&
Advertise Here with Today.com
 

Archive for the 'Call Centers' Category

Dec 04 2007

How To Keep Your Employees Happy Without Paying Them More

To appreciate the employees and to make them happy few companies understand that they need to have fun in their staffers at least sometimes. Management shows employees they are valued with dance parties, field trips, unexpected financial giveaways and lots of free food.

That is not a priority for many employers. But it should be. Many say they are fretting about how expensive it is to advertise, recruit and train new employees, not to mention the toll it takes on morale. They’re racking their collective brains over how to attract and keep the best talent. It’s become such a key issue because unemployment is low, and the supply of jobs is high. That adds up to lots of options for employees.

Throwing money at staffers isn’t always the answer. Neither is throwing a party every few months. Having fun at work and creating a organized team is just one element. The most successful companies also realize flexibility, values, career development and providing meaningful experiences are also important elements to minimizing turnover. The interesting thing is that many of the companies that value having a good time usually incorporate those other elements too.

It is important to creating a great working environment instead of spending lot of money. It’s an investment, and you can’t figure out a return on investment on that event, but as long as we’re, it’s worth every dime.

You have to touch the heart of what is considered fun for the people that work for you. Companies that are good at retention are engaging people. They hire people who fit in there. The ones that are good at it tend to be a bit odd. They do things that are different.

Throwing money at people will only work for a little while. Pick people who fit into the organization both professionally and personality-wise; form small work teams that have their own authority and if you get a good result you get a bonus. He also allocates a “fun budget” for each team. They’ve used it for all sorts of activities including tubing, laser tag and videogames.

The next step is to advertise the culture of the company. Use those events as a way to recruit talent. The best thing to do if you’re a company is make it clear what you have to offer. That way, when a candidate receives two job offers, and everything else is equal, they might go to the company that has a culture similar to theirs.

After all, bosses want employees to look forward to coming to work every day.

Advertise Here with Today.com

No responses yet

Nov 14 2007

The Changing Customer Centric Approach of Customer Care

The customer is always comes first for any business. All organization takes customers satisfaction on top to provide them the best services. Earlier when companies were not focusing so much for their customers then the loss was too high. Companies are learning from their mistakes. Today, the difference and the distance between call centers  and the customers is declining with the help of the new technology medium of the customer’s choice - telephone, email or web chat for example - and effective problem resolution during the first call.

Now forget about those old days when the only way to discuss your phone bill was via the one number at the top of the BT invoice, today the customer has a number of contact options depending on the nature of the query and the required speed of response.

Customer relationship management helps call centers to deals with the customers and clients and make best use of developments such as IP telephony, routing and screen popping - company-wide contact centers are designed to consolidate these interactions. The old distinctions between inbound and outbound, telephone and the web, fax and email are all disappearing in the drive to connect the customer with the most appropriate contact as quickly and smoothly as possible.

The customers are always looking for quick reply so it is very important to give them the correct information on right time. Now the next question comes that Why is this important? Costs typically increase five-fold if the issue is not dealt with at the first call, staff become demotivated and disenchanted customers vote with their feet. All of these can now readily be addressed and the ‘holy grail’ of win-win achieved.

Similarly, managers often complain about hearing of problems too late. Here the answer centers around published service level agreements which set realistic expectations and enable customers to find out about - and, ideally, track via the web - the progress of the issue in question.

This is especially important when several companies are involved, such as a retailer, manufacturer or service agent. If there are no SLAs in place or no structured way of managing escalations, no-one takes ownership of the problem and the customer may well be ‘bounced’ from department to department or company to company.

The result? He or she will almost certainly circumvent the established escalation procedure - the polite way of saying you will have an angry customer on the phone demanding to speak to the managing director. Which then rebounds on the help desk or call centrer manager?

So to make service an integral part of your organization, boost customer retention and improve employee productivity you need to carefully consider the channels your customers might use to make contact and how you will keep track of the interaction.

Customer satisfaction in contact centers is at an all-time low. Never before have customers been more frustrated with the service they receive. The game is changing from one of customer acquisition to one of customer retention. With these conditions in place, senior management must take the necessary steps to deliver a personal touch to each and every customer. We have seen companyies ranked number one fall in the rankings while smaller, more intimate companies jump to number one. We can attribute a large portion of these changes to that personal touch. It all goes back to the feeling of walking into your favorite restaurant where the owner recognizes you and knows what you want the moment you arrive.

No responses yet

Oct 24 2007

Secrets To Choose The Number One Call Center

Every organization now a days looking for the best customer service from the call centers. The customers are the most important person for the organization. To get the infinite growth in the business it is important to have a good relationship with customers in term of communication and services etc.

Here we are providing some key point to choose the number one in call center.

It is very important to have a good customer strategy to get the larger business. In your strategy the goals and the key points for customer care must be very clear to all agents. We have to see the overall business goals and then it is important to make the strategy to get the maximum from the customer. It is then important to understand how that customer care strategy fits in with the firm’s overall business goals.

Learning what customers want or expect is critical. Identifying the customers’ needs and expectations can only be done after the good and detailed survey. It will help to determine how customers define a positive service experience. Every organization’s customers are different, even within the same industry and what drives one customer service strategy does not necessarily drive another.

Just as important is using that information in combination with the company’s needs to set realistic customer expectations. “Customer satisfaction leads to customer loyalty,” says Bob Furniss, president of consulting service Touch point Associates. “Companies need to work with what they get from their customers.”

Determine the best mix of automated and live-agent support. A company needs to figure out what type of calls are coming into a call center, and find what can be handled by the IVR (interactive voice response)and Internet and what needs to be deal with by a live agent, Customers are always satisfied if the service of IVR will be good.

In the world no body is 100% perfect so to know the benefits and drawbacks of various points of the call center is one of the important part. There is more to choosing a contact center location than costs. Organizations should also consider such issues as infrastructure, follow-the-sun support, and language skills needed. “An American automotive company that sells cars in Germany might want a contact center there, staffed with people who can provide the linguistic support necessary to provide customer support for Germans driving their cars,” says Brian Bingham, global manager of CRM and customer care research at IDC.

“You need to move to the IVR and Internet what you can, outsource what you can to reduce operating costs, and keep internally what needs to be kept,” Furniss says. “The result is lowering your operating costs as much as possible, and maintaining customer satisfaction and loyalty, which increases Return on investment (ROI). It’s all about finding that balance.

Before hand over to call centers must check all the above point to get the best services from your chosen call center for your project. It is depends on you that which company will take care your customer service. Based on finances, quality, core competencies, and other factors, is it better to keep customer service in-house or outsource the operation? Many times the best choice is a combination of the two. Whatever the case, one size does not fit all.

No responses yet

Advertise Here