Some people consider the call center job as one of the easy jobs that anyone with any educational qualification, with any knowledge background, with any personal traits, and with any work experience or even without any previous work experience can perform the tasks of this job with the utmost carelessness and accuracy. But this is not true; because…
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Some people consider the call center job as one of the easy jobs that anyone with any educational qualification, with any knowledge background, with any personal traits, and with any work experience or even without any previous work experience can perform the tasks of this job with the utmost carelessness and accuracy.
But this is not true; because this function represents the company directly to the clients, and affects its sales. In this article, we will learn more about the function of the call center agents, their importance, their types, and some of tips and tricks that will help you to hire qualified call center agents for your business.
Call center representative jobs aren’t a walk in the park. The call center is your first-and potentially only-contact with the customer. Customers might purchase products from your online store, but you’re not necessarily interacting with them. They could hit your website, decide to buy, and even make their purchases all without ever talking to a customer service representative.
They might have a good customer experience if the transaction is smooth and easy to complete. But have you really delivered exceptional customer service? Not in the slightest! And since making your business stand out hinges on your ability to deliver the best customer service, you’ve missed an opportunity. So that call center customer service becomes so important when it’s the only contact your customer has with your reps.
That’s why you need to deliver: When customers call in, you don’t want to greet them with a poor experience, especially not if it’s their first contact, or potentially their only contact. What does a call center agent really do? Call center agents also known as “customer care agents”, “contact center agents”, “customer service agents” or “advisors”. Their job description involves answering incoming calls or making outgoing customer calls to customers and potential customers.
They’re at the frontline of the company and are often the first point of contact a customer has with the brand. A call center agent’s job description involves the following tasks:
1. Answering a large number of calls per day, responding professionally and appropriately to customer complaints, inquiries, and support requests. They might need to consult a knowledge base if they don’t know the answer.
2. Handling support requests across other communication channels (such as emails, or chats and messages through social media accounts of the company).
3. Escalating high-priority issues that the agent can’t solve themself.
4. Making follow-up calls for complicated customer issues.
5. Completing call notes and reports, and uploading relevant data into the CRM.
6. Administrative tasks like recording customer details and information about complaints, inquiries, actions taken, etc.
Types of call center agents
Most call centers fall into one of two types:
Inbound call Center:
Inbound call center This type of customer service deals with incoming calls from clients or potential clients. Customer service representatives focus on incoming calls from customers. The majority of calls that are answered by existing customers are customer complaints, or inquiries about the product or service provided by the company. The customer service employee assists the customer in completing the purchase of the product or service easily, solves the problems he faces, and responds to all his inquiries. In ingoing calls to potential customers, they are often inquiring more about the product or service, its prices, details, and how to order it.
Outbound call center
Outbound call center Customer service representatives of this type make outgoing phone calls to clients and potential clients. In outgoing customer calls, the customer service representative focuses on increasing the company's sales by making calls to existing customers for the purpose of market research or surveys about customer satisfaction with the company's products or services, or following up on a previously incoming call to ensure that the customer has received his request or inquiry well. In outgoing calls to potential customers, the customer service representative presents the latest product or service offered by the company to urge him to be one of its current customers and request the product or service. Also you can know more about different between inbound & outbound call center in detail through the following link: https://www.zendesk.com/blog/inbound-vs-outbound-call-centers-whats-difference/
7 Tips and tricks to hire qualified call center agents
Here are 7 tips and tricks to hire qualified call center agents to your business:
1.Determine the service function The two types of call center agents are NOT the same as we explained earlier. Moreover, telemarketers -as kind of outbound sales- pitch the products and services of the company phone-number-by-phone-number. They’re a valuable resource in that they help spread awareness of and pitch products to potential customers in a wider pool of locations and demographics.
While telesales -as a kind of inbound sales- is focused solely on closing deals over the phone. Telesales agents pursue promising leads in the hopes of improving conversions and increasing revenue. Being aware of the details of the tasks of both inbound and outbound sales agents helps you choose the best among them according to your business needs.
2.Test your agents You can test your customer service agents by: reading scripts, exposing them to a sample of problems, and asking for a proposal for a product or service. These tests will give you a good idea of: the employee's ability to speak clearly and effectively, emotional stability and problem-solving ability, and his or her ability to make a good presentation demonstrating the merits of the product or service.
3.Look for special personality traits There are some important personal traits that qualified call center agents should have like having excellent communication skills, being efficient at problem-solving, seeking knowledge, flexibility, enjoying exceptional organizational skills, and customer needs-focused for sure. We also advise you to focus on handling rejection because inbound agents strive to keep their customers happy, as outbound agents frequently face rejection.
4.Test for Windows Literacy Effective call center agents comes back to the ability to: · Record important information. Reading and writing without excessive typos. · Navigate in the Windows operating system. So make sure that your call center agents have basic typing, audio, and windows literacy qualifications.
5.Check agents' ability to focus and be present Ask questions around the candidates' presence and ability to focus. While most potential bosses like to ask questions about performance, the more telling questions for a call center agent are going to revolve around: attendance, discipline, and focus. The job may require hours setting and punching a clock, and an agent may cannot do it successfully without seriously checking into the work consistently every day From time to time make sure that all call center agents are present by keeping an eye on their attendance, discipline, and focus.
6.Close your eyes & listen to your applicant's voice Certain call center agents are just more pleasant to listen to than others, if you have ever heard the expression, a voice for radio, remember that's exactly what you're hoping to hear from your call center agents. The best prospects have an easy voice to listen to. They will also know how to vary their pitch, and use emotions to get a point across.
7.Handling conflicts Handling conflicts and calming angry customers is very important for call center employees, and this requires the employee to have confidence and calm so that he can follow up on customer complaints and resolve them in a smooth manner. A confident customer service representative seems to "smile" even over the phone, and make sure your customer feels the difference.
Deliberately pressure the applicant for this position in your company a little bit to see if they can handle the issues and complaints. Finally, when hiring a customer service representative, prioritize the key components that will prepare your employees for long-term success in this job.
These are 7 tips and tricks for hiring qualified call center agents for your business. We hope that it will be of use to you in your choice of customer service personnel who express your company directly to the customer.
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