How to Plan an Effective Operational Performance Strategy for a Call Center

Call center agents answer the incoming calls of the customers or place outgoing calls remotely without meeting the customers face-to-face. In doing so, it may be obvious for them to lose sight of the bigger picture which may turn out to be a hindrance in working towards the company’s goals. In such a work setting an effective performance management system removes any guesswork and introduces clear and shared goals promoting success with the timely achievement of objectives.

A properly planned operational performance strategy and its efficient execution endow credibility to the management processes by creating consistency in the operational procedures of an organization. This goes a long way in building trust, loyalty, justice, equality, and ownership among all the stakeholders upholding the rights of the team members and employees. It also creates an organization jubilant with enthusiasm with a dynamic, cooperative, and a conducive work culture. Here are few steps to follow to create an effective operational strategy for optimal performance.

Review Past Performance

It is imperative to gauge where improvements are necessary to create a plan for improvement. This can be arrived at by reviewing the past performance of the agents, supervisors, and managers. The productivity records should be scanned to benchmark areas of improvement and the aspects to focus on with renewed effort.

Set realistic goals

After the areas of improvement are bench marked, set the goals with new targets which are realistic yet challenging. Care should be taken with proper assessment of performance keeping in mind the goals set are not too challenging and neither too easy as easy goals create a false sense of achievement, and too difficult goals lead to frustration.

Translate goals into operational metrics

In order to achieve the set goals and objectives, the operational metrics have to be decided upon, the attainment of which will help in achieving the objectives. Find out what has to be measured and what are the best ways of measurement of those metrics. The Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) has also to be set accordingly with the secondary indicators as well. According to the key performance indicators and the performance metrics, the expectations from each team member has also to be arrived at with respective slabs of expectation levels. The KPIs and the metrics have to reflect the needs of all the stakeholders and the team members, and this has to be documented. This is an important document as later this would be important in assessing the performance of the employees.

Innovate ways to attain objectives

The next step is to brainstorm different means of reaching the projected goals. Hold meetings with the team managers, leaders and the employees to enlist the ways to formulate a strategy to reach the objectives in the shortest possible time. Stress on all the areas like productivity, quality, customer satisfaction scores, and business performance to come up with a comprehensive plan in all the operational areas which would help in attaining the objectives and the set goals. Gather information and ask for suggestions from employees to come with ways for improvement as they may have a better insight into the process and probable plans for improvement.

Document the operational plan

Collate all the information and layout a documented strategy for the operations which would lay the foundation for the functioning of the call center.  List all the steps for all the operational processes explaining each of the steps clearly in the document with the exceptions as well along with the persons responsible to take these steps.  When the documented plan for operational excellence is ready, present it to the respective departments and teams for execution.