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How to Manage Call Centre Agents Working from Home

How to Manage Call Centre Agents Working from Home

The world is continuing to adapt to the global pandemic outbreak, many call centres are operating with agents working from home. This is a way to keep your agents safe by not forcing them into busy environments.

Whilst working from home does have its advantages and disadvantages, it’s possibly the best solution to keep your team happy (and safe). One of the key questions we get asked is how do managers keep track of agents working from home? We take a look in this blog post:

Monitor Stats

Usually, when you are with your team in the office you can see what they are up to and the reasons for any possible downtime. However, when they are working from home you can’t, this leads us to discuss our first point monitoring stats.

By keeping an eye on stats, you can monitor performance, making sure wait time is low and agents are available. If you have historical data from working in the office, you can compare it with their remote working results, making sure performance doesn’t drop.

Key metrics such as MIA (Most Idle Agent), EWT (Expected Wait Time) and CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) can give indications of performance.

Check Call Recordings

Whilst it’s almost impossible to check every call as you might have multiple agents spanning across the whole day. Checking in on a few calls every now and again will give you an idea of your agent’s tone of voice and motivation.

By sharing feedback with agents, you can subtly remind them that you are monitoring their performance, stopping them from being distracted.

Selecting calls at random will keep agents on their toes as they won’t know which one will be tested.

Use Chat Software

Keep in constant contact with your team through chat applications such as Microsoft Teams, Slack or even WhatsApp. This can help keep spirits high and let everyone know what’s going on. The team can share funny gifs or industry news.

Talk With Agents

Sometimes working from home doesn’t benefit everyone, people get lonely and mental health can be affected. Taking the time to arrange calls with agents to check on their performance and their mental wellbeing can show agents you care.

This can also give you an opportunity to discuss performance and find ways agents can improve.

Have Group Meetings

Once a week it might be wise to host group meetings so everyone can chat and stay in touch. This can be done on software such as zoom where multiple people can join a meeting together. People can chat, speak about what they’ve been up to or play fun games like a quiz.

Conclusion

Call centres continue to adapt to the challenges they face, we’re seeing an increase in those that have taken to a work from home model. At Primo, we have made our solutions mobile friendly and even have our own android apps. Find out more about our work from home dialler solutions.

Could call centres look to bring in a work from home model permanently? It could save money on office space and reduce equipment costs. It could also help attract more talent as agents minimise travel costs and save time between commutes. 2022 could see a huge shift in the way call centres are run.