It is vital to analyse and evaluate the call centre operation statistics at all times. However, it is not enough to analyse the data in isolation. Real-time monitoring is equally important as it offers valuable insights into the working of the centre. Contact centre monitoring is essential as there might be situations where interventions by the supervisor are needed. In such scenarios, data analysis may not be able to tell you exactly what is going on. That’s where the real-time monitoring pays off.
What is Real-Time Monitoring?
In the context of contact centres, real-time monitoring refers to those features and tools that allow the supervisors to track and oversee conversations taking place between agents and customers. Real-time monitoring offers a clear insight into the contact centre’s daily operations, such as the agent status figures, inbound and outbound activities, and so on. Real-time monitoring offers several benefits such as helping to boost the overall performance, better customer satisfaction, and higher employee workflow effectiveness.
Let us look at the ways contact centre monitoring helps a business:
Improves Quality of Work
Constant monitoring helps you identify areas of knowledge or skills that need further improvement. Some systems allow you to talk to the agent without the customer knowing you are in conversation with the agent. It is a great way to provide continuous feedback to your agents in a live environment and to offer expert advice without being obtrusive.
Change can be easily adapted
Real-time monitoring is handy if you have to handle sudden changes in a project. It can immediately let the agents know about new problems/tasks they need to pay attention to such as updates to certain scripts or including special information for a specific customer. It can elevate the agent’s performance as you will know who the right person for the right task is. It means, the workflow becomes customer-oriented, and agents become productive.
Gain Useful Insights for Your Business
Supplementing the post-call evaluation procedures with real-time monitoring offers a great insight into your business. It will help you to come up with better business strategies. Constant monitoring means you can observe which agents perform the best, and where someone lacks. Some of the agents will benefit from one-to-one coaching and you can use the information gathered from monitoring them to help them improve their performance. You are better informed about where things work and where they don’t and take decisions accordingly.
Better Customer Experience
Constant monitoring of the contact centre benefits the customer immensely. As the supervisors know where the agent is falling short, they can pitch in and help. In some cases, the agents could be given specific training to handle specific situations. Listening to customers and solving their problems at the earliest means the customers are happy. Better customer experience and improved satisfaction rates go a long way in determining your success in the long run.
Make Your Life Easier
Contact centre monitoring makes the lives of supervisors easy as well. By listening and monitoring the calls, they know exactly what is happening. Furthermore, they can pitch in if needed, thereby preventing a problem from escalating. As you know exactly what’s happening in the centre, you are better prepared to deal with any scenarios. You know which resource is available at what time and how to help an agent if he is struggling. A top-down view of everything helps you manage things better.
Easy staff planning
Contact centre tells you which agent is needed at a specific place. A highly motivated employee is less likely to quit, and that goes a long way in reducing attrition rates. Real-time data monitoring sets a baseline for you to plan staff. Furthermore, consistent scheduling makes it easier on agents and they are motivated to do even better.
Improves Productivity
Fostering a positive culture for employees is an important process in management. However, that doesn’t mean you should ignore the KPIs and SLAs. You can use real-time data to track them and to keep your team focussed and ready to achieve the targets. As the overall efficiency increases, so does productivity. Even simple things such as monitoring hold times, call duration and resolution can lead to better productivity.
To conclude, it is important to have a contact centre monitoring system in place. There are several benefits of real-time monitoring and you can reap great rewards if you use the data from monitoring in the right way.
