You might be facing some problems in your contact center, but you are not alone. Many contact centers suffer from the same issues because of industry characteristics and the type of work we manage.

The good thing is that you can find ideas on how to solve them because these are common problems call center managers have. As we always recommend, evaluate your contact center, identify the issues, find different ways to solve them, and put those ideas into action.

Here are six common call center problems and some helpful information on how to successfully fix them. Keep reading and identify if your operation has them.

Background Noise

Background Noise can be annoying for the customers and the agents. It affects communication between them, the message cannot be sent clearly, and it can sound unprofessional. Having to repeat a sentence several times, misunderstandings, and headaches are just some of the problems background noise can bring.

You can do several things to reduce this noise, from teaching the correct use of a headset to creating designated areas for meetings and conversations. Read our article 14 Suggestions To Reduce Noise In The Call Center to learn more about solving this problem.

Lack of Product Knowledge

When contact center agents don’t know the product very well, they cannot answer customer questions, resulting in poor customer service experience and agent frustration. Several problems can come from a lack of product knowledge, such as low FCR, low customer satisfaction, cost increase, and lost time for agents and customers.

That is why it’s essential to give appropriate product training to the agents and offer them tools to help them in calls. Here are 5 Effective Ways To Improve Your Agents’ Product Or Service Knowledge.

Keeping Agents Motivated

Many times, Contact Center jobs can be stressful. It is on us to give agents the tools and environment they need to feel better at work. Keeping agents motivated is probably one of the most critical challenges contact center leaders face because it impacts many areas of the company, from customer satisfaction to turnover and cost. Our agents are our most important asset; make sure you make them happy. Get some ideas from our article, Simple Ways You Can Make Your Call Center Agents Happy.

Agent Absenteeism

Absenteeism is a problem in many companies, but even more in contact centers. Absenteeism affects productivity, even more for contact centers with high volumes of calls. You are counting on the agents to be there and handle customer calls.

If you don’t have a clear policy in place, if you don’t incentivize attendance and don’t create a commitment, absenteeism will remain a problem. Learn some Useful Tips To Manage And Avoid Absenteeism In The Contact Center.

Slow Responses to Customer Queries

When agents have poor product knowledge, when there are high absenteeism rates and aren’t motivated, customers get slow or non-responses to their queries, which can be the difference between good or bad customer experience.

To reduce response time, there are several things you need to do. As we mentioned before, it can arise from other contact center problems you need to solve. But in this case, an important thing to improve is your First Contact Resolution rate. A high FCR rate means that the customers are getting the answers they need in their first contact with your company, no transfers, no “please call later.” If they answer their queries on the first call or contact, it is a faster response. Look for ways to improve your FCR rates.

Here’s an explanation of How To Improve First Contact Resolution & Reduce Contact Center Cost.

Cost-Cutting

Many managers have faced the question, how can we reduce our call center cost? What more can we do to reduce cost? The truth is that reducing costs in the contact center can be a challenge because you need to maintain the same level of service and, in many cases, even improve it. Solutions like cheaper equipment, having fewer agents, or reduce incentives can ruin your employee and customer experience.

Solutions like reducing turnover and/or FCR rate might not bring the cost reduction as quickly and considerably as needed.

Here is when looking for an outsourced contact center can be a solution. Still, you need to be careful and make an intelligent decision because if you need to keep quality, maybe an offshore solution might not be a good option for you. But there are nearshore options that allow you to keep more control of your operation, have talented bilingual agents and state-of-the-art infrastructure while reducing cost by approximately 50%. Just like us! Learn more about The Benefits of Nearshore.

We listed some problems and gave you ways to solve them. Now it’s your turn to put them in action!