How you work inside and outside of your contact centre

When widespread shelter-in-place orders went into effect, every service organisation acted fast to move employees to at-home environments. And let’s be honest — there were some bumps along the way. It happened to every business.

Now, as you stabilise your business and manage teams both inside and outside of your physical contact centre, the right setup, communications, tools, processes, and safety measures go a long way. Learn about the best ways to drive better collaboration, engage employees anywhere, and prepare your service team for the new ways of working.

The typical contact centre setup involves desktops with multiple monitors. In a working-from-home environment, this isn’t always feasible. There is a risk for blackouts and possibly a lack of space needed for a full workstation.

For the most successful setup, provide laptops with enough memory and processing power along with a high-quality headset so agents can easily perform their job functions. Cloud applications are also a must so everyone can access your systems, regardless of where they are located.

If an agent is deaf or visually- or hearing-impaired, provide proper assistive technologies, such as screen readers or keyboard shortcuts. To help agents make their workstations more comfortable, offer a one-time stipend to purchase an additional monitor, desk chair, or other office item.

Security is of utmost importance as agents handle sensitive company and customer information. Preconfigure these security features:

For your company: Provide a direct, secure connection to your corporate VPN. If you have contractors on your team, request that they receive VPN access from their contracting agency. If that is not an option, issue a company laptop with a direct VPN connection.

For your customers: Create clear protocols and steps to make sure that personal identifiable information is secure. This may include two-factor authentication and a process to delete information when a case is resolved. Issue a reminder that all reports are monitored.

Cloud-based technology and apps help service organisations seamlessly run case management and dispatch. Give agents access to service history, previous sales, and customer preferences from a single console. Within your console, provide preconfigured workflows to help them with troubleshooting.

Use computer-telephony integration (CTI) so agents see customer information immediately and have access to relevant solutions while on calls. Agents log calls automatically, put customers on hold, transfer to another agent, or add people to a conference call. They can toggle between voice and digital channels, such as chat, SMS, and messaging apps as well.

During times of fluctuating contact volumes, automation and AI free service teams from repetitive, time-consuming tasks. AI analyses incoming cases and predicts case detail fields to reduce average handle time and increase accuracy.

Built-in tools like macros automate instructions for tasks such as closing out a case or steps to apply for a loan. Quick text prepopulates messaging prompts and recommended next best actions to help service teams quickly and accurately resolve cases.

• Host internal team meetings with high-quality video conferencing capabilities like Google Meet
• Create shared documents such as Quip to drive collaboration in real time and keep projects on track
• Update your knowledge base  in a centralised location so everyone on your service team is up to date on the latest protocols
• Share knowledge, tips, and high-fives with your team on your enterprise social network

Conducting training virtually is a new struggle for service leaders due to difficulties in communication and engagement. That’s why it’s so important to create a training strategy. For managers, focus on how to effectively manage remote teams. Train agents on collaboration, communication, and wellness and reinforce soft skills. Other employees can use these programs to hone customer service skills. For example, a store associate can take training sessions to assist with service cases if their job is unavailable due to stay-at-home orders.

The new normal means new ways of working. Upskill and cross-skill your team. Train agents to become Salesforce admins so that they can assist with processes and change workflows. If your mobile workers face restrictions entering customers’ homes, offer industry certifications in the interim. Film videos demonstrating simple maintenance tasks, such as how to change a filter. Create content explaining the difference between normal equipment behavior and situations in which a service visit is necessary to cut down on calls during peak seasons.

Maintaining a dispersed contact centre also opens your business up to new talent pools. Source candidates based on in-demand skills, regardless of geographic location. Accelerate onboarding and training with customised digital learning resources.

Team camaraderie is more important than ever. Lead with empathy. Encourage your service team to send appreciation, give virtual shout-outs, and check in with each other. When one person does it, the effort snowballs. Some service leaders are even running contests to boost morale.

Another best practice is to foster growth and mentorship with an agent council. Agents work in pods based on experience or skill set to solve complex problems. By bringing people together, cross-training happens organically. Here’s how to set one up:

1. Evaluate your existing team culture, maturity, and size. Are there enough team members with institutional knowledge or expertise? This approach works for smaller companies and can be applied to enterprises with a dedicated focus for each team.
2. Have a plan to solicit expertise across your enterprise for support. For example, if a retailer hasn’t shipped a product, engage a team member with knowledge about your shipping department.
3. As your team works to resolve a problem, everybody will contribute. Before moving on to the next case, designate a team member to document the resolution in a knowledge base to apply to similar future cases.

Make it a priority to check in, even if it’s just sending a quick “hello” via chat. Give regular shout-outs to team members by email or on your enterprise social network. Designate “virtual office hours” with an open door policy as a safe space for employees to speak with you.

Take this opportunity to develop a wellbeing strategy. Use Salesforce’s five pillars of wellbeing to start: nourish, revive, move, thrive, and prosper. Provide wellness resources, such as guided meditations and healthy recipes, as part of your strategy.

Field service organisations can take extra steps to keep mobile workers safe. Give dispatchers the ability to visualise real-time resources in a Gantt chart or interactive map from a single screen . With this data, they can prioritise essential jobs and extend or cancel nonessential work.

To enable screen reader support, press Ctrl+Alt+Z To learn about keyboard shortcuts, press Ctrl+slashWhen in-person visits are necessary, encourage mobile workers to do as much work as possible ahead of time. Attach a safety checklist and relevant knowledge articles to each work order. Give mobile workers a connected device with online and offline capabilities to download this information ahead of time to reduce the need for repeat visits.