The Routes to Effective Helpline Efficiency

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For any business to achieve greatness, it boils down to effective relationships. One of the areas where relationships can become quite sour within a business is in the contact center environment. It is so important that we recognize effective conversations between customer and contact center representatives to build this all-important word-of-mouth and contribute to the bottom line. However, it is a problem that is widespread among businesses looking to get a step up. Contact centers are notoriously understaffed, overworked, and, more importantly, undertrained. What does it really take in this environment to guarantee effective efficiency in the helpline environment? 

Providing a Wide Variety of Solutions

One of the biggest problems with contact center workers is that they are trained to merely be reactive, rather than provide an abundance of solutions. A very common example is in contact centers that represent big stores. Customers that are trying to shop online struggle with minuscule technical problems, whether this is not being able to access items in their basket or they are encountering the same errors. 

Contact center representatives are taught some of the basic things, for example, making sure that the cache and cookies are removed before they continue. And while there are many different cache types to the customer, this is adding insult to injury, and therefore gets a customer’s back up, resulting in improper service, and not providing a solution to the problem. If representatives are trained in a wide variety of solutions, and also have the solutions to hand, it is going to make short work of the phone call, while also improving customer service, and guaranteeing a far better experience for both sides. 

Motivating Contact Center Representatives

It is very difficult to motivate when there’s an influx of phone calls, not to mention a minimal way to assess performance. Motivation is intrinsically linked with morale, which is famously low in many contact center environments. And this is why we need to focus on the positives and provide what is called “intrinsic motivation.” 

Intrinsic motivation focuses on the idea of recognizing when advisers are doing good things, and if we use this recognition to “top up” their sense of purpose, this will provide a far more thorough sense of fulfillment throughout the organization. You could incorporate more assessments, however, you have to be aware that when you are assessing workers, that they don’t feel like they are put on the spot. This is especially true when it comes to a lack of training. So what can you do to offset this? 

Incorporating Effective Training

One of the biggest issues in a contact center environment is that, because it is endemic with low skill, and low pay, organizations do not necessarily have much faith in their employees, and what happens is that the problem becomes cyclical. Employees are given the bare bones of information and are expected to go on the phones, which immediately results in a demoralized environment, but also one where the employees will resent the individuals in charge. We talk about the idea of ownership with our employees. However, why should employees feel motivated to own their role if they do not know what they are doing? 

This problem boils down to simple and effective training. Encouraging employees to problem solve effectively, rather than appeasing the customer, is so important to improving the relationship between customer and business but also helping employees to feel like they are more in control of the situation. A typical phone call is going to cover a handful of the same scenarios, which is why we need to provide a number of common solutions which are easy to follow, so they can support the customer, but also recognize that, with these common solutions, they may already be available to customers on the website. Customers can feel insulted when we are merely repeating information that they can access on the website. This is why it is more important to provide those solutions with an air of confidence about the call handler. And this boils down to feeling in control of the conversation, while also understanding that dealing with the customer is a very subtle art, not too dissimilar to hostage negotiation! 

It is about underpromising and overdelivering, while also making sure that you don’t argue with the customer. The right training can provide an insight into the numerous scenarios a customer may be annoyed by. But also incorporating the right language to gently nudge the customer into a more compliant approach will make the experience better. 

That All-Important Notion of Flexibility

Many people working in a contact center can feel a very lonely existence. Giving employees power over the call is nothing if they are not motivated, but they need to be motivated by having the flexibility to perform their role effectively. Advisors will always perform at a better and higher level when they are working around their lives. People work to live, not the other way round. When there are a number of aspects that prove inflexible in a contact center, this builds more resentment. 

But you need to add more flexibility into your workforce management plan, this will give the advisors the feeling of more control. Sometimes, people need to swap shifts because of childcare, or making people incorporate some hybrid methods. This is becoming more popular in light of the pandemic, and it is so crucial to keep this up because if people are able to work from home, it gives them more control over their lives, therefore, they do their jobs better. 

As you can see, there are so many different areas with regards to an effective helpline. We’ve all been at the receiving end of a cold caller, and the reality is that working in a contact center is only one step up from being a cold caller. There’s a lot of stress and pressure, not to mention the abuse experienced by any customer service agent. So if you want to make it an effective environment, start with these.