The primary objective to set up a call center is to help the customers to solve their issues or to call them for sales, marketing, survey and other purposes. To ensure the success of your call center efforts, you need proficient call center agents. When the agents interact with the customers, they should demonstrate a few skills –
- Great knowledge of the product or the services
- Efficiency in problem-solving skills
- Good communication skills
- Ability to control the conversation and capability to understand the problem well
The agents should also have good knowledge of technology and software, quick learning skills, and the ability to work in difficult situations.
Although there are millions of call center agents across the world, US-based call center agents are considered to be the best. In the United States, there are numerous numbers of call centers that hire their agents after rigorous scrutiny. The agents sometimes must do administrative tasks such as updating the customers’ profiles or files, documenting the customer interactions, pulling the reports, or providing feedback management.
Here are the top skills of a US-based call center agent that separate them from BPO agents of other countries –
1. Knowledge retention
An agent always should provide the highest quality support to the customers. To reach this level, they should be able to learn and remember information well about your company. When they are ready to receive the calls or do outgoing calls, they should know the nooks and crannies of the products well along with the philosophy of the brand. The agents should also know how to resolve an issue and to whom the call should be transferred if required. With progress, they should memorize the answers to the most frequently asked questions and be capable to troubleshoot them easily. If the candidates appear to lack learning capability and retain required information, you should think twice before hiring them as it may leave a negative impact on the business.
2. Attention to detail
The job responsibility of a call center agent is sometimes monotonous. The agents sometimes get repeated queries on the same day or receive the same complaints throughout the day or day after day. As a result, the agents can become complacent. The agents should assume and understand the customer issues well without asking for more clarification and should always offer a fast and effective response.
It has been observed that customers often complain that the agents do not answer their calls properly or answer only 50% of the queries. Make sure the agents stay away from this tendency and should take care of the customers when they are in distress. They should leave the customers satisfied before disconnecting the call or the communication. While hiring the agents, if the candidates have errors in their resume, lack grooming, or appear incompetent, stay away from hiring the agent and pay attention to the little details.
3. Organization
The agents who work in a call center remain quite busy, therefore, they should be organized. They should be able to switch between multiple tasks at once such as checking the knowledge base, updating the CRM and taking notes in your helpdesk. The agent should do all of these while taking care of the customer’s requirements. Therefore, they need to stay organized and it will help reduce errors in the workflow, assure they are completing their tasks efficiently, and allow them to address the customers effectively.
To ensure the call center agents are organized, you should hire people who met all the guidelines and requirements set by you. The application as an agent should have guidelines such as arriving at the meeting on time, submitting requested materials, etc, and should have a good track record of being organized. Once they are in your team, they should know well how to use the tools. The tools include software that is integrated to the business tools, CRM and helpdesk solution and the required environment required for staying organized. These little things are enough to make a big difference to keep your customers satisfied.
4. Flexibility
Not only the customers stay busy to deal with high call volumes, but they also interact with multiple characteristics or challenging personalities. Pick the agents who can go with the workflow as it will assure that agents are flexible enough to meet the requirements of a diverse customer base. They must be capable enough to switch between a chatty customer and an angry customer easily. They should be able to move on easily from a difficult or rude customer interaction and should be polite to provide the justified solutions to the customer. Additionally, the agents should be flexible with the working hours such as holidays, weekends, and nights.
5. Friendly
The agents are the front lines of the company. The agents in your US-based call center must be friendly and warm with the customers so that they can stalk about their experience. Besides keeping a positive attitude and the agents will wear a smile through out the day on their faces. While hiring them, make sure they can go an extra mile or take initiatives to solve the issues. Once you are hiring the team, grow the culture of being friendly among the team members. Thank us later.
6. Calm under pressure
A high-quality US-based call center agent is not easily confused. Some consider it one of the toughest jobs to keep up with because of the frustrating number of calling agents and their interactions every day. A good agent will always stay calm when they are confronting an angry customer who is yelling at them over the phone. On the other hand, they should also hold their patience if the customer is too talkative or chatty. In the hiring process or in the interview round, how would they think about dealing with the customer pressure. You can ask the previous employers about the candidate’s efficiency.
7. Effective communication skills
This is a much-talked-about quality but always worth mentioning. The prime job of a call center agent is to communicate with the callers or make calls to the customers. In both ways, the agents need to communicate with the customers well. Communication is not restricted to speaking only. An effective communication skill means listening to the customer, understanding the query or information, and responding quickly with a solution. The agents should speak clearly and be straightforward using basic vocabulary. When they communicate effectively, this will speak well only about your services and products. In fact, a competent agent can turn the customers into happy ones and it is only achievable by outstanding communication skills.
8. Speed
The qualified agents of a US-based call center should always be efficient and fast. They should be able to respond quickly without compromising the quality. This is indeed essential to the company revenue because the more the agents are able to deal with high call volumes, the fewer agents you need in your company to run the process seamlessly. This is also essential from the agent’s end. They must not want to wait for an agent as 75% of the customers complain about staying in the waiting line to reach an agent. They for obvious reasons want their call answered as soon as possible. A fast-paced call center agent could decrease the average speed of answering the calls and better service level to keep the customers more satisfied.
9. Creativity
A strong agent should be careful. They should have workable solutions for the problems coming their way. They must be creative, intelligent and quick-thinker to help meet the requirements of the callers. It is helpful for both the customer and the agent. It also increases the customers’ satisfaction. When the agents resolve an issue effectively, the customer will return and do business with you.
Successful caller agents are hard to find yet challenging. But it helps to know what makes an agent a good one. But it helps to know the qualities of an agent when you are hiring them. Just some of the current agents do not have all the necessary skills, but it does not mean that they would not have them one day. The required qualities can be taught and trained with time. You cannot hold training sessions for teaching the skills to the existing agents to have them on the same page.
