If it has been awhile since you have assessed the effectiveness of the processes, technology, workforce management system, and productivity of your contact center, it’s time for a review. Personnel and technology are always changing and your staff needs to meet the demands. Review your current system, identify areas that need improvement, and update your processes and equipment to help improve both the quality and productivity of your contact center.

Review the Status Quo

To figure out where you’re going, you need to establish where you are. Assemble a team to review where your current stance with processes, personnel, and assets that support your contact center. Areas to consider include:

• Training programs – Have you evaluated the effectiveness of new hire training, follow up training and new product training and do changes need to be made?
  

• Technology – Are your equipment, hardware, software or vendors letting you down, and could upgrades improve output?

• Personnel – Is your hierarchy and ratio of management/supervisors to agents in balance and how are you faring in regard to employee satisfaction, absenteeism and turnover rates?

• Performance measurements – Do they align with changes to products and services as well as recent economic factors and are they still valid?

• Quality monitoring program – Has it changed with the times and new product or service additions as well as technology that is available?

In order to properly analyze the “state of the union” in your organization, you could hire an outside resource to survey and audit your current processes, vendors, employees, and customers. Hiring an outside resource would likely provide a more objective view of your business. If you prefer to handle the process internally, you will want to do a proper analysis of your organization as it stands and compare it to similar businesses in your industry. In order to compare, you will likely have to call and speak with a representative about specific procedures as not all information will be available (or apparent) online.

Crunch the Numbers

Along with your organization’s balance sheet, you can gather information on your business by conducting in-depth, randomly selected focus groups to get a realistic view of your contact center’s performance. A focus group is ideal because it helps you to get a general consensus from the group, such as attitudes and beliefs. Later, you can take this information and develop a survey to distribute to all members of the group. You should have a conversation with:

• Customers. If you haven’t conducted a comprehensive survey of your customers lately, it’s important to conduct one now. Using an outside firm makes sense here because it can put customers at ease. Ensure that the survey is given randomly so that you can get the best information possible.  Randomizing who receives the survey will help ensure that your results are non-biased.

• Employees. A confidential survey with employees will lead to more truthful feedback. Employees who aren’t happy and feel undervalued can be less productive and absent more frequently. If your absenteeism and turnover rates are above industry averages, you need to focus on improving these key metrics. Both absenteeism and turnover can have a negative impact on your organization’s bottom line.

• Other individuals as needed. From board members to shareholders, include all groups of individuals that work with, for, or on behalf of your organization. Neglecting to get feedback from any of these groups leaves you with an incomplete overview of your organization.

Learn from Others

It’s also helpful to gather information about your industry from colleagues to see how your organization stacks up. This will take some legwork, but it can really pay off.

• Talk with your vendors. They know a lot about your business and your competition. Your technology vendors in particular can provide invaluable insight regarding how you compare and where you could improve. Take time to meet with new vendors too. They could offer different solutions to improve efficiencies and boost your profits.

• Talk with your peers. Whether you meet for a cup of coffee or engage in a conversation with industry groups on LinkedIn or Quora. You can ask what processes, technology, and philosophies are working for their operations today.

At Kova Corporation, we offer workforce management solutions that can help improve the efficiencies and outputs of your contact center. And if you need help assessing the state of the union in your contact center, we can help. Contact us to learn more.