Inbound Call Centers: People Management

Overview/Description
 Inbound call centers are often the only link between a company and its customers. As a call center manager, you want to hire agents with special customer service "genes." Good call center agents do a better job on the telephone, are happier with their work, and genuinely enjoy helping customers. This course will help you staff your call center with the right people for the job. You'll learn how to select the best candidates, accommodate agent diversity, and become aware of union and nonunion personnel policies. Have you ever wondered how to attain high agent performance and low employee turnover? This course will show you how. You'll learn about calculating agent requirements, building workforce schedules, and conquering employee absenteeism. Finally, this course will present procedures that are necessary to keep a call center running smoothly. This course will equip you with the people-management skills that will ensure the success of your call center.

Target Audience
 This series is targeted specifically for call center managers, but would also be a valuable asset for call center executives committed to the growth of their organization and supervisors of call center agents.

Expected Duration
3.0 hours

Lesson Objectives:

Staffing Inbound Call Centers

  • recognize the benefits of developing skills for staffing an inbound call center.
  • identify the characteristics of an effective call center agent.
  • match each technique for screening applicants for inbound call center agent positions with its characteristics.
  • choose effective techniques to screen applicants for an inbound call center agent position, in a given call center.
  • match the techniques for selecting the best candidates for inbound call center agent positions with their characteristics.
  • choose effective techniques to select the best candidates for inbound call center agent positions, given a scenario.
  • identify reasons for hiring outside agents for the inbound call center.

    • Attaining High Performance and Low Turnover

  • recognize the benefits of attaining high employee performance and low employee turnover in an inbound call center.
  • match two methods of calculating agent requirements for an inbound call center with their characteristics.
  • choose the better way to calculate agent requirements, in a given inbound call center.
  • recognize internal issues that affect scheduling in an inbound call center.
  • recognize important personnel policy issues in an inbound call center.
  • determine the personnel policy issue that needs to be addressed to resolve problems, in a given call center.
  • identify causes of absenteeism among agents in an inbound call center.
  • use the best approach to conquer absenteeism among agents in a given inbound call center.

    • Processes and Procedures

  • recognize the benefits of having well-defined processes and procedures in an inbound call center.
  • identify elements to consider when developing call-handling procedures, given an example.
  • identify examples of common call statuses involved in a call-tracking process.
  • identify elements to consider when developing a call-escalation procedure, given various representations.
  • match the key elements of a customer-communication procedure to examples of the various responsibilities within a call center.

    • Course Number: CUST0213