Call center operations: as your business grows, getting common is critical

When you’re managing a call center workforce, you’re up against several big challenges:

• Large distributed workforce. This may include multiple call centers run by multiple vendors, operating across the country or around the world.
• High percentage of entry-level positions. Inexperienced workers require lots of training, supervision, and feedback.
• Higher employee turnover than many industries. This intensifies the need for proper training and diligent oversight.
• Constant change. As your business grows and evolves, you need your call centers to keep pace.

These factors combine to make it very difficult to maintain quality and deliver a consistent customer experience. It’s almost impossible to accurately assess individual performance if everyone is doing something different, and it’s equally difficult to compare performance across sites.

As your call center operations grow, these inherent challenges have a multiplier effect. At some point, you have to snap a chalk line and say: this is what we’re going to do and how we’re going to do it.

Snapping that chalk line is an essential part of getting common. The goal is to establish consistent processes and expectations across the board. Requiring consistency will allow you to accurately assess individual performance and compare performance across sites. The bottom line: getting common will let you optimize the overall performance of your company so you’re in position to increase revenues and continue growing.

When you have a growing business with a distributed workforce that includes lots of entry-level workers and steady turnover, getting common is just common sense.

–Bryan DiGiorgio

Bryan DiGiorgio is President and CEO of CXO Global Solutions.

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