Loading...

Latest Post Last updated on January 19th, 2024

To Manage a Call Center Efficiently see what Employees Really Think

Pardeep Kullar
Pardeep Kullar
To Manage a Call Center Efficiently see what Employees Really Think

There are plenty of happy smiling recruitment videos for call centers on
Youtube but survey the comments section below the videos and there are very
few smiles. At Upscope we're researching what sort of services employees at
call centers might want and to understand that we need the real unspoken
truths. Youtube comments for specialist areas and niche videos contain fewer
trolls and more genuine informed opinions. Below we'll list key comments made,
some of the positive things people said, how management are tackling these
issues in order to run their call center efficiently and what radical new
ideas the future could bring.

When the president of the company does calls for a day


What did they say in the comments section?

  • "I think all call center CEOs and owners need to take calls for a week
    just to see what their agents go through
    . Maybe then, they will have more
    empathy and improve the call center industry a bit"

  • "The problem here is that he told the customer that he's the president.
    Don't let them know that. they will treat him differently than the do the rep.
    this doesn't help him get any insight when he let them know his position and
    that man was as calm as a cucumber compared to the rest
    ."

  • "Every call center ceo/manager should spend AT LEAST a full shift on the
    phone."

  • (sarcastic comment) "I don't know how you do it, I'm just glad you do so I
    don't have to and can sit back and rack the millions while you get paid 12$ a
    hour to get screamed at all day."

  • "He needs to learn how to say I'm sorry to the customer. Horrible customer
    service Mr. President"

  • "It always makes me nervous when the people from headquarters comes and
    listens in on my calls. I know they aren't there to see if we are do
    everything right in a technical sense but seeing how we interact with
    customers but still."

  • "I appreciate what you do..I don't know how you do it...!" President says
    it.

What can we learn from this?

  1. The president turned up and struggled with even the easiest calls and he
    respected what the staff have to handle. It's slightly frightening that the
    president of the company does not know how key employees, on the front line of
    customer experience, feel.

  2. Staff wish senior management would be more regularly involved this way so
    they could better understand what the job on the ground was like.

  3. He used his "Presidential" credentials to make it easier on himself as
    people will talk to the 'President' of the company a different way. He should
    really have pretended to be a regular worker. The work is so tough that the
    president of the company went straight to his title to escape the pressure on
    even a low level difficulty call.

Comedy video on call center secrets


What did they say in the comments section?

  • Working at a market research (surveys) call center was the most draining job
    I've ever had, I still remember a lady from Ghirardelli made me cry, now I
    refuse to buy their chocolate. :)

  • "I gotta say, my issues within a call centre don't come from my customers
    half the time. Mostly from other departments not communicating with us.
    Makes it really embarassing for us to all tell the customer different
    information when the other departments shouldn't have their hands on my fault
    cases ahahha"

  • They forgot some! A couple of them our team did..Selfishly enjoying the
    5-10 minutes of silence when your phone didn't ring
    , while trying to throw
    your coworkers of their game until your phone rang. ?Constantly looking at
    the clock during calls
    , thinking when will it end!!

  • having worked in a few call centers, to pay the bills when I've been between
    careers and desperate not to be homeless...I can attest to all of that.it is
    the most soul draining work in existence.

  • the bathroom was my HAVEN! I would hide there 10 times a day!

  • Damn I worked at a food delivery call center and it was a nightmare -
    people are always meanest when they're hungry.

  • I’ve worked at many different call centers. Trust me when I say clients
    are the angriest when the concern has to do with their money
    . None of the
    other call centers can compare! I do not miss my call center days one bit!

  • I worked in a call center 2 years, I was super nice and did everything to
    help unless customers had an attitude or were disrespectful. Check your
    attitude before you blame the call center agent. Not to say there aren't some
    people who don't care, but at least give them a chance.

  • I always place my customer on hold for 3 mins and I just stare at the
    monitor
    .

  • Working as a apple tech was awful but for the rude customers I would put on
    hold while I went outside to chat with co workers or grab something from the
    vending machine.

What can we learn from this?

  1. In another article I saw a management directive not to put people on hold.
    Here, within the comments, you can see that putting people on hold was almost
    an escape. Naturally there is a conflict between people needing a break and
    management's view on how much of a break they need and the impact it has on
    the customer.

  2. There were many videos in which people mentioned the bathroom as being a
    haven. Maybe this is true of all workplaces to some extent. It's the one place
    no-one can barge in really. That said, it's mentioned an unusual number of
    times.

  3. Call center work varies by product a lot. Someone in tech support helping
    the elderly non-tech through their computing problems quite enjoyed spending
    the 30 mins or so with them. That's wildly different to hungry people or those
    in financial difficulties.

  4. The mention of 'soul draining experience' is mentioned so often that I just
    started to skip it within the comments but that's probably the most common
    comment.

Another comedy video about call center truths


What did they say in the comments section?

  • I work in a call center. 70% of my job is looking up things on Google that
    are accessible to the customer
    .

  • "I'm going to pretend to be empathetic because quality insurance is
    listening
    "
    THAT IS SO ME????

  • “This job has given me a fear of talking on the phones.”

  • I fully intend to look you up on facebook after this just to see how much of
    an asshole you look are

  • what annoys me most is when people interrupt me and ask questions about
    the thing I'm explaining

  • I love to connect you over to my supervisor who will give the same
    information that I gave
    !" hahahahah this is burn!

  • Working at a call center was the worst experience of my life. It was the
    only job I could get to help pay off my student loans. I cried daily.
    Thankfully I have a new job but man people can be mean.

  • I've worked different CC jobs ( in Germany), some horrible, some almost ok,
    and I can say:Being yelled at I can cope with. I totally understand when
    somebody has to let off steam.Their frustration is relatable after all. 90% of
    the "yellers" say they don't mean to attack me personally, when they calmed
    down just a little (not that I would care, either).What annoys me is a rude,
    demanding attitude. Like demanding things that are simply not possible
    , and
    getting upset when being told that. It's like arguing with a toddler.

  • What's annoying to me is the customers that call in and go on this long
    spiel about how long they've been holding and having to speak to other agents,
    all the while wasting more and more time talking about it instead of telling
    me what the issue is. If you want to get off the phone quicker, stop whining
    and get on with the issue.

  • We are pretty much Paid Actors.

  • i think it’s hilarious when customers say “i’m NEVER going to use your
    company again” and i’m like “THANK GOD!!”

  • I've worked at the call centre before, CONSTANT ANXIETY AND NERVOUSNESS

  • They forgot slowly turning into Hulk while someone is eating on the phone
    throughout the whole call.

  • Please complain for 10 more minutes about how long the hold was as if you
    were really in a rush

  • I died at “I’m going to tell you the issue is resolved so I can go on
    break
    ” ??? I always get a call 5 mins before I get off and I swear that’s my
    go to ☠️

  • For all the people commenting on how the customer care employees are
    ridiculous and its there jobs. I dare you to work one day at a call centre and
    then come back with all your lovely comments, lets see how you felt working
    that one day.

  • "This job has made me dead inside" !!!! ACCURATE !!!!!! ??

  • I worked at a call center for one summer, and it was actually the worst
    experience of my life
    . I don't have a thick skin, which probably made it
    about 15 times worse, but I still can't think about it without having awful
    flashbacks. The only positive outcome of it was that I've become so much nicer
    to anyone who works in any type of service industry. Its a tough job.

  • You forgot: I do not know anything about this that you don't know. The
    only reason my position exists is so that customers have someone they can
    shout at and feel like the company cares about their problems.

  • I used to work at a call center, and before that I worked at a dump,
    literally. If given the choice I would prefer to go back to the dump

What can we learn from this?

  1. Yes, again, it's a job many hate. They dread it. They feel pain doing it.
    There is an extreme lack of positive comments.

  2. The term 'anxiety' is mentioned in every comments section. Even doing live
    chat support involves working with difficult angry customers, let alone on
    phone support. In live chat support there is a bit of anxiety around opening
    up that enquiry in the live chat list which starts with "Why DO..." or "This
    tool is not workin..". At least on live chat you can use saved replies and
    reply after a minute. On phones it's right there and then. There's no
    breathing room.

Why people quit call centers


What did they say in the comments section?

  • I thought I was the only one who feel this way...the anxiety, the metrics
    issue, feeling insufficient after training.I am happy I found your channel.

  • I quit because I was getting panic attacks. After 3 months of working at the
    one I was at, I could not disengage from the job. It followed me home. It was
    in my dreams. The customers everyday were shitty. I like the point you brought
    up about "best reps" getting those easy calls all the time but the new people
    get the verbal assault squads of America calling in cursing and trying to
    provoke you into giving back a shit attitude. The supervisors are just like
    you described. Perform up to an impossible standard or be fired. Or at the
    very least, be stuck on the current shift you start out on forever. And at the
    call center I was at, the recruiters told me the job wasn't a sales job, just
    customer service. Total lie. You could be written up for not pitching a sales
    offer on EVERY CALL that came in. And even if you do that, you can still be
    written up because the supervisor didn't like the way you pitched the
    offers.

  • This is so trIue because I'm currently working at a call center and feel
    trapped, emotionally unstable, weak
    , I'm driving myself crazy and I don't
    want to talk to anyone. I feel so alone I need help!

  • Call center work is demeaning work. I can't wait for the day when machines
    can answer calls and save people the misery from working call centers. I
    worked call center work for 12 years and am so happy to be out. I now work
    internal tech support for a logistics company and love my job now and feel
    like a new man not tied to the phone.
    Do yourself a favor and don't work a
    call center job unless you have to.

  • All the unattainable metrics, the 1984 system that constantly tracks your
    time, the ball and chain headset,
    and dumbass customers drove me to
    insanity.I eventually quit my job for a minimum wage job at a small video game
    store and the appreciation of not being at a call center pushed me to work
    hard to be promoted to a management position. I am happy with where I am now
    and am glad I took the plunge to jump out to something better.

What can we learn from this?

  1. This guy went on one hell of a rant. He went into the dark zone with some
    of what he said. A few notes: Manipulated by management, told you're not quite
    good enough, you never feel like you'll get there, customers in the 21st
    century are worse than ever, more entitled than ever, metrics you can't meet,
    gets so bad that people get sick, paramedics there once a week, atmosphere
    like an asylum, people who get high on pot in their car, people with mental
    and emotional issues. I do recall that dentists are said to have high
    incidents of alcoholism because so much of their work is routine and difficult
    as well. The same problems likely apply to other routine and difficult jobs
    such as a call centers and dentists are better paid and treated with more
    respect by customers.

  2. Metrics are mentioned often in the comments sections. Being constantly
    measured and evaluated by numbers must be quite exhausting. One thing we are
    weary of in a startup is making sure we are a team that first cares and second
    understands that the metrics are useful ways to measure progress. The giving a
    damn leads and the metrics follow, not the other way round. Managing primarily
    by metrics would be a sad way to build a company and work with other people.

Why I quit working at a call center


What did they say in the comments section?

  • Every time I went to my call center job I was so jealous of the security
    guards

  • I love when customers think you can work on an issue off a call. They have
    no idea what a call center is. Literally when you finished with one person
    yelling at you another is yelling instantly when the phone hangs up.

  • One last thing after I was working there for year as a security guard. One
    of the managers asked me if I wanted to apply
    because they were looking for
    people that were fluent in Spanish. I immediately said no thank you.

  • I worked in a call centre for 13 years & i assure you some time down the
    track you will realise that quitting that job was the best decision you ever
    made
    . Like you said i wouldn't go back for even 1 million $ a
    year,seriously.

  • I hear ya, girl. I worked at two call centers after college and once more on
    a part time basis after grad school. Doesn't matter what company you work
    for...the work JUST SUCKS!!!! I'd rather work a couple fast food jobs at
    once before I take another call center job again.

  • I really understand how you feel, I worked in a call center for almost 2
    years as a collections agent (which to me is the worst department you can be
    in)
    me personally I'm a very shy person and I don't talk much so this job
    was hard for me from the beginning having to call people to ask why they
    haven't made their car payment and basically begging them to make a payment
    everyday was so depressing for me not to mention the angry customers you
    sometimes get on the line make it 1000 times worse, I literally use to go on
    break which was only 15 mins on an 8 hour shift and cry my eyes out because I
    hated it so much and where I live is hard to find a job so I basically felt
    stuck in the place also having to deal with staff who just aren't good people
    is the icing on the cake, I finally resigned last year in December and I
    remember walking out of the building and never looking back since then (I got
    a new job btw which I'm very happy at now) but that job gave me severe
    anxiety and depression so I understand how you feel.

  • Ive been working for collections for a bank for almost a year and its soul
    crushing the management are awful.
    Spare yourself the stress and just do
    not take the offer

  • I remember being such a happy person before a call center job but my job has
    made me absolutely careless about the customers and their issues that have
    become my fault suddenly. I get verbally attacked and when they ask to speak
    to a supervisor, my supervisor tells me to tell them that they’re on “another
    call” all so that they don’t have to take the abuse while they continue to
    make salary. I would NEVER EVER wish this on anyone. When I worked in food,
    they pay sucked, it got busy, but I was with other co-workers and we felt like
    we were all in it together
    . Working at a call center is like working in
    hell.

  • Bank call centers are the worts So many fraking rules you literally cant
    mess up you got to be a freaking robot

A few of the positive comments

  • Some of my best experiences in working at any job was actually at call
    centers. I met some of the coolest people i know through them. Bank call
    centers are strict and depressing, i avoid those. The call center job that i
    had was for tech support. We helped old people find the power button on the
    computer, etc
    . It was so relaxed. Sometimes it would be back to back then
    other times there would be 5 - 15 min between each call, so i had plenty of
    time to talk with the people around me.
    They also let you choose your own
    schedules after training. the call centers you

  • started with inbound Tech Support for AppleCare. It was tough because the
    average handling time was supposed to be around 15 minutes per call. After
    about a year and a half I was offered a transfer to sales for the Apple online
    store team. Where I found my niche. Where they want you to stay with the
    customer as long as possible.

  • If you have patience and genuinely like people it’s not that bad. You’re
    safe clean and comfortable. I could think of so many worst jobs.

  • I worked at a call center for 6 months for Medicaid and I’ve got to say the
    only thing I hated was waking up in the morning and sitting all day my butt
    would get SO sore it’s crazy lol since I’m a night owl. The people were 99%
    nice and calm because they were receiving free benefits. It was rare to get a
    mean person honestly,
    it’s not mentally straining the actual calls just the
    early long hours but it’s good money and no social interaction. It all
    depends on what call center.

  • In third world country with socialism a head call centers are well paid
    compared with the average salaries
    that’s why people decide to work there.
    On those places a call center is high class and everyone is looking for an
    opportunity one time in they don’t know what is coming.

What can we learn from this?

  1. The comments about being jealous of the security guard hits home. You walk
    by the person whose job you wish you had while going to hell. It's normally a
    job you might find boring. The security guards themselves seem to know that
    their job is a far better option than being inside on the phone.

  2. The comment about working in fast food is illuminating. There is a greater
    feeling of a team and togetherness working in fast food than in call centers.
    When you're going through something tough it's nice to be there together as a
    team working through it. Does that feeling not existing within call centers?
    What's missing?

Customer support working from home


What did they say in the comments section?

  • See Customer Service Reps are better off working from home, that way they
    aren't all grouped together like cattle.

  • I like how they switched you from calls to chat. I would love to do chat
    majority of a shift compared to calls.

  • I've been working from home almost a year now, and im feeling it really
    hard to stay sane
    . Just the thought of my next shift gives me anxiety. And I
    work your same shift . the job pays really well the tasks are not hard. But I
    dont know how much longer I can do this.

  • I’ve Been working from home for 4 years now now and it’s lovely ☺️! Pays
    better than physical jobs, no commute to or from work, can use my own
    bathroom instead of a stall
    , so many benefits! Don’t forget to check for
    Windows updates every Tuesday ?.

  • I just started and I been working for a few days. It’s weird repeating the
    same thing for hours but it’s easy but it’s not lol.

What can we learn from this?

  1. It's likely the subject of the video was such a happy good person that the
    comments below were also a little more positive. The previous videos were a
    little more sarcastic and brutal. However,

  2. People prefer live chat to phone calls. I imagine this is a universal
    truth. Phone calls are hard. Live chat gives you more breathing room.

  3. Working from home can still be tough but there are many benefits.

  4. The job is still not easy but the shift is a little more towards the
    positive overall.

What's good about working in a call center?


I have not added any comments from the video but I made a note of the top 10
or so items mentioned
.

Note the pattern.

  • Good salary

  • Bonuses

  • Attendance bonus

  • Living allowance

  • Night differential

  • Health insurance

  • Life or death insurance

  • Vacation or sick leave

  • Salary increase

  • Referral bonus

In countries like India and the Philippines you get graduates competing for
what would be well paying call center roles.

The top 10 advantages are almost all about salary, bonuses and insurance. The
priorities are quite clear :)

I could not imagine working in a call center answering calls for 8 to 10 hours
a day.
I still do the equivalent of an hour of customer support on live chat each day and even that can be stressful.
8+ hours a day on calls sounds like a nightmare. However, I know how much
further that salary goes in countries like India. In fact, it would be seen as
a good job and getting that pay check might well be worth a great deal of
antagonism.

The people running those call centers are creating jobs. That's a great thing.
Anything they can do to make it more human, where people work as a team
together, learn together and see a good future coming their way is also the
right thing to do.

Below we'll see the management perspective.

How managers handle these issues so they can run the call center efficiently


I'll take some of the people related methods from the following
article

and post them below:

  1. "Successories motivational posters were part of a study at a call center,
    and they found office art and motivational posters increase productivity by
    33% compared to barren offices."

  2. "Additionally, call centers can simply increase productivity with small
    investments in recognition & reward items.
    According to Gallop, 69% of
    employees would work harder if they were better recognized. And our studies
    have shown that constant recognition reinforced with small, cost-effective
    gifts can increase productivity by 20%
    . Simply institute daily and weekly
    goals to reward employees with small items such as lapel pins or fidget toys
    for hitting or exceeding those goals. Unfortunately, the general mentality is
    that a paycheck is not a reward, it is expected for simply showing up.
    However, positive reinforcement and reward-based behavior gets the most out of
    employees while they are there.."

  3. Reduce Turnover – Keeping a stable team will help you to reduce training
    costs and time. It will also help you to monitor productivity on a longer-term
    scale. Do your best to: Monitor and generate engagement; check in often. Make
    onboarding & ongoing coaching as stellar as possible. Encourage honest and
    open communication. Strive for ongoing learning, skill building, and
    development. Discover and provide purpose/meaning … set quarterly goals
    outside of day-to-day responsibilities.

  4. Optimize individual efficiency – Ensure there is enough ‘refresh time’ to
    have people running 100% when on the queue. Burnt-out staff produce less.

  5. Have the best technology – Finicky technology that makes day-to-day
    functions difficult, adds to the frustration and takes up far more time and
    man-power than most realize
    . No sacred cows … watch out for any processes
    that are time vampires.

  6. Implement continuous training. Most centers do front-end training and
    that’s pretty much it. They don’t do anything else except maybe monitor a few
    calls and give some feedback.

  7. Motivation is the key to success in any contact center: Every agent is
    different when it comes to motivation. However, it is up to the executives and
    floor team to find out where the happy medium is with everyone
    . Also, it is
    understood that a customer service team and a sales team would need different
    types of motivation techniques. This is the main key to keeping agents happy
    and productive. Happy agents equal better productivity and better quality.

  8. Hire the right agents to fit your company culture and pace of your call
    activity
    . Use agent profiles and pre-screen your candidates with vigor. If
    your agent is coming from a low call volume center, likes the lull between
    calls, and does not have the mind-set of a face paced, efficiently routed
    center they will fail.

  9. Create a shared agent environment where calls are routed by agent skill
    set
    . The use of skills-based routing within your ACD can drastically help to
    positively impact overall ASA and reduce agent handle time. This combination
    is very powerful once you factor in call type and duration routing within your
    skillset.

  10. Reward your Agents with Incentives when they hit your performance
    metrics.

  11. Continuous Improvement Training as your agents progress through your
    established skillsets
    . By establishing a continuous training schedule, you
    can be that each agent will receive the appropriate training to handle
    assigned call types. This allows agents to feel confident in the skills that
    they obtained for the assigned level.

  12. Feedback loops are imperative to success. We tend to focus on scheduled
    agent feedback meetings and use Inter-Agent Chat to allow agents to share
    common issues and get answers.

  13. One word…. HIRING. Hiring the right people, with the right attitude,
    outlook, and demeanor
    will always have the biggest impact on how efficient
    your contact center can be. If you have the right people on the team, you can
    easily implement processes (many of which will come directly from the people
    you hired) and have employees that enjoy their work.

  14. Introduce. Quality call monitoring is one such observation that has not
    solely helped management in understanding clients’ demand; however, it has
    been the key to success towards better customer service and decreasing
    operational value. With call monitoring, managers have the ability to obtain
    insights from the continued call and get reassurance that the expected
    principles are met.
    Further, the insights are often used for analyzing
    continued trends within the market and those related to areas for improvement.

  15. Guided Troubleshooting technologies. The number one challenge most
    contact centers face is the cost of agent training.
    Because of the pressures
    associated with most industries, high turnovers are unavoidable and training
    sessions need to be conducted frequently with new agents. An average
    turnover rate in customer contact centers is 30-45%
    , while in other
    industries it’s approximately 15.1%. In such an environment, training is
    time-consuming and expensive. According to the Deloitte survey, it takes about
    $12k to replace an average call center agent.

  16. Increasing context. When a contact center agent answers a person, he
    usually needs to start collecting information or authenticating the identity
    of the caller. This can happen more than once when a person gets transferred
    between agents.

  17. To stop focusing agents on efficiency, even if that is counterintuitive.
    Have agents focus instead on fully resolving customers’ needs on the first
    contact whenever possible and preventing repeat contacts. One contact center
    stopped sharing average handle time statistics with agents and focused agents
    on first contact resolution metrics instead.

  18. Isolating the most important behaviors at the agent and team level
    reinforcing them consistently thorough training, recognition, calibration, and
    call coaching.

The "Call Centre Helper" list on how to keep staff motivated


I'll do a brief summary of the top 10 or so key points from their
article.

  1. Happy workforce. Keep employees happy by providing what they need in terms
    of training (soft skills as well as technical knowledge) and genuine support
    with positive messages where appropriate and constructive feedback where
    development is needed. This will motivate the team to work better.

  2. Senior manager feedback e.g. congratulating a team member on doing well.

  3. A positive attitude.

  4. Right tools and skills for the job.

  5. Focus on motivating the best staff and not carrying others.

  6. Keep things fresh by changing incentives, awards, motivational games.

  7. Use training to keep people up to date and focused.

  8. Offer a nice clean working environment.

  9. Rewards and praise for doing well.

  10. Show career progression opportunities.

Reading through a number of other articles you'll see a pattern. Everyone
mentions the same sort of things. So, why is staff turnover still averaging
40%?

A blunt analysis of the underlying problem


There's been an incredible amount of work put into efficiently running call
centers but the staff turnover still remains incredibly high.

The average turnover rate for a call center is 30% to 40%.

The turnover rate is incredibly high. The comments on Youtube are almost
universally negative and even though Youtube comments are not normally the
best guide, we're talking about comments from active staff under niche videos
and not the mainstream vids attracting the trolls. Many of the comments were
detailed and specific and told the same story.

Occams razor: The job generally sucks

Given the evidence we can conclude that it just sucks.

It's hard. People are angry and even if someone is nice to you, you'll dread
the next angry customer that is likely to follow.

It's draining. I've answered 1,000s of live chat support requests, let alone
phone support, and as a co-founder working across every part of the business I
can say that support is the only one I don't look forward to. It's the most
draining because it's a distillation of the hardest problems and angriest
customers. I would dread to be on the phone 8 hours a day with upset
customers.

Even happy customers who are positive can be a stress factor because then you
worry they might run into a problem later but this might a co-founder
psychological issue more than anything.

Very few people grow up dreaming to work in a call center.

Yes, there are graduates competing for the salary in countries like India and
the Philippines and yet many of the comments in the Youtube video are from
people working in those call centers.

How do you wish it worked?


While reading through all these youtube comments I thought through the
practical problem and a possible solution.

If I had to build a call center and work in it, how would I get the job done
and yet enjoy at least some of it?

Radical idea 1: Encourage turnover

The underlying problems have not been solved so that would mean either

A. The current solutions are not working.

AND / OR

B. Having a 40% turnover is something they accept as normal.

If current solutions are not working and 40% is something they don't want to
accept then the solutions to the underlying problems would be fairly radical.

Here's a weirdly relevant conversation from the TV programme The Wire.

Carver: You can't even think of calling this shit a war.

Herc: Why not?

Carver: Wars end.

The idea of going to work on a Monday in a job I dread and not seeing an end
in sight for years to come, only briefly interrupted by the occasional reward,
bonus or promotion, just sucks.

So many complaints from the comments are about the routine nature of it, the
difficulty in spending all day doing call after call with potentially very
difficult customers and also being pressured by management to meet metrics.

And yet the job needs to be done.

Here's the radical idea:

  1. Reframe and rebuild the job into a university degree with a graduation
    date.

  2. Halve the time spent on calls, make the other half about learning.

  3. Staff spend that other half of the day learning about e.g. technology
    underpinning a product, entrepreneurship, sales, marketing and consequently
    WHY customer service matters.

  4. Expect staff to graduate and go on and do other jobs. Encourage it.
    Personally I'd make the degree about entrepreneurship and expect them to go
    build things or work for those who are building things. They should graduate
    with a great set of practical customer facing skills those other companies can
    use.

  5. When they graduate, they move on. Commit to a hard stop. They can do the
    equivalent of a masters course or a phd if they wish but the graduation date
    has to be set with an expectation of leaving.

The first argument against this would likely be that the economics don't add
up.

Probably true in the short run but there are both service and brand advantages
to doing this.

What are the economics of a bad customer experience?

It's an age where both good and bad customer experience stories spread like
fire on social media and comparison sites listing 10 competitors and customers
choosing between them based on their expected experience and what the company
represents.

This means there are brand advantages to this. A company that is known for
deeply caring for employees in a way the new generation expects? A company
that invests in staff training as well as their future? Whoever leads on
radical initiatives takes the early prizes.

Radical idea 2: The creator economy changes everything

This is so radical it does not even exist... yet.

If you can be trained to do it, so can a robot. This is a comment made Naval
Ravikant, the founder of Angel List. The future is creative and you can now
see millions of people with their own creative niches, selling items on Etsy,
creating art and music on Patreon, writing on Substack, building views and
earning ad money on Youtube.

What if call centers had those creative people working there building support
experiences, onboarding experiences, problem fixing experiences that they
owned and they got paid for?

You can create your own Loom video to guide someone. You can create a youtube
video to explain a product. Why not an onboarding flow? Why not your own
custom solution to a problem that adds personality and humanity to the support
experience?

The problem is that tools are not out there yet but they're coming.

At Upscope we started with Co-browsing and we're
looking at the creative future that support people, like us, would really
want.

Pardeep Kullar
Pardeep Kullar

Pardeep overlooks growth at Upscope and loves writing about SaaS companies, customer success and customer experience.