3 Reasons to Consider Working in a Call Center for Your Next Position
Do you have any interest in working at a call center? It’s most likely not what you think. In recent years, call centers have seen significant transformations. Here are three convincing reasons to consider working at a call center.
Call Center Professionals are in High Demand
During the 1990s, the call center industry in the United States outsourced many of its jobs to other countries. Beginning in the mid-2000s, however, the trend of offshore began to reverse. Thousands of call center jobs have been onshored back to the United States since then.
This new trend of onshoring shows no signs of slowing down. Customer service call-center employment is expected to expand by 39 percent between 2014 and 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
While new centers continue to develop and expand—often in job-short places like Tennessee and Maine—demand for entry-level and management-level workers is increasing.
While it’s true that few people would describe call center work as their “dream job,” most of the reasons behind that stereotype are antiquated. The truth is that modern call center jobs have a lot to offer the proper applicants.
Reason 1: Earnings Potential in the Future Is Greater Than In Other, Similar Roles
“How much would this job pay?” is one of the first questions most job seekers ask. Using Glassdoor.com, we discovered that entry-level call center jobs pay between $12 and $14 per hour across the country.
Retail sales is a related field that job seekers may pursue, although another Glassdoor.com search showed retail sales starting opportunities in the $8 to $14 range. Right away, you may make more money at a call center than you would in retail sales (albeit not by much).
For over two decades, Mo Bellio, President of Call Center Training Solutions, has advised call centers and their employees. He argues that call centers are ranked on a “totem pole” based on their principal function.
“Agents at outbound telemarketing centers would be at the very bottom,” he argues. “These are the people who are phoning potential clients, not current ones. Because it’s recognised as the most difficult profession, that’s where you’ll generally get the most pay. “
To put it another way, employees at the bottom of the totem pole face more difficult customer service contacts, but they are compensated with a higher starting salary.
Customer interactions become generally smoother as you rise up the totem pole, but these professions also tend to have experience requirements.
Reason 2: You’ll Gain Valuable Experience and Skills
Every day, call center agents may have over a hundred conversations. They’ll have a checklist of particular activities to complete for each, such as starting with the appropriate greeting, asking the necessary questions, and recording pertinent data from the conversation.
Each call provides agents with the opportunity to either increase their efficiency or learn from their mistakes. In most other occupations, call center agents get more such possibilities each hour than they do in a week.
Many people are drawn to call center jobs because they need a set of talents that come easily to them, such as being a “people person,” solving issues, and communicating effectively.
Many contact centers search for people who can “connect with the consumer and put in tiny comments that say, ‘Hey, I care about you as a person as much as I [care about] assisting you because that’s my job,” according to Bellio.
After all, work entails more than just being able to communicate well with others. Customers can now do things such as checking balances and changing passwords without the assistance of customer service representatives.
The International Customer Management Institute (ICMI.comJustin)’s Robbins, who offers training and professional certification courses for agents, supervisors, and executives, explains why this is important.
Because customers can do so much with self-service options, when they call call centers, it’s usually for more sophisticated issues, adds Robbins. “We need agents who can do more than just receive orders; we need problem-solvers who can think beyond the box.”
Supervisors at call centers have the opportunity to enhance their problem-solving skills as well. They learn how to negotiate and compromise, which is a crucial management skill. To learn more, we chatted with Dan Goodwin, director of customer interactive solutions at Dimension Data, an IT solutions and services firm that oversees over 500 global call centers.
“Supervisors frequently find themselves in a bind,” Goodwin says. “They have an operational target of keeping client interactions under four minutes, for example. They do, however, have a firm goal of ensuring that every client is satisfied to the best of their abilities.
“Those two things occasionally collide, such as when it takes more than four minutes to satisfy a specific client. So that’s part of their job, too: figuring out when it’s appropriate to spend more time and meet a caller’s requirements, and when it’s better to handle it quickly. “
Reason 3: Reliable Career Advancement
We’re not going to hide the reality that call centers have a high turnover rate. They’re fast-paced environments, and new agents who rapidly discover they’re not made out for the job frequently leave. People that thrive in this type of setting, on the other hand, can really excel in their jobs.
Andrea Ayers is an excellent illustration of the call center industry’s career possibilities. “Call center jobs aren’t a bunch of entry-level jobs that don’t require any talent and don’t lead anywhere,” she explains. This is a widespread misunderstanding. I began my career as a call center trainer 24 years ago. ” She is currently the CEO of Convergys, the world’s largest call center management company.
Staying focused and motivated is one of the most important aspects of becoming a competent contact center agent. Bellio recommends new agents get used to the mundane aspects of the work and focus their efforts on providing the best possible service to each customer.
Agents can serve each caller individually if they maintain a clear focus, and the sense of accomplishment they get at the end of the day after they’ve helped every caller keeps them motivated.
Agents who can stay focused and motivated are usually promoted: first to the position of “lead agent,” then to supervisor (and, potentially, beyond). Lead agents typically have at least one year of experience and are responsible for assisting their team of a dozen or more agents with any questions they may have.
Lead agents, according to Bellio, are also responsible for ensuring that new agents remain focused and motivated, as those who do so will be promoted first.
According to all of the professionals we spoke with, call centers prefer to promote from the inside. ICMI’s Justin Robbins is an excellent example. He started out as a cold-calling agent selling newspaper subscriptions, then advanced to lead agent, then supervisor.
Robbins viewed his professional advancement as “quite natural.” “The bulk of the supervisors I speak with started on the front lines [as agents],” he adds.
In the last 20 years, the call center sector has changed dramatically. An early offshore trend has mostly reversed, with a considerable number of centers returning to the United States. Call centers are handling more complicated services as clients have more self-service options. There are numerous reasons to consider working in a call center, given all of these developments and the career prospects that come with them.
