Managing Call Center Control Measures

Management team A are a group of managers at a call center for timeshare vacations that has been given an assignment to review their call center and report to the shareholders the efficiency and effectiveness of the call center. The management team looked at the different control measures to determine which control measure is best for the management of the call center. Employee performance, customer satisfaction, and cost control are three areas the team will cover along with the effectiveness and efficiency of the employees. (Robbins & Coulter, 2012). Each team member will be assigned a specific area of the review to evaluate and after all evaluations are completed the team will come together, combine their findings to form a report to present to the shareholders. Types of Control Measures

An essential part of management is the use of effective control measures. Control measures are tools that enable managers to monitor and measure organizational performance (Robbins & Coulter, 2012). There are three control measures that are utilized when evaluating efficiency and effectiveness of the call center employees. First step a manager takes to determine potential efficiency issues prior to opening is a feed forward control. Feed forward controls are measures that takse place prior to work actually being done (Robbins & Coulter, 2012). The goal with this measure is to anticipate an issue or inefficiency before it even happens. This is not always possible and as such the next control measure is typically put into use.

The second control measure is called concurrent control which is the measures that occur while the work is actually being done (Robbins & Coulter, 2012). This control measure allows for interaction between the manager and employees in real time. Due to the fact that real time management is not always feasible or efficient on the part of the manager the third control measure exists. The third control measure, feedback control measure, is handled after the work activity has occurred (Robbins & Coulter, 2012). Each measure has its place in measuring effectiveness and efficiency in the call center. How efficient

The efficiency in which a group of managers runs a call center is determined by how well their employees perform. A productive way to run efficiently is to ensure good recruitment and selection procedures are placed into the hiring process (Woosey, 2008). A call center job is not for everyone, therefore weeding out incompatible prospects and reducing turnover can help provide experience and knowledge to improve across the board (Woosey, 2008). In addition, understanding a cause of contact will help an employee understand his or her purpose in the call center (Woosey, 2008). In a timeshare environment, an employee must understand their role such as selling additional shares, booking rooms, or even answering the simplest of questions.

Furthermore, “what gets measured gets managed” can be the best way to understand efficiency in a call enter (Woosey, 2008). Keeping track of employee performance, whether real-time or the end of shift, can help encourage a self-management approach (Woosey, 2008). A timeshare call center operates in an environment that requires measured performances in order to determine who is selling what and how well they are interacting with their customers. The goal of our group of managers is to reduce costs but also providing a world-class experience to our customers that own or want to own time shares (Woosey, 2008). How effective

The effectiveness of an employee is important for a group of managers as well as being efficient. As an employee in a call center, a goal is given to be met on a daily basis. The bottom line for managers in a call center is to ensure every employee is achieving the given goal. This is what guides managerial decisions in designing strategies, work activates, and coordinating the work employees (Robbins & Coulter, 2012). An effective system of performance measures allows the employee to do the following; Support the call center and company’s strategic plan and objection Investigate root cause of problems

Optimize use of call center resources
Review performance of each employee
Analyze performance trends
Review the call center as a whole (Reynolds, n.d.).

Measures to evaluate
After Team A managers analyzed and evaluated various control measures, it was decided that the Concurrent Control measure would be best suited for our requirements in a call center environment. Utilizing the Concurrent Control measure will provide the most efficient and effective method to evaluate the call center (Robbins & Coulter, 2012). According to (Robbins & Coulter, 2012) the Concurrent Control measure “takes place while a work activity is in progress” (Robbins & Coulter, 2012). Due to the nature of the duties of a call center, errors need to be corrected immediately. Managers will monitor and evaluate calls periodically and randomly during each shift. The manager will evaluate customer satisfaction and employee customer service abilities. All findings and the actions taken to correct any noted errors will be recorded and corrected by the manager on duty. Conclusion

The team A managers completed their review and are now prepared to present the findings to the shareholders. The team looked at the three control measures and decided the best measure for the call center is the concurrent control in which everything is tracked as the employees are working each day (Robbins & Coulter, 2012). In the call center the employees are either booking, selling, or answering questions. The managers will use the concurrent control to identify and possibly rectify errors found as they watch and monitor the employees as the employees are performing their duties (Robbins & Coulter, 2012). The monitoring can also allow the managers to evaluate the level of customer satisfaction and the performance of the employees whether it is high or low.

References
Reynolds, P. (n.d.). North American Quitline Consortium. Retrieved from http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.naquitline.org/resource/resmgr/conference_call_materials/copy_of_naqc_issue_paper_dra.pdf Robbins, S. P., & Coulter, M. (2012). Management (11th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall Woosey, S. (2008, April). Seven ways to improve efficiency in your contact centre. Callcentre Helper. Retrieved from http://www.callcentrehelper.com/seven-ways-to-improve-efficiency-in-your-contact-centre-1537.htm