“Call centre jobs” are popular among job seekers fresh out of college, or even school. We often picture the image of a person with a headphone sitting at a desk cold-calling the whole day. However, call centre jobs are certainly much more than that. Here are a few things to clear the air about the call centre jobs and how can one start a career with them.
Is there an importance for the role?
Call centres do form an essential component of customer service, sales and even research. This shall be applicable to offices that would deal with the above said components, where the prime focus would be on telephonic conversations. It’s easy to think that call centres have been pushed aside by customers in favour of their omnichannel counterparts, but that’s not the exact case. While omnichannel services are gaining popularity, 90% of people still choose to speak to live customer service agents. Simply put, a customer might prefer to pick up the phone and get immediate support than wait around for an email or live chat response. That’s the reason why many companies still have a customer-facing team providing exceptional service through call centre.
As we all know, BPO is the common term associated to the call centre jobs. It stands for Business Process Outsourcing. With respect to the above context, this refers to the call centres which are third party service providers hired by a company, either in the hometown or overseas.
What tasks and duties are assigned to an executive?
People working in call centres are commonly called as customer care or customer support executives. They make or receive phone calls, for many a reason. It includes helping a customer with technical or financial problems and general enquiries, depending upon the nature of the business. It could also be an outbound call to check for the customer response on after sale services or complaint resolutions. You may also need to interact with customers via email, live chat, social media, or it could even be in-person. Being able to adapt to the channel you’re working on is important in providing an omni-channel experience.
Scope of call centre jobs
• Professional skills that are gained from a customer support job, like negotiation, organization and multi-tasking are very much transferrable in nature. These skills will give the agents an edge throughout their career, even if in case they choose to pursue career in other vectors like sales, marketing or management.
• Nature of a call centre job is comparatively more flexible rather than the standard 9 to 5 jobs. Therefore, they are a very good entry point for fresh job seekers, freelancers and people who would like to give a new start to their career.
• They have great opportunities for growth. There are many examples of agents moving up to become team leaders, then supervisors and managers. Perhaps the well-known success story is of Andrea Ayers, who started off as a customer service representative and went on to become the CEO of Convergys, which was the world’s largest call centre management company.
Are there good opportunities for Call Centre professionals?
Phone support is always a key function of many customer service teams as customers still love the personalized touch of interacting with a human. As a call centre rep, you get the joy of supporting people with timely solutions and delightful experiences.
• Call centre jobs are very much relevant as all business will need a solid customer support system to keep the customer relationship intact. The need for 24 hour customer care by certain industries mean that some companies hire agents for both day and night shifts.
• Despite the automated or interactive voice response systems coming up, call centre or customer care executives are in a lot of demand. An automated support cannot completely replace the experience of interacting with a live agent on the other end and the businesses want to make sure that the customers are treated with respect (which a machine cannot provide).
• In India, the BPO sector is always a magnet for the customer care employees. In countries like US outsourcing their operations and setting up bases in off-shore locations, call centre agents are always required to meet the demand.
What are the skills needed to be successful in a Call Centre?
Prepping with the necessary skills and considering your role as an essential part of the customer experience will ensure you enjoy your role to its fullest.
• Language Fluency: This is important for standing out during an interview, speaking to your client and understanding them over the phone.
• Effective communication: Listening, speaking, comprehending and providing feedback are the pillars of good communication. This is an essential skill for call centre agent who support a customer over the phone.
• Computer literacy: There is a need for strong knowledge of basic computer applications and an aptitude for picking up different applications is a must for working in a call centre environment.
• Organisation: A call centre job needs an agent to multitask, transfer or resolve cases as fast as possible, follow up on multiple calls over a number of days and use the available tools effectively.
• Time management: Since the tickets generated needs to be actioned/resolved within the TAT (turn-around-time) agent needs to keep an eye on the clock and respect both the company’s and the customer’s time.
• Goal-oriented: An agent/executive needs to focus on resolving as many issues as efficiently as possible, work towards benefitting the company and achieve milestones with a professional behaviour.
• Soft skills: Patience, punctuality, creativity and quick-thinking will be of great help in creating a rapport with the customer/client.
Call centre executives or customer service agents are an integral part of customer support and sales teams across industries. Hopefully, the above will help you find the call centre or customer service job you deserve.
Good luck!