All Call Centers are in fact Help Desks. Some people think a Help Desk is only for computer problems, but the reality is all call centers are help desks that provide customer support.  So we can think of them as customer service call centers.

1. Call Center Management
2. Best Call Centers
3. Call Center Metrics or Call Center Analytics
4. Call Center Process
5. Call Center Performance Management, Dashboard, KPIs
6. Call Center Monitoring, Reviews, Reports, Evaluations
7. Call Center Tips
8. Call Center Skills
9. Call Center Tools
10. Call Center Statistics and Call Center Tracking
11. Call Center Business Plan
12. Call Center Standards

1. Call Center Management

Call center management is responsible for technology selection and maintenance, hiring, supervising, training, scheduling, staff and monitoring results.

2. Best Call Centers

3. Call Center Metrics or Call Center Analytics

Most call centers collect basic metrics and use basic analytics like average wait time before a call is answered, percentage of time representatives on actually talking with customers, average time after call is terminated to complete any work on customer records, However, best call centers also know the cost of serving different types of customers and cost of different types of calls. They also know the cost to hire and train a representative.

4. Call Center Process

5. Call Center Performance Management or Call Center Dashboard and KPI (Key Performance Indicators)

Call Center Performance Management will have some type of Call Center Dashboard which will have KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Common call center KPIs include: average cost per call, average percentage of staff time talking with customer compared with time paid; average cost to serve different types of customers; average time to handle different types of calls (new customer, returns, complaints, different products or services key

6. Call Center Monitoring, Reviews, Reports and Evaluation

call center supervisors usually monitor their trained reps anywhere between once per week to once per month. This monitoring includes whether they are following established processes, have a pleasant voice, are courteous,  and whether they are resolving their customers questions. 

7. Call Center Tips

Having worked with a number of call centers, we have found certain call center tips that we would like to share. Use part time workers when possible to cover heavy call volume periods. Call center volume is either heaviest at beginning of week and slows down throughout week or call center volume peaks on Monday and Friday so staff accordingly. Follow up training is often more important than initial training. Make sure you train staff at least monthly and daily or weekly is preferred. Call center must understand average cost of different types of calls as well as cost of serving different types of customers

8. Call Center Skills

some call center skills are natural and some can be learned. Being a good listener can be improved on and learned although some are better than others. Being diplomatic can be learned or at least improved upon. Not getting upset with customers whether justified or not can be learned

9. Call Center Tools

there are a variety of call center tools to improve call centers. Call center tools include: predictive dialers to actually make calls, ivr (interactive voice response) to direct callers to proper staff person who can resolved their call, software and hardware to determine how much time they spend actually talking to customers and doing after call work, etc.

10. Call Center Statistics and Call Center Tracking

Call centers track a variety of statistics. These statistics include: average time per call, average wait time before a call is answered; percent of calls resolved on first call; average time staff spends on phone or doing after call work, average cost of different types of calls, average cost of serving different types of customer.

11. Call Center Business Plan

A call center business plan should include some type of customer satisfaction, quality, time and cost measures. It should address use of part time staff as well as initial and follow-up training.

12. Call Center Standards

There are some call center standards like all calls should be answered within 2 or 3 rings. 90% of calls should be resolved on the first call. Staff should be talking with customers 70% of time. Average time per call should be so many minutes. Obviously, the nature of the call and industry will affect the exact standards for each industry and company.