Having a Closed Loop

I mentioned this in my last post, but wanted to expand this some more.

As a call center manager, you need to think of potential breakpoints in your process.

Simplified, the process is the following:

Gather information from the Client
Transmit information to all relevant parties within the Call Center
Transmit and gather information from the customer
Transmit customer and performance information to the Client
Evaluate performance
Improve performance

I want to talk specifically about the second step in the process. Assume you are the Account Manager. You need to make sure that the information that you gathered from the client is accurately transmitted and absorbed by:

- the training department
- the operations department
- the quality department
- the telcom department
- the it department

This is a lot of possible breakpoints where information can get dropped or understood incorrectly. We found it to be the most effective if we created multi-function teams that included people from all these departments when we were doing a new project set-up. If you keep each of these departments in a silo, the errors increase and the time to get anything done is extended.

What you want is a closed feedback loop. The client transmit info to you. The information you give to the various departments is the same and verified. That means that the trainer is training on the same things that the quality team is looking for and the supervisor is managing to. If the quality team sees a consistent problem, that information if conveyed to the training team and a heads-up is given to the floor supervisor about the issue. If these steps are taken, in conjuction with your calibration sessions, you will have much more consistent quality and a better service to offer your clients.