In my previous POST, we’ve listed down some of the best practices a rockstar call center agent does when she’s on the phone with the customer. To summarize, these are:
- Efficiency and timeliness;
- Genuine sincerity;
- Going the extra mile; and
- Effective communication
I hope you took the opportunity to try applying these best practices on your calls last week and proved to yourself how effective these best practices really are. As promised, here are 6 more ways to be a rockstar call center agent. Note that while the first 4 best practices listed earlier were what a rockstar call center agent does for the customer over the phone, these next best practices would be ways to be a rockstar call center agent from the operations side.
6 More Ways to be a Rockstar Call Center Agent
Balanced Score Card
Your call center uses several METRICS or Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to measure and identify strengths and opportunities of every call center agent. Among the more popular KPIs are Quality or QA Score which looks at the overall call experience and adherence to required standards, scripts and disclosures, First Call Resolution (FCR) which measures how many times a customer needed to call to have an issue resolved or a question satisfactorily answered, Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) which measures via a third-party after-call survey how happy a customer was with the call center agent or with the company, Average Handle Time (AHT) which measures the average length of time it took to handle a call, Willingness To Recommend (WTR) which measures how willing customers are to recommend a product or service to friends and family, and Credits Per Call (CPC) which measures how much valid credits, if any, were given per call, among others. A rockstar call center agent knows which metrics matter most to operations and focuses her attention on getting good scores on those metrics. A rockstar call center agent knows that First Call Resolutions almost always result into high CSAT and WTR scores and does her best to resolve the customer’s concern as efficiently and as accurately as possible.Team Player
A team is only as strong as its weakest member, and a rockstar call center agent will often take the lead and do the extra effort to carry the team forward and make up for the shortcomings of outliers in the team. Her determination to push the team forward has a positive influence on other team members and inspires them to do their share, as well. Crab mentality will destroy a team and the rockstar call center agent knows this all too well. Rather than pull people down and step on others just to get to the top, the rockstar call center agent will lend a hand and help pull her team members up. No fun being on top all by your self. Together Everyone Achieves More! Management is always looking for potential leaders among agents and a rockstar call center agent with the right qualities will have a definite advantage should she aspire for a higher post.Goal-Driven
A rockstar call center agent is on a mission; she is driven by a singular desire to achieve her goal. She knows exactly where she is currently at and where she needs to be by the end of the month. She takes her stats seriously and knows what needs to be done to make up for any shortfall. A rockstar call center agent has goals far greater than her metrics. To her, metrics are merely numbers, stepping stones, mini-goals that she needs to achieve in order to move forward towards higher goals. Be it prestige, money, job security, a promotion or world peace, as long as she has her eyes on the prize, a rockstar call center agent is unstoppable. Instead of looking in awe and asking yourself “Why can’t I be like a rockstar?” I believe the better question should be “How can I be a rockstar call center agent?”Soft Skills Ninja
A rockstar call center agent is highly-skilled in the art of soft skills and inter-personal skills. Let’s face it, even if an agent gets perfect CSATs on every call but has the social skill of a Neanderthal or the attitude of a prima donna, chances are the agent won’t last very long in the account. A rockstar call center agent is well aware of politics on the operations floor and dances to the music and gets along with practically everybody on the floor. Not too intimate, though, as this attracts bad mojo. It makes more sense to get on everybody’s good side rather than antagonize with them. A rockstar call center agent is very dependable, mature and professional, qualities of a potential team leader should she eventually decide to take the leap. Being a soft skills ninja, a rockstar call center agent silently and humbly works her way up, careful not to blow her own trumpet which can attract ill will among co-workers.Contagiously Positive
A rockstar call center agent oozes with tons of positive vibes that spreads throughout the floor and influences other team members. A rockstar call center agent will find something good even in the worst of times, enabling her to continue moving forward when others have already bogged down and given up. Life is no bed of roses and she’s had her fair share of bad times. The main difference is in how she handles pressure and challenges. She takes adversity as a challenge to strive even harder. Fact is, adversity makes her smarter and stronger and she seems to be at her best when she is at her lowest. You will rarely see her haggard or angry or confused. In the face of challenges, the rockstar call center agent remains confident and cheerful. And people around her get inspiration from her and challenge themselves to do better.Balanced Work Life
It is a fact that you need to be happy with whatever you are doing for you to excel doing it. But all work and no play does not a happy agent make. The rockstar call center agent realizes the importance of maintaining a healthy balance between work and leisure. She values the time she spends with family and friends as much as the time she spends helping her customers. In fact, it is the pleasure of spending quality time with family and friends that motivates the rockstar call center agent to excel at work so she can earn rockstar perks and privileges at work such as cash incentives and, more importantly, priority in getting approved leaves. After all, rockstars always get to have more perks than mere mortals. In effect, excelling at work enables the rockstar call center agent to spend more quality time with friends and family which keeps our rockstar happy with her work and excel even more.To recap, we have listed some of the best practices of a rockstar call center agent in the hope that you would try applying some of these best practices at work and see how effective these can work for you. Let’s face it, not every one can be a rockstar call center agent. There has to be this deep hunger within you to want to be a rockstar. Most would probably be content with just getting through their shift. But again, as I had pointed out on my previous POST, you already are on the floor taking calls forty hours a week. It would not take too much additional effort to just try some of these best practices and become the rockstar that you have always wanted to be. It doesn’t matter whether you’re newbie or tenured, male or female, straight or gay, young or old. The only thing that matters is how bad you really want to be a rockstar call center agent. Good luck. Log in.
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