There exist several questions which as a Philippine call centre manager you may be asking yourself such as: why is the customer service agent morale/motivation very low? Why can’t we keep hold of your best and most influential call centre agents? All of these questions are caused by either one or nearly all the following items:
First of all, the metrics that you enforce may be demolishing the agent’s morale and also the whole experience of the customer. When the agents came on board, they had the idea of the customer intensive aspect or culture, but then the call centre started focusing too much on straight productivity metrics such as Average Handle Time (AHT) objectives and quotas of calls per Hour (CPH) and this has punished the call center agents’ spirit of service. This direct productivity metrics forces the call centre personnel to shorten call times so as to deal with as many calls as possible. To solve this, you need to initiate emphasis on metrics such as quality of contact, customer service fulfillment/satisfaction and also schedule observance. This will result in improved AHT and CPH.
Another reason for Philippine call centre agent moral issues is the way your monitoring programs focus more on monitoring rather than quality. Philippine call centre’s supervisors are putting too much emphasis on the form of monitoring instead of focusing on actually how their customers feel regarding the quality of interaction between them and the agents. To solve this, direct customer feedback should be enhanced into the agent’s quality measures.
Also the contact centre does not completely engage in the idea of agent empowerment. As a call centre it has neglected the fact that agents have richness in insight hence they know your customers very well. Agents should use that knowledge to enhance the available procedures and also establish new ones. This has positive effects on the customer satisfaction, revenue and also improved operations.
Maybe the training has relentlessly got buried under the queue. The centre supervisors’ are too over-worked and it’s very hard to supervise training effectively. The Philippine call centre should initiate effective methods to squeeze training in the busy schedule, for example, incorporating e-learning modules, sometimes letting agents take up the supervising tasks among other solutions.
Another reason for the moral problems is the fact that there are no rewards for customer service agents or recognition and if these rewards are present. To solve this problem, you need to incorporate proven approaches, for example, you can set up a wall of fame to recognize the consistent high performing customer support agents.
Another problem is the existence of unsound hiring procedures in the contact centre. No matter how effective you train and also reward staff, if you are hiring personnel who are not qualified to handle the contract centre work and who are not in the least bit interested in the call centre work (their only goal is money oriented), then the commitment level by the agents or the required performance level will never be attained. In order to solve this, there is a need to take greater care in who is being hired in order to attain top level customer care organization.