Five helpful insights into contact centres
What do people not often realise about contact centres? Kaye Kennedy, a moderator and assessor of the New Zealand Certificate in Contact Centres (Level 3) version 2, shares five helpful insights
- Emotional and mental wellbeing are very important for contact centres, which is why they are strong components of the Contact Centres (Level 3) version 2 programme. In a contact centre, you’re on the front line with customers – you’re probably going to be the one judged of the company’s service. You’re actively listening and showing empathy for a customer regardless of how emotional the customer may be. There’s no other part of the business that’s managed, micromanaged, as in a contact centre and CSRs are rostered and tied to a headset. Therefore emotional and mental wellbeing are hugely important the same as Health and Safety.
- Investing in your contact centre team with a qualification can benefit both the learner and the organisation. If you want to listen to what your customers are telling you, sit alongside and listen to your contact centre team. They’ll identify issues long before the management ever believe that they’re there. If there’s an issue within an organisation, your CSRs are going to alert the business first.
- In addition to recognising the value of customer service representatives by enrolling them in a qualification programme, there are other ways to celebrate contact centres. One way is through the CRM Contact Centre Awards, which provides an annual ‘snap-shot’ of how New Zealand contact centres are responding to customer enquiries. Being the front door to the business, CSRs are recognised for the skills and the value they add to the business. And there are mystery CRM audits that many organisations undertake.
- Contact centres can help your brand experience. I suggest having brand awareness around the contact center. Make it as big and bright as possible, you want a buzzy environment as you want customers to hear a smile in your CSRs voices, after all.
- Just as the services that customer service representatives provide have evolved through the years, so has the associated qualification programmes. For example, to meet the needs of both organisations and learners, New Zealand Certificate in Contact Centre (Level 3) version 2 is now offered online so that people can work at their own pace, wherever it suits them.