The Complete Guide to Managing Remote Call Centre Agents

As technology trends continue to develop, the workforce has begun to change shape as well. Because of high-speed internet and cloud networks powering VoIP and contact centre solutions, access no longer is limited to the office space. Fortunately with a call centre software agents can get connected to the same network in the office, which they need to make and answer calls. With just the internet and headset agents can easily work from home.

Whether you have a contact centre or a call centre, the trend of remote working is not just convenient but can be more productive. Your agents don’t have to worry about making it to the office through rush hour and they can work from the comfort of their home while remaining productive and efficient. However, not everyone can manage a remote team. Hence, we are going to give you guys some tips to efficiently manage a remote team.

Tips To Manage Remote Agents Efficiently:

• Daily reports, call logs and check-ins:

While you won’t be able to call your agent into the office or have then dropped off a work report daily before heading out, you can still put-on compulsory check-ins from remote agents. Through unified collaboration, team collaboration, Hipchat or slack you can always stay connected with the agent’s while also tracking their online presence. Making agents check-in when they begin working, updating their progress and then again check-in with the end of day report can easily substitute those in-person reporting. Most of the popular contact centre solutions offer access to agent’s call logs and daily activity so managers can monitor agents.

• Control Quality Assurance Tools:

Cloud phone system offer access to activity reports and call logs and they have a lot of other quality assurance tools. A lot of solutions allow customers to rate call quality based on specifically predefined metrics. If monitoring call grades, call logs, and status report is not enough then there are other powerful features available. Although no one wants to micromanage or be micromanaged there is call recording which you can use to train agents and make sure outbound calls are handled properly. There is also call barging so supervisors can listen in on agent’s calls in real-time as they happen, they can do it even without alerting the agent or customer. This way manager can have hands-on approach and track agents work without having to be in the office.

• Try to make work fun, Gamification:

The idea behind Gamification is simple; it applies the typical elements and rewards of playing a game to your agent’s work. Using competitions with other agents, point-scoring and with some rules and regulations for help, you can build a solid reward system for the highest performing agent. Offering incentives to the most productive agents and creating a series of goals can help your agents engage with the tasks at hand and it enhances productivity. Gamification is one of the great ways to ensure your agents reach the highest level of efficiency. There are call centre solutions that have built-in Gamification to integrate with the platform.

• Collaborate and Foster a Community:

Agents that work from home may feel a bit disconnected from the community and culture of the office. But, fortunately, because of so many communication and collaboration tools available n the market, contact centres can establish the social media community and help remote agents stay connection. If your contact centres use Slack, needing your remotely working agents to sign up and join the appropriate Slack rooms can help them be in the loop and offers them a way to communicate with other co-workers, general team chat room, and managers directly. However, you have to centre them on a fun team-building exercise or event.

Best Tools for Managing Remote Workforce:

There are a lot of features that a contact centre must have, some of which are specifically tailored with affordable call rates and tools for managing remote employees.

• Automatic Diallers: Thanks to automatic diallers like progressive, preview, predictive and power diallers, managers can cut down on remote agents’ downtime by ensuring a steady stream of phone calls. With call centres, diallers, particularly predictive diallers, agents can have another call ready to go as soon as their latest call ends. You agents may never be this efficient or productive on their own.
• Employees Management Tools: An absolute schedule is important to keep your agents on task throughout the day. A good workforce management tool can make it easier to create schedules that work with agent’s availability, manage call flow and call volume and help maintain a flexible workforce.
• Call Management Software:  This feature allows managers to vigilantly monitor their agents, regardless of their locations. Supervisors can train their agents virtually by dropping in on live calls or by providing silent coaching through chat to help ensure agents provide a consistent service level.
• Screen Sharing and Remote Access: If managers want more in-depth agent monitoring, several contact centre solutions allow screen sharing and remote access from an agent’s computer to manger’s computer. Screen sharing and remote access feels just like a walk around the office and keeping an eye over the agent’s activity.
• Complete Call Analytics: With call logs, supervisors can take a look at the great amount of data contact centre software provides like when, how many calls and how long the agents were making calls. Such tools allow managers to keep an eye on when their agents are logged in and how long they were idle and if they flag as unavailable to take other phone calls.
• Real-time manager dashboard: While a lot of solutions like reporting and call logs are seen after the fact, through real-time manager dashboards managers can monitor agent’s activity in real-time. If an agent is on call, manages can peek to look at all the related information and then call barging and silent coaching is possible from here.
• Compliance and Quality Assurance Features: Managers can stay on top of their agents, improve security in the network and obey any regulations with call recording, encrypting communication and adhering to government regulations, based on the industry your contact centre operates in.
• Customer surveys Post call: Analysis and monitoring of agents can also be done with post-call customer surveys. These surveys can give callers a chance to rate their conversation which is made possible through contact centre software. The level of satisfaction to help managers understand and get feedback on the agent’s performance.

A service provider offering great contact services is VoIP Business. They offer an all in one VoIP Solution for Call Centre that can help managers manage their remote workforce easily. They offer all the above mentioned must features that every contact centre needs. This way remote agent can be a good addition to your contact centre and it can help ensure a high quality of service along with round the clock customer service, all for low overall cost. The company offers Free Call Plan so that you can test out their services for free without making a long term commitment.