It's important for call center management to stay current on call centers news and trends. This helps them to plan a customer service program that works for both their employees and customers.

Call center services are an important part of any business organization. Customers should be able to get the service that they need whenever they need it and call centers help to achieve this goal.

Keeping up to date on call centers news and trends helps by:

1. Giving you the latest information in addressing customer needs. A good call center company will be able to make customers happy, even when they are unsatisfied with a product or service. Customer service call centers should proactively address customer needs.

2. Helping improve customer service. You can learn new ways of tracking and analyzing customer data, which allows you to focus on areas that need improvement.

3. Educating your staff. A manager of an inbound or outbound call center can pass the information that he or she learns onto employees. This helps them to increase their knowledge and do a better job.

Action Steps to Find a Call Center that Fits Your Needs
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Subscribe to industry magazines to keep your call center business up to date

Industry magazines offer insights as to how you can improve your business policies. You can regularly learn new information and trends as they become available.

I recommend: CIS Magazine has much information that is useful to call center managers. Connections Magazine also addresses issues such as customer relations management and employee retention.

Get call centers news and trends delivered to your inbox

Newsletters are an important resource in this age. Often free, they allow recipients to receive the latest news as it happens directly to their email. This is a convenient way to learn new ideas that can benefit your business.

I recommend: CallCenterCafe.com offers a free newsletter that includes tips for busy call centers and giveaways that can help your business. TelePlaza's newsletter is also free and offers product reviews and information on upcoming seminars and trade shows.

Purchase white papers or reports to help with call center operations

You don't have to start from scratch when you want to learn what works and what doesn't in the call center industry. Other companies have done the legwork for you and you can easily learn about their problems and solutions through the use of white papers and reports.

I recommend: At Bitpipe.com, you can find several case studies of how various businesses have improved the efficiency of their call centers. Find White Papers lists several sources of reports that can help you run your business.

Tips & Tactics for Getting the Most from Call Center Services

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Set up a small library in your office to allow all employees access to the same call centers research. You can include, books, magazines and reports. This helps employees improve their skills and increase their knowledge.

If you find your phone ringing off the hook, chances are you've thought long and hard about hiring someone to answer it for you. For some businesses, a receptionist is all that's needed. Others, however, require serious call management. If your business is one of them, you might want to consider hiring an outside call center to answer your incoming — and maybe even make your outgoing — calls.
Call centers can handle, among other things:

1. Customer service.
2. Tech support.
3. After-hours inquiries.
4. Order collection.

Action Steps
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Consider: Outsource to a call center or do inhouse call center training

It may be time to outsource call handling if you expect a new product launch or expansion to dramatically increase your volume of customer calls, or if handling your growing number of calls will require you to invest in a new phone system or in new employees.

I recommend: BuyerZone's Call Center Buyer's Guide can help you determine if your business would benefit from hiring a call center. You'll find step-by-step help, including factors to consider, offshore call centers, buying tips and pricing. If you go the route of keeping your customer service inhouse, find call center training firms listed at Business.com.

Start your call center search online

Before you begin looking for vendors, decide what types of calls your vendor will need to handle and develop an estimate of call volume and costs.

I recommend: Browse the Call Center Directory or Call Center Guide to locate a call center near you — or one across the globe.

Compare call center costs with free online quotes

Get quotes from a variety of call centers to determine a reasonable price for the services you need. Some companies charge per minute, while others charge per dedicated customer service rep. Consider call center training and set-up costs, too.

I recommend: Solicit free quotes from a variety of vendors online at either VendorSeek.com or BuyerZone.com.

Evaluate call center services

Choose a call center that understands your industry and offers the services you need, which might include more than call management, such as responding to service-oriented e-mails or participating in Web chats with customers.

I recommend: Compare vendors, such as Talk 2 Rep, MAP Communications and 24-7 INtouch, to find out what call center services are available for companies of your size and in your industry. For some expert help, find a call center consultant at Business.com.

Select a call center and seal the deal

Once you've decided on a vendor, make a site visit to seal the deal if possible. Learn how the call center training will be customized to your needs. Observe employees, read sample call scripts and conduct interviews with existing agents. Request references and be sure to sign an appropriate service contract.

I recommend: Find a sample call center services contract online courtesy of FindLaw.

Track performance with call center software

After your call center operation has begun, be sure to collect frequent reports from your vendor to evaluate its performance. Important metrics include call duration, conflict resolution, cost per call and average speed of answer. Buy call center software to track help tickets and other customer contact.

I recommend: BenchmarkPortal is home to the world's largest database of call center metrics, which it uses to develop best practices for call center management and reporting. Find out what call center software can do for you at Business.com.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Should you choose a call center that's located in the U.S., or one that's located offshore? Remember that the former may help your company image, but the latter might save you money.
• •  Choose a call center where your calls will make up between 5 and 50 percent of the center's total volume; less will translate into a lack of familiarity with your company, while more may overwhelm your vendor.
• •  Decline a call center's offer to purchase a phone number for you; retain ownership of your own 1-800 number and assign it to your provider.
• •  If your call center will be handling sensitive or private information — about your products, company or customers — make sure its employees sign a confidentiality agreement.

Whether you're a business owner or employee, you undoubtedly know how important training for call centers is. Aside from having a sold product, customer service is one of the most important aspects for the success of your business. A call center business needs to stay on top of current trends and make sure that they pass new information on to their employees.

Consider the following about training for call center operations:

1. Due to the importance of customer service in general, it's important that all of your employees know how to treat customers well, whether you run an inbound or outbound call center.

2. Training for a call center company doesn't include only customer service training. Many call centers require employees to help callers fix technical issues with their products and employees will need additional training.

3. When call center management and employees all receive similar training, you can be sure that everyone is on the same page when taking care of customer issues. It's important to work together as a cohesive unit. The customer should hear the same response from different employees.

Action Steps
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Train employees at customer service call centers to take care of your customers' needs

If you want to increase customer satisfaction, you should make sure that they have a great experience when they call in. A smart manager will offer periodic training for call centers, so that employees can refresh their skills and work together.

I recommend: Call Center Webinars offers call center information and training online. They record webinars so that employees can watch them at their convenience. Business Training Works offers on-site training programs for customer service in a variety of industries.

Ensure that employees know how to use call center software

It's important to use a software program to keep track of calls into your system. This helps you to notice what areas most need improvement. In order to get accurate data, you need to have employees that understand how the software works.

I recommend: Genesys offers product-based training seminars for its call center products. UCN also offers training on their products, which can help you coordinate at-home call center workers.

Offer call center management training for your managers

Managers have different needs than the employees answering the phones. Make sure that your management team has the training it needs to do the job right.

I recommend: The Resource Center for Customer Service Professionals has a number of courses that it offers throughout the US. Call Center Learning Solutions offers a certification program for call center managers.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Hold regular meetings with your call center company employees. This ensures that everyone has the same training. Additionally, it gives employees the opportunity to speak up about problems they've been experiencing. You can then address the problems as a group rather than on a one-on-one basis

A call center is a type of centralized location used for transmitting and receiving a large number of requests by telephone to administer some type of information inquires or product support or information from consumers.

Calls are often divided into inbound and outbound. Inbound calls are those calls that are made by the customer of consumer to ask for help or obtain information, whereas outbound calls occur when agents call potential customers usually to sell or service consumers. This is usually a high tech operation and in order to understand how to effectively administer this type of program, it is important to know the key terms used when operating this type of service business.

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Automatic Call Distributor (ACD)

This term refers to the specialized telephone system that is utilized for inbound call centers. This system is a programmable type of device that has the capacity to answer calls automatically, place the calls in a queues, distribute the calls to agents and is able to give historical and real time reports on these types of activities.

I recommend: Database Systems Plaza is a great source for information on call centers, including definitions of call center functions and equipment such as automatic call center distributors.

Call monitoring

Call monitoring is the process of listening in on agents' telephone calls to assure that customer service is done is a quality fashion. Monitoring can be done without the agent knowing or recorded and then reviewed at a later time.

I recommend: Call monitoring of many types are explained in detail at CallCenterComics.com.

Queue

A queue reflects the number of calls which are waiting to be answered. The calls are assigned, on a first come basis, to available agents. The calls in the queue are in an arranged order for answering by an agent. The queue can also refer to the group of agents that is available to answer the incoming calls.

I recommend: Informiam has a huge glossary of all call center terms including what a queue is. It is a great reference source for any business considering operating a call center.

Service level

Service level reflects the percentage of calls that are incoming and that are answered in a defined time limitspecified by the call center organization. This is a great tool for assuring proper staffing based on call volume.

I recommend: Service levels are extremely important in monitoring call level performance. Tech Target has complete information on service levels and how to utilize them effectively for call center operations.

Virtual call center

Virtual call centers are call centers where customer service agents are geographically. These groups of agents or use the Internet to handle calls or questions for the call center organization.

I recommend: TMCnet.com not only supplies virtual call center services, but has a plethora of call center information pertaining to virtual types of centers.

Abandoned calls

Abandoned calls are those calls accepted in to call management system but where the caller hung up prior to being answered by an agent or routed to another agent.

I recommend: There are a number of things that influence the abandoned call rates including staffing issues, equipment failure and agent motivation. These issues are explained on the ICMI website and help call center organizations reduce the number of abandoned calls through a variety of ways.