Even with an industry that’s utilizing new technological innovations like chatbots and automated phone systems, great customer service - of the human-to-human variety, that is - is still vital for the success of a contact center.
But what does good customer service mean for a call center employee? What traits does one have to have to maintain a high standard of customer service, and how are those traits evolving in an era governed by technology?
Here are five traits of an excellent contact center representative that will never go out of style.
Excellent communication skills
It might sound obvious, particularly since verbal or written communication are often the only ways a contact center employee has contact with a client, but you’d be surprised how often this key trait gets overlooked in the name of other assets.
Being able to communicate well with a customer is quite simply the most important factor in providing excellent service to them. There will be policies, suggestions and methods that a customer will often have to use to solve their issue, and all of those must be well-communicated by the contact center agent.
Ability to learn a product, technology, and policies quickly
Without a working, comprehensive knowledge of the product your customer is calling about, your agents won’t have the information on hand to help them resolve whatever issue they may be having.
This is typically something that comes with time, but a good contact center employee will make it a priority to learn all they can about the products a customer could potentially be contacting them about.
But that’s not all the knowledge they’ll need. They need to keep in mind the company’s policies and procedures, not to mention the policies of the contact center itself.
In addition, agents will need to be able to learn the technology quickly and correctly. Contact centers often use comprehensive contact center solutions, like workforce optimization software, customer feedback software, and call recording software. These software suites can be a challenge for those who aren’t very familiar with computer technology.
Flexibility
The contact center is a busy, often hectic place to work, and an employee could be taking dozens of calls during a typical shift. Some calls may be very difficult, whether because of the technical knowledge required, or the attitude of the caller. That’s why it’s important for a good agent to be able to go with the flow of a conversation.
If a caller is particularly chatty, they should be able to keep them on the relevant subject matter of the call. If the customer is angry, they should be willing to let some of that anger get released onto them - as long as it’s not abusive, of course - before guiding the customer in the right direction, always remembering that it’s not personal.
And the idea of a 9-to-5 contact center job is a thing of the past, as well. The modern employee should know that this is a 24/7 world that will require a different kind of schedule.
Attention to detail
There will be differences in every single customer’s call, and in every issue each customer has. It’s vital that a contact center agent be able to keep the details of each caller’s issue straight, and be able to have all of them on hand, or in his or her head, as they’re speaking with the customer.
No caller likes the idea of being treated like a number, so the more you remember about each caller’s situation, the better.
Ability to be concise, but also friendly
Every call center lives or dies by how effectively its employees manage call volume. So it’s important to remember that time is of the essence. Agents must balance being concise with being friendly and thorough.
Remaining calm under pressure is also a key trait for a call center employee, as high-pressure situations will certainly come up.
Above all, agents have to remember what they’re there for: to listen attentively to a customer’s issue, resolve it as completely as possible, and then move on to the next call.
For more on offering excellent customer service, read our post “How Emotional Intelligence Training Can Improve Your Contact Center’s Customer Service.”
The idea behind the smart city is as revolutionary as it is easy to grasp.
In simple terms, a “smart city” is a development idea in which information systems from public safety, libraries, schools, transportation, hospitals, energy suppliers, waste management, law enforcement and beyond are integrated, allowing the officials of a city not only to make sure that services are carried out efficiently, but that they can remain in constant contact with their citizens.
Ideally, a smart city system would not only function effectively in the present, but be able to adapt to the city’s growth and evolution, thus constantly improving its residents way of life.
It’s an exciting concept, but one that will obviously take a great deal of work to achieve. And part of that work must be done through governmental means on both the state and federal level.
A recent Tech Republic article indicated that 90% of the companies that might be involved in a smart city project agreed that legislation is the key to the smart city concept being implemented effectively.
And on a federal level, the government has anticipated that need. Last year, members of the U.S. House of Representatives, led by Rep. Suzan DelBene began piecing together the laws and regulations ecessary to ensure that the smart city concept doesn’t simply remain on the urban development drawing board.
Rather than forcing the states to figure out the complexities of creating smart cities within their own borders, the legislation that the House is spearheading would be designed to take a look at the challenges that these cities could potentially be up against when implementing the smart city plan.
The most important of these are budgetary concerns - however, another major concern is the hiring of a workforce qualified to create and manage the technology required for this type of project.
These efforts are designed to help cities eliminate the obstacles standing in the way of creating and implementing a smart city plan and help officials revamp their services to fit the requirements of the projects.
Drafts of this legislation emphasize the importance of prototypical pilot projects to get preliminary results the cities need, and also ideas for drawing in public and private investors to offset the budgetary concerns.
The House has expanded their work to include members of the Senate, and both houses of Congress are hopeful that by working together, they can create legislation that will help the revolutionary smart-city idea come to fruition.
But there are other branches of government involved in the development of smart city aid for the states, as well.
The Department Of Transportation recently created the Smart City Challenge, a program which asked mid-sized cities from all over the country to submit ideas for integrated transportation systems that would move their residents more quickly and efficiently.
In the end, 78 different cities submitted ideas, and the winner of the Challenge, Columbus, OH, was awarded a $40 million grant by the DOT in order for the city to get started on their proposed upgrades and try to make their concepts a reality.
And there are efforts being made outside the government to develop new legislation and spread the word about smart cities, as well. Companies like Qualcomm and CompTIA are weighing in with ideas for potential smart city bills that would create standards designed to guide local and state governments in their smart city development process.
These bills would create grants for economic development in the areas of infrastructure, city services and new technology, allowing the chosen cities to move at a much faster pace towards the smart city plan.
There’s even a smart city readiness guide called Ideas To Action that goes into in-depth detail on how to put upgrades into place within a city’s infrastructure, the benefits of potentially outsourcing portions of the development process (or all of it, depending on a city’s budget restrictions) and other ideas on how to bring the smart city plan to fruition.
To learn more about the smart city phenomenon, read our post “How Big Data is Helping Prevent Crime and Make Cities Safer.”
Cloud-based technology is one of the most exciting, and in some ways the least understood, innovations in the contact center industry today.
It’s understandable why this is. On the one hand, cloud technology allows for an easier storage and portability of massive amounts of data and software, which makes establishing a fully functional contact center with customer data a much easier process, even without a physical location.
On the other hand, there’s a sense of amorphousness about the cloud, something that people might find hard to define. But it’s important to come to grips with cloud technology, because it’s almost certainly a harbinger of a future that mixes both virtual and physical call centers. Here are some ways that the cloud is changing call centers today and in the years to come.
Just to make our topic a little clearer before we start off, cloud-based contact center technology allows businesses to their operate their software systems online, without needing on-site servers.
The contact center’s data storage is all in the cloud, and the servers typically either belong to the service provider, or are operated through a third party.
Hardware and infrastructure could be becoming a thing of the past
Other than a healthy, high-bandwidth internet connection, cloud-based customer service systems don’t require any costly infrastructure or hardware.
So that connection is the only real expense a business needs to take into account when it comes to expenses. It’s important to remember, however, that without that crucial bandwidth, your cloud-based call center can’t operate.
But while that monthly subscription fee (the most typical way to purchase access) will be a more frequent expense, it won’t be as costly as running an entire physical server. It’s difficult to imagine the modern-day or future call center not taking these revolutionary cost-cutting measures.
Customization and upgrades are easier than ever
Contact center software that’s based in cloud technology, like the Verint Media Recorder Workforce Management solution, is getting faster and faster, and customization is easier than ever.
Contact centers can scale their system to their own size or best practices, and removing users is an incredibly simple process. If you’re a call center that changes staffing levels seasonally, cloud technology can allow you to add and remove members of your staff based on the level of demand.
This allows the call center to expand or contract their workforce as needed.
Less hardware leads to fewer technical difficulties
As we mentioned above, there’s a lot less physical equipment involved in cloud-based call centers, meaning that reliance on hardware is becoming a thing of the past. This increases the reliability and quality of the calls coming into your center
In general, as long as the connection is strong, fewer calls will be dropped, conversations will be easier to hear, and a cloud-based contact center will have an advantage on those that still rely on physical assets. It’s easy to see what an edge that could give one contact center over another.
Cybersecurity features are up to or surpass all industry standards
When cloud technology was first being introduced to businesses, it had a reputation for being less secure than physical servers.
But the truth is that cloud providers are just as concerned as any other technology provider about cybersecurity. Reputable providers have made it a priority to stay ahead of the curve in terms of keeping customer and business data safe.
Want to learn more about how the cloud can help your organization? Read our post “How the Right Technology Can Make You a Better Manager.”
There was a time when public safety dispatchers would work simple phone lines, typically with one computer to help them sort through the available information to make sure that a 911 caller got the help they needed. It’s incredible to think how different the job was just 10 or 20 years ago, given the technology that a dispatcher uses in 2017.
So what has changed over the last decade or so? What kind of knowledge and experience does a dispatcher have to have in the new public safety world to be effective at their job? We’ve taken a look at the landscape and listed some new job requirements below.
911 dispatchers must be able to both multi-task and focus intensely to be successful
Instead of one computer screen, the modern-day dispatcher could conceivably be looking at four or five at once, working on three different keyboards, and using multiple mice to work on several PCs simultaneously.
And the days of picking up a phone are long gone. Dispatchers have been wearing headsets to take calls for years, leaving their hands free for other tasks.
That means they could be working on any number of things at one time: monitoring phone lines, keeping an eye on frequencies, or looking at maps of their assigned cities or counties. It takes a lot of quick thinking and organizational skills to keep up with all that.
911 dispatchers must be technologically savvy
Public safety technology is evolving so quickly that it’s impossible to imagine training someone on it from scratch. The modern-day dispatcher must have some sort of proficiency in tech before they come aboard, whether it’s through retail, contact center work, or even just through their own daily interactions with computers, mobile technology, and software systems.
Anyone who becomes a dispatcher in 2017 has to be highly comfortable with today’s technology - otherwise, they could become overwhelmed.
911 dispatchers need emergency response training
A modern-day dispatcher is no longer someone who simply relays the emergency calls to the proper place. Oftentimes they must be able to give out some form of medical or firefighting instructions to the caller while help is on the way.
That takes a lot of study, and given the typical hectic pace of a dispatcher’s shift, it has to be recalled quickly. If someone considering a career in dispatching isn’t willing to reach beyond what the job used to entail into new and complex areas of knowledge, they might not be the best fit for the job.
911 dispatchers can develop their positions into promising careers
There are many who once looked at the position of dispatcher as a stepping-stone to a career in police work, firefighting or other areas of public safety.
But those days are more or less gone. The field has become so much more complex and demanding than it once was, that those who excel at it are highly valued for their skills. Although salaries are not as competitive in this area as they might be in the public sector, one can certainly make a career out of being a skilled dispatcher.
911 dispatchers must be willing to manage and address their own stress levels, as well as the caller’s
Multi-tasking; new and fast-changing technology; a hectic pace in the workplace; the urgency and fear of those calling in with emergencies.
It’s no wonder that stress management skills are so important for the modern-day dispatcher. And it’s not just about learning techniques to handle their own stress levels; a good public safety worker knows how to instill calm in a panicked victim, whether they’re at the scene or on the other end of a phone line.
Helping a victim through the early moments of an emergency is an incredibly important skill to have. A good dispatcher will learn quickly how to help the caller try to remain calm, take in pertinent details and give them the information that they need.
911 dispatchers are often called “invisible first responders,” because they are, in truth, the first people “on the scene” - even if they’re not physically present with each caller. To learn more about these unseen - and often unsung - heroes, read “I am a 911 Dispatcher.”
