What Is Call Center Management?

Call center management involves overseeing the daily operations of a call center (or contact center). Managers lead teams of supervisors and call center agents to maintain and increase customer satisfaction.

Managing a call center team also requires guiding and empowering employees to perform their roles. Call center operations include staff training, onboarding, scheduling, and forecasting for demand.

Call center directors can be overwhelmed by so much to juggle. However, businesses can streamline managing call center operations with modern technology tools. Software like that offered by Vonage can combine automation, reporting, and analytics to help coordinate your call center operations.

How Do Call Centers Work?

A call center provides a platform for managing inbound and outbound calls. They can be physical premises, virtual call centers, or a combination. Call centers also allow managers to handle administration and supervision of agent activity. 

Customer service needs are handled by an inbound call center. First, the customer dials the call center. They’ll typically be greeted by an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) menu or an auto attendant. These tools help direct callers to the right agent or even allow them to schedule a callback to avoid waiting in a call queue. 

From here, a well-trained and product-knowledgeable agent will attempt to solve the customer’s problem. Most calls are likely to be addressed on the first try. More complex issues, however, may require a callback from the agent.

This is also a time when supervisors can step in to handle more complicated calls and guide customer service reps to a successful first-call resolution (FCR).

Eventually, the customer or agent ends the call — hopefully, after reaching a resolution! Next, the agent begins post-call work. 

Post-call activities include updating the customer ticket or account information in a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform. Call notes will help streamline the resolution process the next time the customer contacts customer service.

If a call has not been resolved, an agent will reach out to the customer once a solution has been found. They will use the information in the CRM history to pick up from where the last call ended.

Key Call Center Roles and the Challenges They Face

Call centers run successfully when each individual works together as a team, with customer satisfaction in mind. Each role requires different skill sets and knowledge.

There are three main players involved in typical call center operations:

Call Center Manager

The call center manager is at the top of the hierarchy. This person is responsible for the continuity of daily call center operations. They’re also the ultimate decision-makers for call center strategy, implementing different types of phone systems and other top-level choices.

In larger businesses, several managers oversee different areas of the call center. Call centers in smaller businesses can be directed by a single manager. These managers work collaboratively with supervisors to ensure consistent call etiquette and agent performance.

Call center manager duties include:

• Evaluating customer expectations and needs and adjusting operations accordingly

• Delegating tasks and duties to supervisors and/or agents

• Defining roles and responsibilities of other employees

• Setting short-term and long-term goals for call center sales and/or customer service

• Determining the most appropriate KPIs to measure call center performance and reach business objectives

• Selecting call center platforms and customer service tools

• Overseeing the training and development of supervisors and agents

• Reviewing call center analytics and taking action from gleaned insights

Call Center Supervisor

Call center supervisors’ most important job is to maintain customer satisfaction. 

To do this, they collaborate with managers to design and implement call center management strategies. They’re in constant contact with managers and agents. Supervisors ensure business directives are passed down. 

Call center supervisors can train and onboard agents, in addition to monitoring calls and assisting representatives as needed. Agent feedback is funneled to the management team, and this information informs decision making, allowing managers and supervisors to fine-tune strategies as needed.

Call center supervisor duties include:

• Employee onboarding, training, and development — including providing guidance with any Learning Management System (LMS) tools

• Call monitoring and live coaching of agents

• Scheduling and call center rota management

• Notifying management of outdated practices or areas that need a fresh strategic approach

• Auditing agent performance by way of call recordings and call transcriptions

• Identifying the most pressing issues and trends for customer calls and what’s lacking in present operations

• Writing summaries and reports to review with management

Call Center Agent

Call center agents are your frontline personnel for outbound sales calls and inbound customer support calls. They provide a friendly, informative, and helpful voice for your business. As product experts, they can address objections and solve problems timely and efficiently.

Call center representatives are on the ground, following guidelines and protocols established by their superiors. Agents can also give feedback on call center strategies and tactics. By way of team leaders and/or supervisors, this valuable information is fed back to management to influence future decision-making.

Call center agent duties include:

• Providing live technical and sales support for prospects and customers

• Placing outbound calls and/or receiving inbound calls

• Taking orders and processing payments over the phone

• Issuing refunds and sending confirmation emails

• Updating customer account information and transaction history

• Escalating tickets or transferring calls when necessary according to escalation workflows

• Confirming customer information and scheduling appointments or follow-up calls

• Taking post-call notes and using a ticketing system or CRM platform

Call Center Management Best Practices

Call centers and contact centers are as diverse as the businesses they represent. They can be outbound, inbound, or both. They can be a single on-premises location for a small business or a global network of virtual call centers.

Regardless of the makeup of your operations, the best practices remain broadly the same. Here are some call center management tips that will help you streamline call center operations and increase customer satisfaction:

Hire the Right People

Each position in a call center requires different hard and soft skills. They may also require varying levels of experience. Work with HR to align your recruiting efforts with each job role. Draw up criteria and resumé-screening protocols that emphasize the most relevant skills for each job.

For example, call center agents should be enthusiastic about sales or customer service.

Some soft skills for anyone working in customer service include:

• Emotional intelligence and empathy

• Patience

• Adaptability

• Multitasking

• Positive life outlook and optimistic attitude

• Active listening skills

• Persuasion and sales skills

You also want to recruit supervisors and managers who possess leadership skills like problem-solving and decision-making.

Assign Roles and Responsibilities

A crucial part of good management is being able to delegate effectively. This optimizes call center operations by empowering individuals to get the most out of their talents.

Examples of areas to delegate could be anything from onboarding materials to assessing customer expectations. One supervisor may be in charge of analyzing call logs and creating coaching playlists, while another oversees customer satisfaction.

The key is to align talents and abilities with each responsibility. With a well-planned hierarchy and call center workflows, daily call center management should become routine.

Optimize Workforce Management

Managers and supervisors are responsible for staffing and rota schedule planning. Many call centers aim to provide 24/7, 365 customer service, but high turnover makes schedule planning difficult.

Getting agent shift patterns and staffing levels right can feel overwhelming. You want to meet customer expectations and keep wait times low, but also not overtax your team.

It’s tempting to spread yourself too thin during peak demand. This quick fix can have devastating consequences. It can lead to agents and supervisors being overworked, spiraling into full-on burnout. And, as a secondary result, customers will receive poorer service.

Overstretched employees are less productive, less friendly, and lower the overall performance of your call center. Exhausted employees aren’t happy. They’re likely to join the throngs of call center employees that leave for greener pastures.

You want to balance workflow to meet demand. Shifts should be staffed based on skill and expertise. You also want to give your employees adequate time for rest and relaxation.

Communications solutions like those provided by Vonage integrate with workforce management (WFM) solutions like Verint® and injixo. That makes it much easier to optimize staff scheduling for seasonal and peak demand and meet other unforeseen challenges.

Maintain Two-Way Communication

Communication skills are a no-brainer for your call center agents. A healthy call center doesn’t only depend on interactions with customers. It’s also built on teamwork and collaboration between all employees.

Regular communication between management and employees drives trust and transparency. It also lets you lead by example.

Put an open-door policy in place — or virtual equivalent for your remote workers — so that all employees know communication runs both ways and not just top-down. An anonymous suggestion box — real or virtual — allows employees to safely share their thoughts, feelings, and ideas.

Implementing  a cloud call center solution that also works as a unified communications system is another good idea. This will allow your team to communicate via team messaging, email, video, or phone calls, all on the same platform they use for customer calls.

Having a variety of communication channels empowers your team to seek assistance and make queries in the most convenient way possible (just like your customers).

Provide Comprehensive Onboarding

Onboarding is the avenue that sets up every new hire for success. It’s the time to ensure employees have the necessary knowledge and skills for their roles. It’s also an opportunity to train them on call center tools and other resources.

Today, many call centers are virtual and cloud-based. This means digital onboarding materials are critical for remote employees, as there are fewer opportunities for traditional in-person guidance.

You want a consistent experience for onsite, hybrid, and remote employees. That all starts with a comprehensive onboarding process. You may wish to implement a learning management system. This can give you a central space to create and manage all onboarding documents and lessons.

Solutions like Vonage Business Communications and Vonage Contact Center, meanwhile, can offer call recording capabilities, which are also extremely useful for training and onboarding purposes.

Supervisors can use recordings of real calls to give new hires a true taste of scenarios they’re likely to encounter.

Other useful onboarding ideas include:

• Buddy system — Pair new employees with a mentor, which can be done virtually with a unified communications system.

• Role-playing — Supervisors sit in on fabricated calls, acting as the customer.

• Shadowing — Observe customer service or sales calls.

• Performance expectations — Go over relevant KPIs and the tasks and duties associated with the role.

• Webinars — You can onboard many employees simultaneously or save videos that can be viewed on-demand.

• Periodic reviews — Gather feedback and evaluate team members at the end of the onboarding process.