5 Common Mistakes That Call Centers Make While Setting Up [And How to Avoid Them]

Various types of call centers engage with us every day. Here are 5 mistakes that you should avoid while setting up a call center.

Some are outbound call centers for sales where agents call us to convince us to buy something. Others are inbound call centers for sales that we call to purchase something (like Teleshopping Network).

Other call centers are help desks for employees within an organization. Finally, there are customer support centers that businesses or brands either manage or outsource for customers to get support on products and services.

Today, IVR technology has made it easy to automate call centers. Reports that customer service volumes have dropped 17% since 2015 might lead us to believe that voice calls are on the decline. But this is not true. Even today, 74% of people contact customer service via phone, more than any other medium. And we still prefer speaking to a real human being than an automated voice on the other line.

This is why it’s crucial for call centers to NOT make certain critical mistakes while setting up. Their long-term success (or failure) depends on these aspects. Yet, we’ve seen many call centers commit the same mistakes over and over again.

Here are five of them, and how you can avoid them when you set up a call center.

Mistakes to avoid while setting up a call center

1. Overpromising, Under-delivering

Clients are the most important aspect for call centers to run the show. Without clients, they won’t have the revenue to invest in technology and people.

However, in the attempt to bag a customer, the business development team often overpromises results at a fraction of the original cost because customers claim that they don’t have the budget.

The result of this tight budget is inferior quality technology and cheaper manpower. The focus shifts from providing callers with a good experience to handling more calls with lesser manpower – both in quality and quantity. First Call Resolution (FCR) goes out the window and customer satisfaction (CSAT) takes a beating.

Don’t give the sales team free rein to do anything just because you need a client. It’s better to wait till you find a well-paying client so that the call center can do justice to them.

2. Lack of On-Going Training

Many managers try to agents to hit the floor as soon as possible to maximize their productivity. Business leaders also feel that since churn is high, they don’t need to provide adequate and in-depth training to the agents.

But this is a big mistake and it shows in poor call quality, high Average Handling Time (AHT), and other important metrics that eventually affect the call center’s SLAs. This is not how any leader wants a call center to function, right?

Training should not be a namesake activity nor should it be a one-time one. When agents get trained better, they perform on calls and adhere to (or exceed) their metrics better.

However, leaders worry that this training will be expensive. It doesn’t have to be so. When leaders design clear processes to enable floor managers and supervisors to identify the main gaps in agents’ knowledge, training becomes easier and more cost effective to execute.

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