Resources Library Everyday Activities

Agent training is one of the fundamental activities prescribed to call centers for improving their KPIs. However, the availability of structured training programs is often limited to bigger businesses. Even so, agents who have had such opportunities need to put their learnings into practice every day. As a supervisor, you may find this easier said than done, but it’s achievable with minimal effort and here’s how.

There are a couple of features in Freshdesk Contact Center that enable your agents to not just provide a smooth call center experience but also improve themselves. These can be leveraged both by agents who have undergone training and small teams that do not have access to such tools or modules.

Let’s take a quick look at five of these features, and understand how to use them to speed up your agents’ learning curve.

Everyday Activities to Boost Agent Performance Everyday Activities to Boost Agent Performance
After Call Work

As you know, the status of an agent switches to After Call Work (ACW) immediately after a call. At present, this lasts for 30 seconds on Freshdesk Contact Center but you can always put in a request for customizing it according to the average ACW you want your call center to have. This brief interval can be used by agents to perform activities that take care of any loose ends after a call, and ensure that no follow-up is missed. Here are some examples of such activities that can be integrated into the after call routine:

  • Documenting the previous call and any follow-up that’s necessary

  • Handing over any notes to the team that is responsible for following up

  • Quickly consulting you, the supervisor, for any clarifications

  • Or, just taking a breather to prepare for the upcoming call

Call notes

Call logs and timestamps enable your agents to understand only the basic who-and-when information associated with a call. Transferable call notes on Freshdesk Contact Center, on the other hand, help them record and share the context of the call. If an agent makes it a regular habit to take notes, they and the rest of the team will always have a source of information they can fall back on. This helps them handle a follow-up call better, and also helps them quickly build empathy for a new caller who has just been transferred to them.

Recordings

Apart from training programs, one of the most common recommendations for call center agents is to shadow their supervisors to pick up tips and tricks on how to handle different on-call scenarios. However, this becomes a challenge when your call center handles high volumes of calls or you have a team that’s working remotely. Learning by observing is simply not possible in these situations. This is where call recordings come in handy. Your team can always listen to these recordings at their own convenience, without eating away at your busy schedule. You can also take it one step further by categorizing the voice files according to commonly occurring scenarios in your call center, and then sharing these with the agents who will find them the most useful.

In-call actions

In-call actions are functions like mute, hold, and call time. Although they are frequently used, we often do not identify the important role they play in on-call decision making. For example, you can recommend to your agents to keep an eye on time elapsed. This serves two simple purposes:

  • They can decide if it is time to wrap up a call.

  • They can decide whether a certain conversation has to be transferred or escalated to someone with more expertise.

Agent presence status

Agent presence status is one small detail that can affect the entire call flow of your call center. Encourage your agents to update them in real-time so that they can reduce the number of escalations or missed calls against their names.

All of the above features help your team to learn faster by performing regular yet small activities. Agents can be more organized and take quicker decisions without resorting to any external help. If you find this article useful, do share these tips with your team of agents. Or, if you need a demo of any of these features, you can always reach out to support@freshcaller.com.