Essay Management and Concurrent Control

Submitted By shecker1794
Words: 928
Pages: 4

Call Center Control Measures
Scott Pellow, Samantha Hecker, Natasha Beckett
MGT/521
June 29, 2015
Les Colegrove
Call Center Control Measures

Call centers touch our lives on nearly a daily basis. We call for support of our Internet, computers, and our plethora of other devices/services. We all have been on hold for tremendous amounts of time waiting for our turn. Call centers track a variety of measurements to work to prevent these type of issues from happening. It is important for the leaders in the call center to be able to control and measure the employee performance as well as the organizational performance to better serve the customer. Organizational controls are required to understand how the call center operates as a whole unit. For example, when the low and peak hours seasons will be to staff accordingly. Employee measures are required to develop the staff and maintain a healthy balance within the ranks while driving quality higher on a consistent basis. Feedback is important for both the employee and organization; choosing how to control and measure is equally important. To see how efficient and effective an employee is, managers should measure the agent's performance against company standards. Feedback control takes place after an activity has been completed. It gathers information on how employees are performing. “Call centers have their set of Key Performance Indicators (KPI) that managers can use to determine the success of their operations” (Reh, n.d.). Some Key Performance Indicators are abandon rate, call handle time, first call resolution, transfer rate, hold time, and revenue. First Call Resolution is a measurement of the agent's performance that gives information on the amount of calls resolved during the original call without the caller having to call back a second time. This measurement is similar to an employee's transfer rate, which is how many calls required transfer to another department instead of being resolved with the original agent. Call handle time measures how quickly an agent can resolve the issue on the initial call. A company will also use Quality Monitoring programs to measure an individual's performance. These programs will observe an employee's phone etiquette, knowledge and professionalism as well as measure the metrics stated above. Also, customer satisfaction surveys are a great tool to provide feedback to the agents. It provides the agent on what he or she excelled and what areas need improvement from a customer's point of view. Feedback control not only provides managers with information regarding the efficiency of their agents, but it can also help motivate the agents. Managers must acknowledge his or her role in the organizational productivity objectives. Managers require high performance and progressive results from the staff. Working within an organization that expects employees to handle calls daily to ensure goals are met, entails the ability to obtain growth in their business. As a higher level manager in a call center environment, which requires the drive, self-determination, and patience. Many employees lack the ability to lead, which allows the manager the opportunity to lead by example. The concurrent control or walk around management method ensures the employees are meeting goals and performing as measured. Concurrent control gives the manager the chance to guide and assist while in the process of managing a call. If any employee were in a difficult situation with a customer, the manager would use the concurrent measure of intercepting the call. Most consumers prefer to speak to higher management when making decisions. It allows the consumer a source of control as well. According to Barnat (n.d.) "Concurrent control sometimes is called screening or yes-no control, because it often involves checkpoints at which determinations are made