Quick Tips: Staying in touch with Home Agents

-contributed by the staff at CentersoftPro.com

Here are four simple ways to help you keep in touch with your home agent workforce and make sure that they receive the same level of support as if they were sitting in the cube down the hall.

1.    Conduct daily, or at least weekly, short conference calls.  Be sure to have regular virtual team meetings. Use these opportunities to make announcements, encourage, train, answer questions, and receive feedback.

2.    Use chat to connect them to experts or help line.  Although there is the potential for abuse as agents may chat with friends, chat is the fastest way to get a quick answer and can increase customer satisfaction by reducing transfers and the need to provide callbacks.  

3.    Create an internal chat room where info can be quickly distributed or questions answered by a moderator.  This is similar to using chat but everyone (or everyone in the same queue) can log into a common chat room.  The benefit is that all questions and answers are seen by others who may have a similar concern.  The key to success is creating an environment where no agent feels shy or embarrassed about asking a question.

4.    Provide an intranet site with knowledge databases and bulletin board information.  By having agents view the intranet often they can keep abreast of the latest information, and with a good online knowledge database reps can find answers to callers’ questions quickly and easily.