Pros and Cons Working as a Virtual Call Center Representative

The Virtual Call Center Representative

The internet not only made this world a lot smaller but also opened up a whole new world of online income opportunities for people who, by choice or circumstance, need to work from home. As long as you have the skills, professional work attitude and the necessary hardware and internet service that the client requires, you can always try working from home as a virtual call center representative.

Like everything else, there are always pros and cons working as a virtual call center representative. We have listed down some of these pros and cons so you can make a more insightful decision whether working as a virtual call center representative is perfect for you.

PROS:

More Family Time

Having more time for your family is probably the top reason why you may want to consider working from home as a virtual call center representative. The ability to watch over your kids or to care for an elderly parent while still being able to provide well for them would not be possible if you worked regular jobs in an actual office setting. Working from home as a virtual call center representative gives you the best of both worlds.

No Commute

You have practically no need to commute to and from work. This saves you money and, more importantly, time. For employees who have to spend at least four hours stuck in rush hour traffic without pay everyday commuting to and from work, the prospect of never ever having to commute anymore is a dream come true. Your office is literally just a few steps away from your bedroom. You could spend more quality time with the family instead of wasting time crammed like sardines in a city bus stuck in traffic or waiting in line for a train that could break down at any time.

Choose Best Schedule

Because there are thousands of prospective clients looking for virtual call center representatives, you have the flexibility to choose which schedule works best for you. You can choose outbound or inbound accounts. You can choose full time or part time jobs. You have a choice between dayshift and nightshift. If you hate working graveyard shifts, then working from home as a virtual call center representative is perfect. You can choose which client you would love to work with based on their client profile. You have a lot of flexibility to choose what’s best for you.

No Dress Code

No rigid dress code required. You can literally work in your jammies although we don’t necessarily recommend this. You don’t want to be too comfy and fall asleep on the job. It would be nice to still dress up smart just to maintain professionalism even though you’re working from home as a virtual call center representative.

Minimal Pay Deduction

In most cases, a virtual call center representative gets paid well and on time. Taxes and deductions are on a case to case basis since payments are usually done on line but it would be nice to still do your share and voluntarily pay your taxes and other dues.

CONS:

No Floor Support

If you’re quite used to getting immediate floor support in a regular call center set up, don’t expect anyone coming to your support when you raise your hands and shout “Sup Call!” Your kids might think you’re silly raising your hands by your lonesome. Although there is a virtual team to support you, technically you are a one man team in your home office.

No Labor Protection

If you’re used to charming your sup to look the other way, don’t expect your charm to work with your virtual sup. Clients expect competency and professionalism from their virtual call center representative and are usually not very lenient to errors and other infractions. It won’t take much for your client to just drop you from the account and there’s no HR for you to plead your case with.

Your All Alone

If you love team building activities and having lunch with your team then maybe you should just stick to your current job. Working from home as a virtual call center representative tends to get lonely oftentimes, especially when the kids are already in school and you’re home alone.

No Health Insurance

Not too many clients will include health insurance as part of your benefits. Every once in a while you may find clients offering fringe benefits but as a rule of thumb, clients hire virtual call center representatives mainly to save money. Other than paying you your salary, they have no contractual obligation to provide you any other benefits. It would be wise to save a part of your pay to take care of health insurance on your own.

Distractions, Distractions, Distractions

There can be so much distraction that will draw your attention away from your work as a virtual call center representative. The fact that there is no physical sup to watch over you could tempt you to be lax at work or even sleep on the job. It will take a high degree of self-discipline and professionalism to work from home and succeed as a virtual call center representative.

If you feel you have what it takes to work at home as a virtual call center representative, do your research first to see which online job portals are reliable and trust worthy. Check forums for feedbacks about any online job portal. Getting paid correctly and on time is almost always a big issue among virtual call center representatives so make sure you look for these feedbacks.  It would also be wise to start saving for a more reliable desktop or laptop. Your computer is your lifeline once you work from home as a virtual call center representative. Unlike a regular call center setting where you can just transfer workstations, if your computer breaks down you may lose your account if the issue is not addressed right away. You also need a more reliable high speed internet service. Most clients will require stable internet service with speed upwards of 5Mbps.

One online job portal that I have personally tried is onlinejobs.ph. Considering my current situation where I cannot really commit to a full 8-hour schedule, I have the flexibility to apply for a part time position and even found some clients that hire on a per project basis which works best for me. You might want to check out onlinejobs.ph yourself. Just click on this LINK or the banner below. Spoiler alert, there’s an English proficiency test as well as an IQ test you first need to take when building your profile but I’m perfectly sure you would have no problem passing those tests.

Again, working from home as a virtual call center representative is not for everyone. If you’re doing great where you’re at right now, stay. On the other hand, if you’re looking to try something different, then go ahead and check out Onlinejobs.ph.

Thanks for spending time here. See you next post. Have a wonderful shift!

Active Shooter and Workplace Violence Training: How to Survive an Active Shooter Situation

We live in dangerous and unpredictable times. Schools are no longer the safe havens they used to be with up to 44% of teachers annually reporting they were physically attacked while at school and an alarming rise in active shooter incidents in schools, the latest tragedy just last week in a Florida high school campus which sadly claimed the lives of 17 students and staff.

The workplace has also become more prone to violence with workplace homicides accounting for 9% of deaths in the workplace yearly in the US alone. Statistically, nearly 2 million US workers will become victims of workplace violence annually. Studies showed that 27 % of all mass shootings that occurred in the US since 1966 occurred at workplaces with 25% of these workplaces totally unprepared to respond to active shooter situations. According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, workplace violence falls into 5 categories:
• Criminal intent: robbery, theft, hijacking
• Customer/Client: irate customer, patient attack on health worker
• Worker-on-Worker: employee-manager conflict, bullying, sexual harassment
• Personal relationship: love triangles, estranged relationships,
• Ideological: extremism, terrorism, religious, cultural and gender diversity, bigotry

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) defines active shooter as someone “actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area.”  On average, it takes Police and First Responders at least 10 minutes to arrive on the scene of an active shooter situation. So much can happen in the course of those 10 deadly minutes waiting for First Responders to arrive. As such, the DHS advises staying calm and performing one of these three options:

Run

If there is an accessible escape route away from the active shooter, leave your belongings and immediately get out. Be constantly aware where the shooter is while moving quietly and crouching low behind work stations and furniture, whenever possible. Panicking, screaming and running together in a group can quickly draw an active shooter’s deadly attention towards you and make you an easy target. If you meet police on the way out, be aware that the police will be on an active shooter alert and may shoot when threatened. Keep your open hands over your head so police can verify you are unarmed. This is why it is important to leave your belongings behind and not carry anything on you that could be mistaken for a weapon. Obey police instructions. There will be a possibility that police will detain you temporarily to debrief you for vital intel about the shooter or just to verify and make sure the active shooter has not mingled with the crowd in an attempt to escape.

Hide

If no safe exit or escape route is accessible, go look for a spot where you can hide and barricade yourself, preferably in a room that has a door you can lock behind you. This was how 15-year old ANTHONY BORGES managed to save himself together with 20 other school mates during the Florida active shooter incident last 14 February. Blockade the door with heavy furniture and keep quiet but alert. Mute your phone. Be also alert for fire or the smell of smoke when you are locked inside a room. An active shooter incident at a Manila casino last June 2017 resulted in the death of 37 casino employees and patrons who perished not by gunshot but by asphyxiation due to smoke inhalation after the active shooter set fire to the casino. If you can break out a window to escape go ahead and do so. If the door is the only way out of the room you’re locked in, then you have to choose between smoke inhalation which will certainly kill or the possibility that the active shooter is waiting outside the locked door. Unless you are actually the shooter’s target, or you pissed the shooter off so much, the odds that the active shooter will be outside the door waiting on you is low. Before you open the door though, feel how hot the surface of the door is to check how bad the fire is on the other side. Immediately transition from an active shooter situation to a fire evacuation protocol. Do what you can to protect yourself from smoke and heat as you quickly leave the room. Head towards the safest exit ever wary that an active shooter may still be in the area. Act quickly and decisively. A few seconds can spell the difference between making it out alive or getting overwhelmed with toxic smoke.

Fight

Go for this option only as a last resort if and only if you are already in imminent danger i.e. the active shooter has his weapon in your face about to pull the trigger. Personally, I’d rather go down fighting than dying on my knees. Depending on the active shooter’s state of mental health, pleading or begging the shooter to spare you may only arouse even more bloodlust in the shooter. Go into self-defense mode. Go McGyver and improvise a weapon you can use to try and incapacitate the shooter. You probably had plenty of practice throwing your mouse, now would be the best time to put your mouse-throwing skill to good use. There’s plenty of stuff on workstations you can throw as a projectile or use as a slicing or stabbing weapon. Improvise! Commit to your action. Aim for sensitive soft points such as the eyes, the throat, the bridge of the nose, or the groin. Showing you are not afraid can rattle a half-witted lunatic which can give you a slight advantage. Fight like your life depends on it because in an active shooter situation, it does.

As mentioned earlier, as much as 27% of mass shootings in the US since 1966 occurred in the workplace. While there is no way we can predict a violent attack from a co-worker, it would be best to be aware of warning signs and behaviors among co-workers that might signal future workplace violence so that proactive intervention can be instituted:
• Sudden change in behavior, frequent absenteeism, and a rapid decline in work performance
• Depression, sudden withdrawal behavior and suicidal overtones
• Alcoholism and drug use
• Repeated open violation of company policies and persistent complaints about unfair treatment
• Paranoia
• Decline in personal hygiene and general physical appearance
• Sudden mood swings and short tempers
• Pending termination, suspension and sanctions

As the cliché goes, it’s always better to be safe than sorry. While we pray that workplace violence and active shooter situations will never occur in our workplace, it is still better to be aware and ready just in case. For more comprehensive information on active shooter and workplace violence training, you can DOWNLOAD a presentation prepared by the US Department of Homeland Security.

Stay safe.

Credits:
http://www.nsc.org/Measure/Pages/Workplace-Violence.aspx

https://www.ravemobilesafety.com/latest-workplace-violence-statistics/

Anthony Borges: Taking the Bullet(s) for the Team

"None of us knew what to do. So, he took the initiative to just save his other classmates"

Anthony Borges was just your typical 15-year old high school student until the afternoon of February 14 when a loony murderer (whose name is not worth mentioning) opened fire with an automatic weapon inside a Florida high school campus which tragically claimed the lives of 17 and wounded 13 others. On that fateful afternoon, Anthony Borges, despite being shot five times, managed to save the lives of twenty co-students and became a hero. His quick thinking, initiative and selflessness enabled Anthony Borges to quickly lock the door to the room where he and twenty other students sought refuge and, despite his wounds, physically blocked the door with his own body, preventing the deranged murderer from adding twenty one more to his bloody score.

Overnight, Anthony Borges morphed from zero to hero with netizens hailing him a hero and queries about him trending at 50 thousand searches and well over 500 thousand search results. This reminds me of another hero who paid the ultimate price after saving several lives from a FIRE that gutted a Davao City mall which housed a call center on the top floors. Trends come and go but the heroism will forever remain with the people whose lives were forever changed by these heroes.

So what does Anthony Borges have to do with this blog about call centers? Absolutely nothing! But his selflessness, quick thinking, the initiative to act decisively and the willingness to take the bullet for the team are qualities every sup would love to see in a team. Team members who will go out of their way to assist a team mate who is struggling with metrics, or who have the initiative to go the extra mile and help pull up the team’s stats are assets to any team. And a sup who is willing to back up her team members and take a bullet protecting her team will certainly endear this sup to her team and boost team morale.

A team whose members watch each other’s backs and whose sup shields her members from assault by competing teams and pressure from management will be one tough team to beat. Team members who are willing to do what it takes to keep the team on track and leave no outlier behind are considered everyday heroes. Eventually, these heroes may take on more responsibilities as sups themselves and propel the cluster or even the entire site to greater heights assuring continuity of the business and job security for every one. All these made possible because of the initiative and selflessness of team members willing to play heroes.

Anthony Borges

Anthony Borges, despite his injuries, selflessly risked his life for the welfare of others. If only I could, I would love to reach out and shake this young hero’s hand. This article is my own small way of showing my appreciation for his selfless heroism. This is also my way of motivating the everyday hero in each and every one reading this post. May the hero within enable us to selflessly contribute what we can, despite our individual challenges, for the greater good of the team.

Have a wonderful shift!

5 Essential Call Center Skills You Wouldn’t Learn In College

Ain’t college just great! You learn tons of useful stuff that you can use in real life like Integral Calculus, Differential Equations, Thermodynamics, Quantitative Chemistry, and other really useful stuff. I loved solving trigonometry problems like “How long is it going to take a car traveling 50 KPH to reach the next town 50 Km away?” or “What time of the day is it when my shadow is 8 feet long?” I enjoyed those subjects so much I just had to take them twice!😉

Personally, the only subjects I felt were most useful to me in my professional life are Mathematics, English, Science and Literature. Definitely you need to be good with numbers and the ability to quickly manipulate numbers in your head while talking with your clients. Talking with your clients, more often than not, requires you to communicate effectively in English to get your message across clearly. Negotiations are won or lost by how you use or fail to use the power of Math and English. Science and Literature lets your mind travel to times and places you can only find in prose and poetry, and in tales of discoveries and explorations that allow you to expand the limits of your imagination.

So far, I’ve had over thirty years working in different trade areas including six years in the call center industry and honestly, I never had the chance to apply Integral Calculus, Thermodynamics, or any of that geeky stuff I learned in college. Maybe I’m in the wrong industry. On the flipside, in the six years I've had in the call center industry, I did learn a lot of call center skills which I never learned in college and this is what I would like to share with you in this article.

There are actually so many skills you can learn working in a call center environment but we’ll just limit this article to 5 call center skills that you probably wouldn’t learn in college.

5 Essential Call Center Skills You Wouldn't Learn in College

Active Listening

College teaches us to speak our minds, to convey our thoughts to others. We learn to be articulate. We learn to debate and defend what we strongly believe in. We learn how to construct proper sentences. We learn to be proficient speaking the English language although there still is much room for improvement, as what I wrote about in another ARTICLE. But one essential skill we wouldn’t learn in college is how to listen actively. Mostly, we listen not to understand but to rebut. We hear one keyword from the other person and then we stop listening and start formulating our response. Active listening is an essential call center skill that enables us to keep our mouth shut, listen intently, and understand exactly what the other person is saying before responding. Active listening is a foundation for effective communication. Unless we clearly understand what the other person is trying to say before responding, we might as well be speaking in Cebuano to a customer in Rhode Island because you still wouldn’t be communicating on the same frequency.

Right Choice of WORDS

In college, when our prof asks us a question, normally we would say the first answer that comes to mind. Not that there’s anything wrong with that but what if there was a much better answer? Worst scenario is our prof would just say, “Thank you for your answer. Anyone else?” In the real world however, our answer can spell the difference between a happy customer and an irate detractor. Even if we gave the correct information but delivered negatively, our customer may still perceive our answer negatively. Another essential call center skill that we probably wouldn’t learn in college is the ability to deliver our answer using the right choice of words. It takes skill to say what we want to say in a much better way. Some call it positive scripting. Others call it being tactful. The best call center agents have the special skills to deliver even the worst news and make it sound pleasant or at least acceptable for the customer. For example, instead of saying “Mr. Customer, the reason you have no service is because you did not pay your bill…” we can choose our words and instead say “Mr. Customer, I see your concern and the good news is we can immediately restore your service after we take care of your bill which you may have missed. Will that be with the same card we have on file?” Sounds so much nicer, don’t you think?

EMPATHY

Honestly, this is one word I never encountered until I joined the call center industry. I’ve been in manufacturing, I’ve been in sales, I’ve done consultancy but it was only when I got into customer service as a call center agent that I heard about “empathy”. In college, we had “ENTHALPY” in Thermodynamics but definitely no “empathy”. Call center agents have this essential skill called “empathy” that allows them to identify with the customer and make the customer feel that the agent understands how the customer feels about their situation. A word of caution about empathy: we should use this skill with sincerity. Nothing can be more irritating to a customer than to hear an empathy statement that sounded like we were just reading a script. And empathy doesn’t necessarily always have to be sad. We can also empathize with a customer who’s feeling happy. Just make sure we laugh WITH the customer and not laugh AT her.

Patience… lots and lots of Patience

Nowadays, there are probably just two types of people who have the patience of a saint: husbands who live with their in-laws, and call center agents (who live with their in-laws). Some say patience is a virtue. Call center agents say patience, lots of patience, is an essential skill necessary to survive every shift. Imagine eight hours talking on the phone trying to de-escalate irate customers most of whom would spit venom at you and call you by so many colorful names. And then there are the occasional granny calls and calls from customers who can barely talk English. Remember Khamaka “ek-ek” BREKKER?

You need a ton of patience dealing with customers like these every shift. College never really taught us much about patience mainly because there was nothing to be impatient about college other than waiting for weekends and sem break.

Failure

Mainly because they all expect us to be successful, College never really taught us much about failure and even less about how to cope with failure. You can always drop out of any subject rather than risk getting an “F” and just try again next sem. Sadly, that’s not how it works in the real world where failure is always an option. Call center agents have learned over time that failure is omni present and have developed the essential skill of coping with failure and bouncing back. There are only two ways to deal with failure: either you quit while you’re ahead or learn from your failure and bounce back on the next round. Call center agents are not known for quitting. Even if today sucks, there’s always tomorrow to look forward to.

There you have it, 5 essential call center skills you wouldn’t learn in college. It had been at least thirty years since college and I’m not privy to how much change college curriculum has gone through, if any.  I’m pretty sure there are a few more skills out there. If you have any in mind, by all means please let me know through your comments. If you felt this article made sense, don’t forget to LIKE and SHARE.

Thank you so much for dropping by today. See you on our next post, y’all have a great shift!

8 Inspiring Quotes for a Happy Workplace

Hi! Today being Valentine’s, I thought I’d share with you some inspiring happy workplace quotes to brighten up your day (or night depending on your shift!) and hopefully make you fall in love with your work all over again.

Let’s face it, it is practically impossible to be happy with anyone or anything you do not love. Personally, I’d rather be penniless and free rather than spend another shift in a workplace I am not happy with. Not only will you be miserable the entire shift but the quality of your work will definitely suffer as well. Worse, your negative vibes can go viral and spread across your team. So do yourself and everybody else a favor and go on leave or maybe even quit if you absolutely cannot be happy and love your workplace anymore.

On the other hand, if you love your job and happy in your workplace, good for you! Not only will your morale be high but you can definitely be more productive working in a happy workplace. At the end of the day, it all boils down to your perspective whether you’d be happy in your workplace or be miserable.

Money should never be your primary motivation for loving your work. If it was just your paycheck you’re after then you’d never be happy in your workplace because eventually you’d feel you’re not being compensated enough for all the stress and hard work and would soon want more money. And this will lead to frustration and being unhappy with your workplace which leaves you even more miserable to the point that you just cannot do your work anymore. Instead, find a purpose why you need to stay wide awake working the graveyard shift taking care of customers most of whom would vent their frustration and spit venom at you rather than thank you for helping. It’s a stressful, thankless job and no amount of money can make you swallow the trash talk you’re getting. But if your primary motivation is the people you love who depend on you, or the house you’re paying the mortgage for, or the tuition you need so you could finally finish college, or to buy the latest gadgets your wealthy friends have, or anything worth your while, then your perspective towards your workplace changes and you get a happy, more positive attitude towards work.

On a personal note, my primary motivation getting back from semi-retirement and working full-time again was to pay for my mom’s chemotherapy and medication after she was diagnosed with cancer in 2011. Thankfully, mom completed her 5-year treatment and had been cancer-free for the past couple of years. I am eternally grateful to the call center industry for providing me the means to support my mom’s battle and eventual victory over cancer. As I said, we all need a purpose, an inspiration, to persevere and do what we need to do.

And speaking of inspiration, as promised, here are 8 inspiring happy workplace quotes I Googled that hopefully would make you fall in love with your work again.

8 Inspiring Quotes for a Happy Workplace

“Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.”

-Pele, Brazilian Football Superstar

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

-Confucius, Chinese Philosopher

“I feel sorry for the person who can’t get genuinely excited about his work. Not only will he never be satisfied, but he will never achieve anything worthwhile.”

-Walter Chrysler, American Industrialist

“It’s not the hours you put in your work that counts, it’s the work you put in the hours.”

-Sam Ewing, American Baseball Legend

“The big secret in life is that there is no big secret. Whatever your goal, you can get there if you’re willing to work.”

-Oprah Winfrey, American TV Personality

"The man who does not work for the love of work but only for money is not likely to make money nor find much fun in life.”

-Charles Schwab, American Banker and Philanthropist

“Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.”

-Kahlil Gibran, Lebanese Writer, Poet and Visual Artist

“Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best.”

-Theodore Isaac Rubin, American Psychiatrist and Author

There you have it, 8 inspiring quotes for a happy workplace that I sincerely hope can help bring more positive vibes for y’all this Valentines! Special thanks to   www.brainyquote.com and  www.great-inspirational-quotes.com for sharing these wonderful happy workplace quotes. If you loved this article and would like others to feel the love, please feel free to share this article with them. Thank you. Have a wonderful shift!

Understanding Call Center Metrics (Or Why Your Sup Goes Ballistic Every Time You’re Absent)

Hi there! Hope you’re having a great day today.

In this post, we’ll try to understand the importance of call center metrics and why every one in your team needs to do their share to meet these metrics. Like any other business, your call center management woos accounts by making commitments to clients. Once the client agrees to get your inbound or outbound call center services, then your management is bound under contract to deliver these call center metrics they have committed. Failure to deliver would result in your call center being penalized or the account pulling out. To be blunt about it, getting penalized would mean no more bonuses; pulling out would mean no more job. Imagine coming to work and then finding the portal had been shut down and you suddenly find yourself either floating or out of a job. This has happened. Bottom line, management expects every one down the line to do their part to ensure call center metrics are met. This is why your sup often goes ballistic whenever your team is falling behind and management calls your sup to a closed door meeting and gets chewed up. Poor sup. With this in mind, let’s go ahead and look at some key call center metrics and understand why these call center metrics matter a lot.

Key Call Center Metrics

First Call Resolution (FCR)

The ability to provide a satisfactory solution to a customer’s concern within the first call almost always results into a positive customer experience. This is why FCR is usually considered the most important of all call center metrics. This is where all your training, your experience and your tools are put to good use. By being knowledgeable with the customer’s issue and efficient with asking the right questions and using the right tools, you should be able to provide the best solution for your customer within the shortest amount of time. And your customer will definitely appreciate you for your competency and expertise by giving you a positive feedback. It is important to ask if the customer feels you were able to resolve the concern COMPLETELY and SATISFACTORILY on this particular call. This is how you can gauge if you indeed provided First Call Resolution from the customer’s perspective. NEVER END THE CALL WITHOUT ASKING THIS ALL IMPORTANT QUESTION. On the flipside, you can go ahead and sweet talk the customer or tell the customer a bunch of BS but if you were not able to resolve the main reason why the customer called, most probably you’d still have a very dissatisfied customer who will definitely call back and will most likely wish to speak right away with a supervisor. If you feel you are unable to help the customer at your level, don’t waste your customer’s time beating around the bush. Politely inform your customer that you may need to transfer her call to another support level that will be in a better position to assist her. Use positive scripting. Set customer’s expectation how long it may take to transfer the call to the next level. It may still be possible to resolve the issue on the same call but the transfer and additional hold time will definitely impact the customer experience and it will be up to the next support level to still try and get a good feedback from the customer.

Service Level and Abandon Rate

These two call center metrics are inversely proportional. Service Level is the percentage of calls answered within a pre-determined number of seconds. Abandon Rate, on the other hand, are the number of customers that hang up or abandon their calls before being connected with a call center agent. From their definitions, it is plain to see that the more calls that get answered quickly, the fewer customers will hang up or abandon their calls and the lesser the frustration. Although shorter handle times can greatly improve a site’s Service Level, the quality of the call should never be compromised for the sake of lowering AHT. Besides, agents cannot really control how long each call will take. Besides AHT, Service Level and Abandon Rate are affected by other call center metrics such as Schedule Adherence and Workforce Forecast Accuracy. Obviously any absences, tardiness and other non-adherence infractions create unexpected understaffing that will adversely affect Service Level. Any call center who cannot consistently meet the Service Level they have committed to runs the risk of being penalized or losing the account. This is why your sup gets hypertensive every time you call in sick or tardy and will do everything she can to get you to come to work.

Customer Satisfaction

This call center metric goes by different terminologies. Whether it’s Net Promoter Survey (NPS), Willingness To Recommend (WTR), Voice of the Customer (VOC) or any other derivative, Customer Satisfaction simply grades via a post-call survey how well the call center agent handled the customer’s concern from the customer’s perspective. Recognizing the fact that a large percentage of customers will never recommend or willingly do business again with companies that delivered bad customer experience, clients have traditionally equated customer satisfaction with customer loyalty and profitability. Clients seriously value these surveys and customer verbatim to find opportunities for improvement. Competing call centers will always try to be the top site just so they would have a better chance of keeping the account. Call centers that are consistently among bottom performers most likely will not have their contract renewed. It’s simply business. Clients will always go with call centers that can deliver the most bang for the least buck and if your call center cannot deliver the metrics you committed then they may have to let you go. Remember this whenever you’re on the phone with a customer.

Schedule Adherence

This call center metric simply means the percentage of time within a shift an agent is logged in doing what she’s supposed to be doing. This includes time interacting with customers, making approved outbound calls and any after call work. While scheduled lunch and breaks are not counted against Schedule Adherence, any amount of time beyond the allotted time for lunch and breaks constitute an infraction. Work Force Management plots out the number of agents available at regular intervals depending on the anticipated queue or volume of calls per interval so as to meet the Service Level the center had committed to. Whenever agents do not follow or adhere to their plotted break schedules, if they go on over breaks or if they’re logged out when they’re supposed to be logged in, this is when your MCs go berserk and start shouting out names, calling your sup or even posting your names up on the monitor for the whole floor to see. It is easy to see how Service Level and Abandon Rate can be adversely affected by non-adherence. Your MCs have worked hard on their spreadsheets plotting your schedules so please be nice to them and just stick to your sked!

Forecast Accuracy

This crucial call center metric determines how good or bad the queue will be tonight. Ideally, Work Force Management prefers to have just the right amount of agents on the floor per interval to ensure Service Level will be as what management committed and that the queue will be manageable. WFM does a balancing act to ensure there is no understaffing or overstaffing per interval. Understaffing ruins your center’s Service Level and puts tremendous stress on every one. Overstaffing, on the other hand, ruins your center’s profitability. There needs to be this perfect balance. The problem is WFM made this forecast on the assumption that every one will report for work and when agents call in sick or tardy, this perfect balance goes haywire. So the next time the queue goes through the roof, we actually only have ourselves to blame.

There are several other call center metrics out there but let’s just focus on these five in the meantime. Tenured agents most probably will say they know these already and yup maybe they do. Again, the purpose of this article is to make you understand how important it is for everyone to do their part in ensuring that your call center lives up to the metrics management committed to and keep both customers and clients happy.

Have a wonderful shift!

Philippines Drops Behind Vietnam and Thailand in English Proficiency

When a great team loses through complacency, it will constantly look for new and more intricate explanations to explain away defeat.                                    -Pat Riley 

The NEWS last night that the Philippines had fallen behind Vietnam and Thailand in English Proficiency among college graduates in Asia serves as an eye opener for our country’s policy makers, especially now that the Philippine BPO industry is about to shift into Artificial Intelligence where the mode of instruction will most probably be strictly English. According to Hopkins International, which recently administered a Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) exam for ten thousand Filipino graduating college students, the average score the Philippines got was a CEFR Level B1 which is fourth from the highest CEFR Proficiency Level of C2 and is equivalent to the English proficiency level of high school students in Vietnam and Thailand. Stated another way, our college graduates have the English proficiency level of a Vietnamese or Thai high school student.

TOEIC is an English language testing system developed by US-based Educational Testing Service (ETS) designed specifically to measure the everyday English listening, speaking and writing skills of people working or seeking to work in an international environment where English is the primary medium of instruction. There are other English Proficiency testing services like Cambridge, CEFR, IELTS and others that basically have the same purpose of testing and grading your level of English proficiency.

In sharp contrast, Switzerland-based EF EPI, another English proficiency testing service, ranked the Philippines as third in Asia behind Singapore and Malaysia and fifteenth worldwide as of 2017. You could say it all depends on who does the testing but take note that the Philippines was thirteenth worldwide in 2016. It’s not that we’re getting less proficient but more like other countries are getting much better.

This news isn’t exactly surprising as far as I’m concerned. As a supervisor, I had the privilege of training and molding as many as sixty mostly newbie call center agents over a two year period. They were an odd group of college graduates, working students and even high school graduates. On the production floor, I would regularly listen to calls as part of my monitoring and some calls would make me fall off my seat and ask myself, “How did that guy get past recruitment?” I can almost tell just by listening from the conversation that this customer will ask to speak with someone else. Often, you really cannot blame customers why they would prefer to speak with an American representative. It’s up to the sup to intervene and try to save the call or risk getting a DSAT. English proficiency isn’t just the ability to speak but more importantly the ability to comprehend what the other person is saying and responding appropriately.

Will Vietnam or Thailand become the next best destination for BPOs now that they have overtaken the Philippines in terms of English proficiency? I’m no economist so I’m not even going to guess which country can offer lower wages and easier to do business with. I do know that other than being proficient in English, a neutral accent also plays an important function when communicating with English-speaking customers. Perhaps Filipino call center agents have an advantage as far as neutral accent is concerned but I could be wrong. I have seen Thai celebrity Aerin Yuktadatta on History Channel’s Celebrity Car Wars and if most Thais can speak English as good as Aerin does, then we’re in trouble! And don’t forget Vietnam was a French colony and damn what an advantage Vietnam would have if they could speak both English and French proficiently! Suddenly we’re not feeling so cocky anymore, eh?

Aerin Yuktadatta

This should serve as a wake up call for every one who has a stake in the Philippine call center industry. Obviously we cannot sit on our laurels and be complacent anymore. This did not happen overnight. Vietnam and Thailand have long been working hard to be more proficient with their English skills and finally have overtaken us. On top of this, we also have the rise of Artificial Intelligence to cope with. Other than remittances from our OFWs, call centers and BPOs remain to be among the Philippines’ top revenue centers adding 25-Billion much needed dollars to our economy in 2017. With the recent economic changes being implemented in the Middle East that could adversely affect our OFW sector, it would be a fiscal nightmare if we also lose a big chunk of the call center industry at this critical point in our economy.

Concrete and immediate steps should be taken to recover lost ground and we should start at school where learning takes place. We never required English proficiency as a pre-requisite to enter college like Vietnam and Thailand did. Perhaps it is high time we do. Teachers should also be certified English proficient. How can a teacher teach English well if she herself is not proficient? These are small steps we can take now that can bring big benefits in the near future. On a more personal level, you yourself can test your own English proficiency and see which level you are at. There are several sites where you can take the exam for FREE. I also posted an ARTICLE earlier where you can take a FREE English proficiency exam. I encourage you to challenge yourself to take any or all of the free proficiency exams just so you would know how you can further improve your English proficiency.

About 20 years ago, India was the leading country as far as call centers are concerned. Back then, India probably did not even consider the Philippines as a threat when we first joined the call center bandwagon. After just a few years, the Philippines caught up and eventually overtook India as the leading outsourcing destination for foreign companies. Although it would probably be a long time before Vietnam or Thailand could even hope of catching up with the Philippines as a leading outsourcing destination, it would still be best to be proactive and avoid losing out in the end.

7 Powerful Effective Communication Skills for Call Center Agents

"We have two ears and one mouth so that we listen twice as much as we speak."                                          Epictetus

Nowadays, news travels fast on social media and bad news travels exponentially faster. The WORST that can happen with a dissatisfied customer is for that customer to go on social media to vent out her frustration. This is exactly what happened in a recent incident concerning a TELCO customer in the US ranting against a Filipino call center agent on Facebook, a post which went viral.  Her viral post left a sour taste in my mouth especially after realizing that the customer’s main frustration was that the call center agent did not understand the real issue and the call took over an hour. There was clearly a failure of communication where either the customer did not understand the call center agent or the call center agent did not understand the customer or they both did not understand each other. Reminds me of that KHAMAKA BREKKER video I saw on YouTube which I still find very frustrating no matter how many times I have watched it.

As call center agents, ensuring there is effective communication between customers and agents is a lot more challenging mainly because we are not face to face with the people we are speaking with. Without the benefit of being able to read their lips or interpret their body language, we still need to effectively communicate with our customers using only our ears, our tools and our focus to work with. This is why it is important that we avoid distractions and maintain our focus on every call.

In an earlier POST, I emphasized the importance of effective communication skills in providing rockstar customer service. With the recent incident that triggered the viral FB post, I felt it is important to focus a little more on the subject of effective communication skills so that call center agents can avoid a repeat of having a very frustrated customer on the other end and instead project an image of efficiency and professionalism. In this post, I have listed down 7 effective communication skills for call center agents which I know you will all find very useful:

ACTIVE LISTENING

Treat each and every call as a unique customer concern. Avoid being complacent, assuming that the resolution to your customer’s concern is the same as every other call you have received. One size does not fit all! Active listening is a powerful effective communication skill that requires you to focus and listen attentively to what your customer is saying before proposing a solution. Rushing a call and providing a generic solution is not the same as being efficient. While it may be true that you have resolved the same type of problem dozens of times every shift, there could be some unique concerns your customer mentioned that you may miss if you don’t practice active listening and provide an inaccurate solution. Nothing frustrates a customer more than feeling that you did not understand her real concern. If you feel you are having difficulty hearing or understanding what your customer is saying, do not hesitate to politely let your customer know that you are unable to hear her clearly so that she can make adjustments on her end. This gives your customer the impression that you are actively listening to what she is saying. Effective communication requires that you be good at giving and receiving information.

PARAPHRASE

This is a very powerful effective communication skill. Applied correctly, paraphrasing eliminates misinterpretation of information the customer provides. Whenever you feel you are not a hundred percent clear with what your customer just said, it would be wise to rephrase, but not repeat, what the customer said just to make sure you correctly understood her. Paraphrasing is a powerful effective communication skill that lets your customer feel that you clearly understood her real concern and should be able to provide the correct solution. Paraphrasing usually starts with something like “Just to be clear Mrs. Customer, did you mean…”or “I would like to make sure we’re on the same page Mrs. Customer, did you say that…”, then rephrase, but not repeat, what the customer said and then wait for the customer’s response. Note that I keep stressing that you do not repeat word for word like a parrot what the customer said as this tends to be irritating for the customer and makes you look incompetent. Paraphrasing requires that you rephrase in your own words how you understood what the customer said. Paraphrasing even allows the customer to correct herself after you rephrase her statement and she realizes she gave you the wrong info. Just make sure you paraphrase in a friendly tone and not sound confrontational or like you’re interrogating the customer.

ACKNOWLEDGE

Whenever you paraphrase a customer, let your customer know you understood her response clearly by acknowledging her. By saying something as simple as “Thank you!” acknowledging is another powerful effective communication skill that let’s your customer feel that you are giving her your 100 percent attention. This gives your customer the impression that you are competent and she is in good hands. Never use “uh-huh” to acknowledge your customer, especially if you say multiple uh-huhs in rapid succession. Your customer will get the impression you are either bored with the conversation or you have nothing intelligent to say.

HOLD YOUR TONGUE

This powerful effective communication skill demands a lot of discipline and self control from you. Honestly, most of us are guilty of this bad habit of interrupting our customers while they’re talking. This is mainly because as call center agents, we already have the information and experience available to us which enables us to have pre-conceived ideas what the customer’s concern is and how we can resolve the concern. Holding your tongue requires you to fight the urge to barge in while your customer is talking. Never interrupt your customer. Interruption, whether intentional or not, will always be interpreted as rudeness on your part. Make a conscious effort to hold your tongue, bite it if you have to, and let your customer finish what she needs to say before you respond. Letting your customer finish talking allows her to provide you more info that could otherwise be left out or omitted if you interrupt. Take the time to digest and note down what your customer is saying and organize your thoughts before responding. Remember to apply soft skills and choose your words wisely.

TONE

The tone of your voice, believe it or not, is also another powerful skill for effective communication. It is usually recommended that you speak in a low, calm and confident tone to project an aura of reassurance and competence on the phone. Talking calmly often calms down even an irate customer. Your tone should tell the customer that everything is fine and she should have nothing to worry about. I always tell my team even if you look like Freddy Kruger but you sound like George Clooney, in the customer’s mind you are George Clooney! That’s the magic of your tone. There will be times when you get a very irate customer on the other end and your heart starts beating at 200 beats per minute (not even sure if that’s humanly possible) at which point, and this I learned from my science class, your vocal chords contract and your voice becomes high-pitched and you start sounding like a smurf instead of George Clooney. Not good. The key here is to not let your customer affect your calm demeanor. You should be controlling your customer, not the other way around. Remain calm. Reassure your customer in a calm, low tone that you will take care of her concern. On a number of occasions, I even went as far as telling an irate customer that I would love to help her but I cannot help her unless she calms down. There can never be any effective communication until your customer calms down. Use your magical tone.

CHOOSE YOUR WORDS WELL

It’s wonderful that our brain can process information a thousand times faster than our mouth can talk. Imagine the chaos if this was the other way around. We’d be talking without thinking! In a previous POST, I discussed the importance of thinking before speaking. Choosing your words well is a powerful effective communication skill that we should apply on all our calls. Make it a habit to always ask yourself if there is a better way to say what you want to say. Make certain the words you choose are relevant to the customer’s concern and demeanor. This makes the customer feel that you are genuinely interested in her concern. But be aware that there is a fine line between choosing your words well and patronizing the customer. Your customers can smell bullshit and will not appreciate it. Be subtle.

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

Always make it a habit to assess how effective your communication skill was on the last call and find opportunities how you can further improve on your next calls. The day you stop improving is the day you stop growing as a professional. Strive to be better today than you were yesterday. One motivation why I started this blogsite is for me to reach out and teach my team things I never got to teach them while I was still their sup. The fact that I am currently no longer part of the call center industry and that my team have already moved on to other locations does not stop me from sharing lessons which I know can contribute to their continuous improvement. Sorry if I sounded sentimental. Those kids were like sons and daughters to me and I sorely miss them.

I had the opportunity to communicate effectively with customers who can barely speak English and even with customers who had to communicate through interpreters. A call center agent’s work is definitely challenging but as long as you have the necessary effective communication skills and adapt these powerful skills to conform to the customer’s unique concern and demeanor, then you should be able to resolve the concern efficiently and customer ends the call on a happy note.