Call avoidance

What is call avoidance?

Call avoidance is a consumer market technique for avoiding or reducing incoming call volumes. It happens when a call center agent removes the phone’s receiver so that no customer can make a call. 

Agents tend to take excessive breaks, transfer calls to other agents, or stay on the phone with one client for too long to avoid answering questions from other clients.

All of these are indications of call avoidance. It is also a call center weapon that helps in improving call center efficiency, lower expenses, and advanced quality. This avoidance is one of the most serious challenges to BPO organizations.

Call avoidance strategy for call centers

Firms have implemented very strict call-handling rules. This is to guarantee that consumers receive the best possible service and that consistency is maintained across the board.

For example, waiting for durations and call return rates, as well as other KPI, and some of them established strict frontline agent performance objectives.

The requirement for a call center call avoidance strategy is irrefutable and widely acknowledged. Most would disagree that appropriate objectives, rules, and regulations to help maintain a certain amount of consistency in customer experience are necessary. 

A well-thought-out call avoidance policy can also be beneficial to call agents. It specifies what is expected from them and the kind of criteria they must meet.

However, it is also true that call avoidance rules may be too strict, even to the point of being counter-productive.

Human errors and irrationality will always be a part of daily life, and your call-avoidance strategy must account for this. Further, it must recognize the difficulties that your call center agents face daily.

How to implement a call avoidance strategy

How you apply your call avoidance plan, on the other hand, will make a significant impact. It will go a long way toward evaluating whether your plan is serving the intended goals.

This specifically refers to reducing call avoidance and ensuring that customers’ concerns are treated swiftly, effectively, and considerately.

Your call avoidance plan must be clear and comprehensive, but it must also allow for some flexibility.

It must understand the significance of maintaining call center agents’ morale and avoid placing them under undue stress. Agents who have center managers breathing down their necks the entire time, practically waiting for them to make a mistake, will not perform to the best of their abilities.

As a result, customer service standards will suffer, undercutting the very purpose for establishing the call avoidance strategy in the first place. 

Talk and start a conversation with the agents and honestly ask about their experiences and their ideas about what a call avoidance strategy should look like. They will be able to utilize their experience to assist you in developing a plan that satisfies the demands of both employees and consumers.

What are the approaches to reduce call avoidance?

Workplace absenteeism is a significant concern in the call center environment. So, here are some ways that call centers may use to reduce agent avoidance behavior and absenteeism and develop a strong and engaged workforce.

Ask agents what would encourage attendance.

People are fascinated with instant satisfaction in today’s digitally linked society. Consumers want results or information as soon as possible. However, one of the most neglected methods of discovering what motivates inspires, and engages employees is asking.

Managers would never truly understand what could make a difference to an individual employee unless they take the time to ask questions. You can ask your employees what will motivate them while performing so you will know what to do.

Address the problem

Regularly check with your agents to find out what’s going on behind the scenes. By knowing this, you’ll know how to better train them to resolve the issue.

Your agents are distinctive, and your guidelines in the company can’t cover every possible scenario at work. So, be adaptable in your environment and take an effort to ensure that they understand why those rules are crucial in providing better service in call centers.

In addition, addressing the problem of why your agents are avoiding calls can help increase customer satisfaction, and your business can provide a great customer experience.

Motivate agents with positive feedback.

While not every call center agent is driven by a competitive attitude, performance evaluation is still an important element of building agent work satisfaction. 

Managers can ask what is their motive for success if an agent is not engaged with and informed about his or her performance.

Agents receive immediate feedback through automated call center agent performance management software, allowing them to take action to improve their effectiveness and the satisfaction of the customer.

Once your call avoidance plan is implemented, be sure to consult with team members regularly. This will provide you with real-time information on how efficient it is and the changes your agents have made.