Hybrid Contact Centre as the Future Contact Centre Model?

When setting up working environments for the new normal, companies also need to keep in mind what their employees need to thrive – and working from home is not the answer for all of them, especially talking about customer care people.

How can companies identify the right KPIs to leverage tracking of the agent performance?

In my opinion, the first and the most important step in setting KPIs for call centre is the decision, that these should reflect main company targets and strategy. It might sound trivial, yet throughout my career working with different companies I have seen many mismatches in this area. If a company aims to provide fully digital support for its customers, agent KPIs should reflect that. If a company supports long talks over the phone with customers to provide answers to all their concerns – there is no need to set KPIs for call length. If company plans some major product changes that might result in huge temporary increase of customer calls – KPIs should reflect that as well.

Once connection to main company targets and strategy is settled, the rest of the process, in my opinion, is quite easy, as many call centre KPIs and benchmarks are quite standard and might be applicable across different industries.

One more trick – keep KPI dashboard simple. Too many KPIs mess up our heads, we cannot process and concentrate on more than 5 main targets at a time.

How to keep your staff healthy and motivated? What rewards programmes have been on the rise since the start of the pandemic?

Being more attentive to our and our peers‘ health is one of the big shifts I see in these last years and I support it very much. The new normal is to protect others and stay at home in case of any symptoms. This is a very good trend, as call centres and their employees used to be very vulnerable during flu seasons. Helping employees to stay active and healthy by providing all sorts of support in terms of care, including mental health – this I think is what we all have learnt from the pandemic.

Is hybrid contact centre the future contact centre model? What has changed for good in the customer care field?

I am a big fan of small talks over coffee breaks, cosy team buildings and face-to-face problem solving. Therefore, I would not like to perform my work mostly online. Many customer care people are extroverts, which means they need to be with others. Yet hybrid model with some reasonable working time available from home or any other place comes as a good perk and flexibility option. I believe progressive companies will adapt it as a natural future working model.

 

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Ina BIELSKE, Head of Customer Care at Telia is a customer service expert and people manager. Throughout her career she has been working in several international Telco and Insurance companies in the Baltics and has been through times of rapid growth, stable thriving and belt-tightening. She is passionate about making customers happy, leading winning teams and creating value for shareholders and society.