Call centers are a complex mix of people, processes and technology. The critical success factors related to these components vary greatly, but the glue that holds them together is funding. Without adequate funding, even the best plans will have little chance of success. An annual operating budget, when developed properly, ensures that an organization will have the amount of funding necessary to meet objectives, while also ensuring that the organization does not overspend to meet these goals. It then goes beyond the goal of approval and also helps to educate key decision-makers on the value of the call center. Learn the fundamentals involved with call center budgeting and finance with this ICMI Tutorial. Topics addressed include the following:
- Principles of Developing an Effective Annual Operating Budget
- Key Steps to Developing and Obtaining Approval for an Annual Operating Budget
- Utilizing Variance Reports
- Definitions of Key Financial Concepts
- Using Capital Budgeting Methods
- Buy vs. Lease Considerations
- Understanding and Using Depreciation Schedules
- Definitions of Profit and Cost Centers
- Interpreting and Using Key Financial Statements
34 pages, PDF download (requires Adobe Acrobat or Reader)
Cost Performance, Budgets, Determining call center budget, Cost analysis
How your employees feel about their employer directly affects how they treat your customers. What's the culture like in your call center? Learn how to make it better with this ICMI Tutorial so you—and your callers—can reap the benefits.
Building a High-Performance Culture
- Contributors to Employee Satisfaction
- Employee Satisfaction Surveys
- Cultivating Empowerment
- Building Trust
- Conflict Resolution
- Diversity in the Workforce
- Training and Development Reference Bibliography
29 pages, PDF download (requires Adobe Acrobat or Reader)
People Management, Employee Motivation and Retention, Agent Satisfaction/Engagement, Agent Empowerment
When seeking to enhance agent performance, call center managers tend to focus on and make improvements in key areas such as hiring, training, incentives and technology. Indeed each of these areas demands careful attention. The problem is that they often overshadow another key driver of agent performance--call center design. The articles in this bundle, from the pages of Call Center Management Review offer checklists, ideas and success stories for designing a call center environment that inspires agent productivity, and ultimately, will directly impact your company’s profitability.
- Take Me to Your CFO: Connecting Call Center Facility Design with Profit
- The Grand “Design”: Four Call Centers Built for Success
- Effective Call Center Design Can Help Drive Agent Performance
13 pages, PDF download (requires Adobe Acrobat or Reader)
Operations Management, Facilities
Managing by the numbers is critical to call center success. Although most call
center technology produces reams of quantitative reports, there is a relatively
small subset of data that call center managers should rely upon: key performance
indicators (KPIs). This ICMI tutorial covers all the call center KPI basics
and beyond, making it an invaluable resource for both new and experienced call
center professionals. Learn what numbers to focus on, what they mean and how
to use them to improve your call center's performance.
Call Center Metrics: Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
- Identifying Key Performance Indicators
- Call (Contact) Quality
- First-Call Resolution/Errors and Rework
- Definitions and Use of Service Level
- Response Time and Quality
- Average Speed of Answer
- Abandoned and Blocked Calls
- Forecasted Call Load vs. Actual
- Scheduled Staff vs. Actual
- Adherence to Schedule
- Average Handling Time (AHT)
- Occupancy and Productive/Nonproductive
- Cost per Call (Cost per Contact)
- Average Call Value
- Revenue
- Budget/Cost Objectives
- Objectives for Outbound
- Customer Satisfaction
- Employee Satisfaction
- Turnover
- Overall Call Center ROI
- KPIs as Interrelated Outcomes
- How KPIs Relate to Customer Expectations
- Reference Bibliography
54 pages, PDF download (requires Adobe Acrobat or Reader)
Operations Management, Metrics/Performance Measurement, Key Call Center Metrics
Satirical corporate cartoons lampoon companies' misguided efforts to define
vision, mission and strategy, but successful organizations won't let the joke
be on them. Learn how to get the last laugh with this ICMI tutorial. Your call
center, not just your company, needs a clearly defined vision, mission and strategy
to realize its full potential.
Call Center Vision, Mission and Strategy
- Definition of Values, Vision and Mission
- Identifying Core Values
- Creating a Shared Vision
- Developing a Mission Statement
- Definition and Application of Strategy
- The Role of the Customer Access Strategy
- Creating an Effective Strategic Development Process
- Aligning Tactical Activities with Values, Vision and Mission
- Training and Development Reference Bibliography
30 pages, PDF download (requires Adobe Acrobat or Reader)
Strategic Value, The Call Center's Contribution to Key Business Units, Operations Management, Reassessing the Customer Access strategy
Call centers are at the heart of the information revolution, and your agents
are being asked to master more and more. How can you create a learning environment
in your call center to keep pace with rising demands of technology and customers
alike? Read this ICMI tutorial to learn what you need to know about learning.
Creating a Learning Environment in the Call Center
- Definitions and Purpose of Training and Development
- Cultivating a Learning Organization
- Knowledge Management Issues
- Principles of Effective Mentoring
- Self-Development
- Training and Development Reference Bibliography
22 pages, PDF download (requires Adobe Acrobat or Reader)
Whether you have a large call center and want to maximize the effectiveness
of your teams or you have a small call center and need to develop teams as you
grow, you'll learn what you need to know from this ICMI tutorial. More than
just agent groups, true teams are an organizational design concept found in
more and more call centers today.
Creating and Leading Teams in the Call Center
- Implementing Teams
- Team Roles and Responsibilities
- Building Team Effectiveness
- Leading Cross-functional and Distributed Teams
- Training and Development Reference Bibliography
19 pages, PDF download (requires Adobe Acrobat or Reader)
Keeping up with evolving technology, customer expectations and competitive
pressures requires effective training in your call center. Read this ICMI tutorial
to learn how to establish or improve your strategy for meeting all of your call
center's training demands. Plan your training strategy, and then evaluate effectiveness
of the training that takes place, to make sure the return-on-investment (ROI)
for your training budget justifies the expense.
Creating a Training Strategy and Evaluating Effectiveness
- Developing a Call Center Training Strategy
- Drivers of Call Center Training Requirements
- Identifying Training Needs
- Aligning Call Center Training with Organizationwide Initiatives
- Evaluating Training Effectiveness
- Training and Development Reference Bibliography
19 pages, PDF download (requires Adobe Acrobat or Reader)
Training is critical to your call center's success. Are you doing all you can
to make your training program as effective as it could be? This ICMI tutorial
will teach you valuable ways to set up or improve your call center's training
processes. Whether you need to develop in-house training or evaluate outside
training vendors, you'll learn what you need to know in this ICMI Tutorial.
Developing and Implementing Training for the Call Center
- Instructional Design/Development
- Training Courseware
- Training Delivery Methods
- Training Facilitators
- Barriers to Successful Training
- Adult Learning Principles
- Creating and Implementing an Orientation Program
- Training and Development Reference Bibliography
25 pages, PDF download (requires Adobe Acrobat or Reader)
For call center leaders, effective communication involves a three-pronged strategy. First, active internal communication creates meaning and direction for staff and is central to creating a high-value, productive call center environment. Secondly, communicating across the organization is essential to meeting strategic objectives and leveraging the potential of the call center to create strategic value. Finally, the call center has a responsibility to communicate appropriately with external audiences, including customers, investors, suppliers and vendors, outsourcers, resellers and distributors, lawmakers and regulators. Learn how to build an effective communication and reporting strategy in this ICMI tutorial. Topics addressed include the following:
- Principles of Effective Communication
- Creating a Communication Plan for Internal Audiences
- Creating a Communication Plan for External Audiences
- Principles of Effective Reporting
27 pages, PDF download (requires Adobe Acrobat or Reader)
