Most of us are familiar with the idea of long hold times in contact centers. It’s an idea that is well-known and widely abhorred by most consumers. The concept of sitting on hold for minutes or even hours waiting for service is not always an exaggeration, it is an unfortunate reality in many facilities – and one that universally creates frustration and dissatisfaction in consumers.

What kind of problems do long hold times cause in contact centers? How can you sidestep these issues in your facility and continue to provide excellent service while also maintaining productivity and efficiency? Here’s more of what you need to know about the problem of long waits and how to cut them down to almost nothing in your center:

For those who have worked in the call center industry for more than a few years, the changes each new year brings are both exciting and interesting. While short-term progress often seems to tick by without much change at all, the span of a year can bring big transformations to your contact center.

This is especially true when it comes to call center technology. Those who have managed or even worked in call centers for many years can tell newer employees that this is the single fastest-changing aspect of the field. Because technology is always updating and always improving, its impact on your call center is always evolving.

Here are some of the ways that call center technology and the call center itself are changing in the coming year – and how to be on the right side of these changes.

An Important Part of Call Center Quality Assurance

The average call center deals with hundreds of thousands of pieces of information daily. While the processing of all this information is spread between dozens or even hundreds of individual agents and management members, it can still be very difficult to ensure quality and consistency.

Making sure the processing and utilization of this information are conducted properly is critically important to the success of the modern call center. Thankfully, there is technology available today that speeds and eases the process of collecting and using this information. One of the most important ways this information is gathered and used is through dual channel recording. Here, we’ll examine just how important this technology is to today’s contact center and the assurance of quality therein.

For those who work in the world of call or contact centers, the term ‘turnover” is a common one. However, many of the same people who hear this term thrown around every day don’t fully understand what it means – or how it impacts business in the modern contact center.

Here’s more of what you need to know about call center turnover and how it relates to your facility – as well as how to lessen its impact on your business this year:

Expansion is an important part of growth for many companies. Adding more call center agents to your roster can be exciting and make things go much smoother for your facility’ daily operations – but is it really necessary? Will adding more agents truly benefit your center, or are you considering expansion purely for its own sake?

Here is more information on how to determine whether adding more call center agents to your facility will truly benefit your center – or whether something else might be a better solution.

What is Holding Your Call Center Back - and How to Break Through

Every manager wants to believe that their contact center is operating at its maximum capacity, but is yours really as efficient and effective as it could be? Does it seem like no matter what you do, your call center keeps lagging behind in productivity and other vital metrics – and you and your agents keep missing your goals?

Call center improvements don’t happen overnight, and they don’t come without preparation and diligence throughout the process. Here are a few tips for making improvement happen in your facility this year and making this the best period your center has ever seen.

If you’re like most owners and operators of call centers around the world, you hate the hiring process. It’s not that you don’t look forward to filling open positions with talented, motivated employees – it’s just that it seems difficult to find those employees and even harder to get them to stay in those positions once you’ve filled them. It’s enough to make anyone dread the process of hiring call center  agents and wonder if there’s a better way.

The truth is, there is a better way. Most managers like to think they’ve got hiring all figured out, but there are some smart strategies that will make it both easier and more effective if you know how to put them to work in your center.

Here are a few industry-tested and expert-approved tips for hiring call center agents that will take your business to the next level in the coming year:

Contact centers aren’t all the massive facilities we picture when we envision modern customer service. Many call centers are still relatively small operations, which means that the one-size-fits-all attitudes of software manufacturers won’t suit their needs as well as those of larger facilities. Unfortunately, this leaves many smaller facilities feeling like today’s best tools and technology – such as call center automation – are beyond their budget and needs.

What can be done to adapt modern call center technology to the needs of smaller operations or scale it to suit that of growing businesses? Read on to find out how adaptive technology is making the difference.

How Minimizing Turnover in Your Call Center Will Benefit Business

For those who work in the world of call or contact centers, the term ‘turnover” is a common one. However, many of the same people who hear this term thrown around every day don’t fully understand what it means – or how it impacts business in the modern contact center.

Here’s more of what you need to know about call center turnover and how it relates to your facility – as well as how to lessen its impact on your business this year:

Could Your Call Center Agents Be Doing More with Their Time? A Few Tricks to Consider

We all like to think our employees are doing the most that they possibly can with their paid time, but are your call center agents really making the best use of theirs? It can be difficult to determine whether they are – but in most call centers, there is always room for improvement when it comes to agent productivity.

Here are some call center agent tricks to help your staff make better use of their time and boost call center productivity - without sacrificing employee satisfaction.