In “ What Is a Call Center?” we defined a call center as “a centralized location where calls are answered or made.” This is the traditional, literal definition. The reality, however, is that with today’s advanced technology, a call center no longer needs to be in a centralized location. Here are so…
Leading well is a lifetime effort that managers never fully achieve, but they need to seek continual improvement. For the short term, here are some commonsense steps that will immediately improve your effectiveness as a call center leader and manager. Interact with Agents: To often the only time ag…
Setting appropriate staffing levels in a call center is a critical task, an absolutely essential one. If you overstaff then payroll costs will explode your budget, and if you understaff then service levels plummet. Finding the right balance is tricky and even the most experienced schedulers can make…
Most people in the call center industry have a general idea of what HIPAA is, but they lack an understanding of how to apply it to their call center. Ignorance is not a sound defense for HIPAA violations. Follow these quick tips now to reduce penalties and pain later. First a review. HIPAA stands fo…
In a prior post we talked about the importance of formatting marketing emails for mobile devices. This is because the majority of people now read their email on smartphones and other small screen appliances. Ignoring the reading experience of the mobile user dismisses over half of our audience. In d…
Most all businesses receive phone calls that represent a critical situation. Some businesses have many such calls and other businesses encounter them infrequently. What constitutes an urgent call varies from business to business, industry to industry. These calls can range from life-threatening emer…
Isn’t all call center work the same? It doesn’t matter if it is inbound or outbound, a call is a call, right? Wrong. There are significant differences between inbound call center work and outbound call center work, but most corporate business leaders fail to understand the distinction, putting the e…
All business owners and managers want to see their businesses grow. Standing at the helm of an expanding business is an exciting time, but it can be a trying one as well. Growing pains prevail. And you don’t need to contend for the Inc. 500 or Inc. 5000 list to experience the travails of rapid growt…
The classic definition of a call center is a centralized place where calls are answered. Though the answer is straightforward, identifying corporate call centers is not always so easy. Yes, the obvious corporate call centers are those large rooms with rows of cubicles staffed by people who spend the…
How many call centers does your healthcare facility have? While a common response might be one, this is often not the case and could be in error. Most hospital systems have multiple call centers, centralized places that handle calls for different departments, buildings, or facilities. The actual tot…
Call center agents should never complete their education. If agents claim to have finished training, either they’re deluding themselves or their call center is letting them down. Agent training isn’t a once-and-done task. It must be ongoing. Seriously.
Here are four key types of ongoing agent trainin…
So you’ve hired a sales rep for your telephone answering service. Now just sit back and watch the sales roll in, right? Not so fast. Though hiring the right person and forming the right sales compensation plan are essential elements of salesperson success, sales training is key.
Training is also wher…
Many people think of a telephone answering service as a company that takes messages. Yes, they do that, but they can do much more than just take information; they can give out information as well. This includes basic help desk services.
A help desk is essentially a call center that provides support t…
Bill Connelly, owner of Connelly’s Specialty Crane Service, relies on a professional telephone answering service to help him and his small crew serve their unique clients. Connelly’s business specializes in small, maneuverable cranes that are widely used in the motion picture industry. “We only have…
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Among other things, Title II of HIPAA (the Health Information Privacy Accountability Act) regulations mandate how personal health information may be properly transmitted. Keeping personal health information secure from unaffiliated third parties is a key concern for healthcare call centers and their…
EBITDA is a financial acronym. It stands for Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization. It is basically your net sales: gross sales minus operational expenses. The more thorough way to calculate it is to start with your bottom line and then add back interest, taxes, depreciatio…
Mixing up the team dynamic at the sale table By: Michael McMillan Have you ever thought about bringing a front line call center agent to a sales pitch? Or what about having a quality assurance analyst weigh in on if you should sign a deal or not? I am not at all surprised if your answer is no. Most …
The telephone answering service has “been on a buying spree” notes industry publication, TAS Trader, with mergers and acquisitions galore. This has been going on for many years, with the recent couple of years appearing to experience an even further uptick. Rob Ward, marketing director at Anserve In…
Dazed, Bill Mason cradled his head in his trembling hands. Five minutes before, his line supervisor had rushed into his office reporting that the LM-1100 had broken its diamond saw blade, and they did not have a backup on site. Bill had just made an emergency call to his supplier and left an anxious…