In years past, the overwhelming majority of call center employees hailed from large cities. It only made sense; these large employers needed plenty of employees who could quickly and easily make it to their center for work every day. It was almost a necessity for these employees to live in major metropolitan areas to work for these companies.

Times have changed. This is especially apparent since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in late 2019 and early 2020. With the very idea of the workplace changing rapidly, it is clear that life for call center employees and managers will change along with it.

With the COVID-19 outbreak well under way, many call centers are dealing with much higher call volume than normal, as customers and citizens call into businesses and organizations to inquire about how they are handling the outbreak at their physical locations (think retailers, medical facilities, banks, etc.). Questions about safety measures, protective equipment rules, etc. are often the source of the increased volume, while at the same time, call centers are struggling to transition staff to WFH, implementing social distancing in the call center, and a host of other COVID-19  “new normals.”

During this time, you might be wondering how exactly to maintain or even increase the productivity of your call center agents, especially as many employees are now working remotely for the first time. 

As the COVID-19 outbreak continues to unfold, many health insurance organizations are receiving much higher call volume than normal, with patients calling to ask how the organization is handling the COVID-19 outbreak. If you’re a health insurance organization dealing with COVID-19, you are likely receiving thousands or even tens of thousands of calls from patients inquiring about specific benefits and coverage policies as they pertain to telehealth services or home health visits during the outbreak.

As the COVID-19 crisis continues, many call centers have gone remote. This is the perfect time to add more remote contract call center agents to your team. Virtually everyone is at home social distancing and this has caused a spike in call center volume worldwide. Callers are now calling instead of visiting physical locations due to COVID-19 shutdowns and more sales calls are being answered.

If your business or organization is in the midst of a global pandemic like COVID-19, most of your call center employees will likely be working from home as result of government quarantining and other attempts at flatten the rate of infection curve. 

If you’re a health insurance company dealing with a global pandemic like COVID-19, you may be experiencing higher call volume to your call center at this time. There are likely to be thousands or even tens of thousands of people calling to ask about your company’s specific benefits and coverage policies, especially as they pertain to telehealth services or home health visits, during the coronavirus.

Whether you’re taking precautions due to pandemics like COVID-19 or natural disasters such as tornadoes, hurricanes and blizzards, it is crucial to have a thorough disaster recovery plan prepared for your call center.

Your facility could experience outages that last for weeks. During that time, your business could lose thousands of calls, amounting to tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenue. One hour of a power outage can cost businesses between hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in revenue.

Call recording is an ideal solution for contact centers to improve both training approaches and customer satisfaction levels. It can be used to create training materials based on actual calls that have transpired in the center, as well as to train individual agents based on their own unique strengths and weaknesses. It can also help to create goals that can be used to improve overall agent performance and work toward improving the customer experience. These are just some of the reasons call recording is so widely employed in call centers around the world today.

However, there are laws that govern the use of recording technology. Understanding call recording laws and their place in the world of the call center will help you make your facility its best - all while staying well within the law.

Today’s most successful companies focus a lot on brand experience. This is a combination of user experience with brand-specific products and services, as well as the delivery on the brand promise. A brand promise is simply the way a company boasts that users will feel or experiences that they will have while using their products or enjoying their services.

Brand experience isn’t always something grandiose. When you hear the word “experience”, you may think of a custom-tailored approach to service, but sometimes a good experience is as simple as having your interaction with a company go quickly and smoothly. Sometimes, delivering on that kind of promise is more than enough to delight a consumer.

April fifteenth is just around the corner. Is your contact center ready?

This is the question on many minds of call center managers as they work toward readying their staff and their center for the often-dreaded tax deadline. This year, though, that deadline doesn’t have to spell doom - or even stress - for your center. Prepare your call center for tax time with these tips and be ready when Uncle Sam asks for their cut.