Unlike a vacation, which employees schedule in advance, no one plans a sick day—or at least most people don’t. In most cases a sick day is not a pre-arranged absence. So what do you do when your receptionist calls off at 7:45 in the morning?
Panic
The idea of hearing a ringing phone all day and knowin…
If your business operates outside the call center industry, you may have trouble answering this question of “What is a call center?” But it’s an important one to ask and even more critical to give careful consideration to the answer.
While some businesses know they have a corporate call center, most …
Call center agents, your public-facing staff, are key to your call center’s effectiveness and fuel the success of the overall organization. Successful agent development starts on their first day of employment and continues every day after that. This begins with their initial training, continues with…
In the call center arena, your frontline people are key to success. This starts on day one of their employment in their initial training. Here are some tips to foster successful agent training.
Pick the Right Medium
There is a time and place for online training, but self-directed instruction will not …
There are some commonsense steps to take when selling your telephone answering service, just as there are when selling anything. Common key elements include presentation, promotion, correcting problems, and so forth.
At the risk of comparing a business to a vehicle, would you abuse a car, drive until…
It’s likely your hospital system has at least one call center, a centralized place that handles calls. This may be for a department, a building, the facility, or the entire network. While some healthcare operations wisely have only one comprehensive call center, other networks have a dispersed array…
Some businesses and professionals live or die by the number of appointments they have each day. For them, an appointment is a billable moment. A full schedule results in a full day of billing. A schedule with holes means fewer billable hours and less revenue. Downtime equals disappointment.
It’s a dilemma. You want all of your staff to attend your staff meetings, but that leaves no one left to answer the phone when it rings. After all, the meeting is for all staff and to exclude one person by removing him or her from the discussion doesn’t make sense, and an absence implies that person…
A key to keeping in touch with prospects for your answering service or call center is to collect email addresses and send out periodic updates or informative newsletters. We call this email marketing. In a post about the legal aspects of email marketing, we shared six tips for success. Tip #4 was “P…
If you are the owner of a small business or the business manager in charge of overseeing your answering service, does it sometimes seem as if your answering service is more hassle then they’re worth? Here are two common pain points many small businesses have when they hire the wrong telephone answer…
Finding a new call center to service and handle your calls is not something to pursue with casual indifference. There is much at stake. You can’t afford a misstep, not for your company or for your career. While making the right selection could earn you praise, a bonus, or even a promotion, making th…
In the call center arena your frontline people are key to success. This starts on day one of their employment in their initial training. Here are some tips to foster successful agent training.
Pick the Right Medium
There is a time and place for online training, but self-directed instruction will not w…
The healthcare industry is under pressure from all sides: government, insurance companies, patients, and stakeholders. Everyone demands more for less: Enhanced care, faster access, better treatment, less hassle, simpler billing, and so forth. At the same time, the healthcare provider or system needs…
Rumors abound that email is dead, that as a marketing medium it is past its prime. Let me confirm that these rumors are, in fact, nothing more than rumors. In reality, email marketing is strong, proven, and cost-effective. Yes, other marketing channels may be sexier, but email is golden—as long as y…
When a hospital call center faces pressure to do more in the face of considerable constraints, one solution, often the best one, is to outsource some or all of their activities. Here are some situations when it is ideal for a healthcare facility or network to consider outsourcing.
Space Limitations
Wh…
People at all levels of business, in all sizes of businesses, struggle to find time to focus on key projects. Nowhere is this more critical than for entrepreneurs and small business owners. Although leaders make some significant decisions in the midst of chaos and distraction, other vital undertakin…
Prior posts have addressed the right time to sell your answering service, the wrong time to sell, and about leaving a legacy when it’s time to move on. However, there is one more scenario to consider. It’s a distressed sale. Sorry to be blunt, but that’s an apt description for a difficult situation.
When people reach a call center, they make assumptions about the agent and the agent’s location based on what they hear. While these assumptions may have a basis for truth, they also can gravely mislead their understanding of the transaction. Consider the following:
Accents
If the agent speaks with an…
When someone calls your office, what happens?
Don’t answer this question with what you hope happens or what you ideally want to occur but with the typical response the caller actually receives. Also, don’t focus on the exemplary instances, but instead consider the difficult occasions. This is what ca…
Attendance Issues Are Not Inevitable and They Can Be Dealt With
Agent attendance problems are something too many call centers struggle with. Unlike many businesses that can work around a late or absent employee, this isn’t the case for a call center. Call centers strategically schedule staff, so they…