadership in any business makes or breaks the team as a whole. With that knowledge in mind, there are a few evergreen practices we have compiled to help your team not only make it but thrive!
#1 Provide Thorough Onboarding and Targeted Feedback
Employees often complain that nothing was clear to them when they were first hired; they had to learn as they went. As the manager, your main goal in the onboarding process is to help them feel a part of the team and help them understand what is required of them. Being that you are the manager, your time might be limited on how much you can give to the onboarding process. If that is the case, then this is where delegation and a thorough onboarding process are needed.
#2 Choose Targeted Coaching Instead of Micromanagement
Micromanaging has gotten a bad reputation and for good reason. It discourages creativity and ownership of tasks, decreases satisfaction in the workplace, and eliminates employee morale. All of which are necessary to a healthy work environment.
On the other hand, coaching can improve customer service, encourage collaboration, and increase overall satisfaction in the workplace. In targeted coaching, the goal is to equip your team with the proper tools and then let them ‘build' with the tools they have been given.
#3 Communicate Regularly With Your Employees
No matter the person's position in the company, everyone likes to be informed and no one appreciates being thrown off guard. To combat this mistake of leaving your employees in the dark, you can communicate regularly with the employees. Start by implementing an “Open Door Policy”. The employees need to know that they are heard and where/who to go to when they need to communicate something.
Once that is established, optimize the use of editorial calendars, that everyone has access to. Have set dates with topics and meetings that will occur so there remains constant communication. Lastly, utilize different channels of communication. Send out emails, arrange for face-to-face meetings, group meetings, etc.
#4 Integrate Data in Your Decision-Making Process
Data, if used correctly, can help you make wise and informed decisions to the company's benefit. The best way to start integrating data into your business is by finding the areas of weakness in your business, whether that be a lack of return calls from voicemails or a low response to an email campaign.
Then invest in data retrieval and analysis to determine what causes the outcomes. Once you start seeing trends in the data, you can begin making decisions on what is working and what needs improvement.
Using data, you can also do telephone number database maintenance by clearing your lists from unnecessary information. Or you could also help with segmenting telemarketing lists.
#5 Show Empathy
Emotional intelligence in a management position is vital to the role. Employees look to the manager for guidance and leadership. If the manager, however, is unable to show empathy, then employees will no longer seek guidance and leadership from the manager. Showing empathy can come naturally to others, but for some, it must be a learned skill.
If you are the latter, then try practicing these effective ways of showing empathy like listening, delegating tasks, encouraging creativity/feedback, and being fair.
#6 Invest in Technology
There's a time for old-fashioned ways of doing business, like getting lunch with a client, and then there's a time for new and improved ways of doing things. Technology should 99.9 percent of the time be new and improved.
Managing a call center is much easier if you have enough built-in functionality in your power dialer. Technology, like a power dialer, makes daily tasks less time-consuming and more simplified, therefore, invest in these products that will improve telemarketers' productivity.
#7 Recognize Improvements
We tend to focus on the negative outcomes in any given circumstance, especially business-related. How often do we see the negative outcomes as room for improvement though? Issues will always arise, but solutions do too. Take time to see these opportunities and optimize your employees' ideas and strengths to find these solutions.
How Do I Keep My Call Center Staff Happy?
Keep in mind that your employees desire more out of their job besides a paycheck plus benefits. It takes all seven of the call center management tips to keep your staff feeling appreciated, accomplished, and happy!
Want to learn more about employee engagement and how to integrate it well? Here are a few employee engagement tactics that actually work!
Works Cited
Huhman, H., 2021. Micromanagement Is Murder: So Stop Killing Your Employees. [online] Entrepreneur. Available at: [Accessed 13 September 2021].
Brandon, L., 2021. Telemarketing Guide for Employees | Telephonelists.Biz. [online] Telephonelists.biz. Available at: [Accessed 12 September 2021].
McCarthy, G., 2021. Why coaching, not gadgets, is key to getting the most out of employees. [online] The Conversation. Available at: [Accessed 13 September 2021].
