6 Ways Call Center Team Leaders Can Manage Effectively

The role of call center team leaders is intrinsic to the success of a call center  – they are the backbone and act as the driving force for the entire team. They inculcate and transform the work ethics and culture, reform and influence the employee morale as expert service providers, managers, mentors, trainers and high-impact role models which essentially help them to enhance the productivity and company turnover.

In order to meet the unique demands placed on team leaders, they are often faced with three key leadership challenges, viz.

1. Act as a motivating force
2. Manage a diverse workforce
3. Drive consistent productivity

However, due to the extensive prior experience as front-line agents themselves, these team leaders  understand the challenges and hardships of these agents and guide them throughout. But due to the high competition in the market, it becomes paramount for the team leaders to adopt certain best practices and develop essential traits to achieve their goals effectively. Few of these best practices are discussed below.

Team Management

Team leaders play a very significant role in agent management. They are highly seeked when it comes to coaching regarding technical assistance. They not only manage to build up the team rapport but also maximize the productivity. Besides, they play a crucial role as a mentor which means supporting, instructing and collaborating and fostering the work environment at large. Team leaders should treat every employee/ agent with respect and address to their key concerns individually, backed by a plan of actions developed for each of them. When employees/ agents feel valued, they feel motivated and perform their best.

A Positive Outlook

Team leaders set examples and acts as a role-model for their team. Therefore, every team leader should initiate and take ownership of new changes and developments to enhance efficiency in order to reap maximum benefits.

Effective Communication

Team leaders should always act as the face of the contact center and encourage open & effective communication with all stakeholders so as to foster effective collaboration and excellence in the working environment.

People Empowerment

Team leaders should involve their respective team members in practices leading to decision making in order to uplift the active team participation, which would essentially flourish a dynamic and competitive working environment helping them to come up with new ideas and practices.

Constructive Feedback Mechanism

Effective team leaders should make it a practice of providing a constructive feedback to every employee/ agent. They should always make a note of meeting every employee/ agent individually to go through a performance check and review and discuss on the key concerns that needs further improvement mutually. This would help the agents to analyze what are expected from them and what improvements / help in terms of training which they need to undergo.

Rewards & Recognition

This is one of the major key roles every team leader should perform on a regular basis. Team leaders should keep a track on every agent’s performance and should always recognize their achievements through various practices at various levels. For instance, if the agent’s contribution is substantial then the team leader should reward him/her with a gift voucher or a day off. Also, for every small contribution of each agent, team member should at least send a note of appreciation addressing to him/ her via email.

Team Leaders are like sergeants of an army – they should analyze and implement ideas which not only increase the overall productivity in terms of delivering high end customer service and meeting revenue targets, but also reduces the attrition rates to a greater extent.