Top 4 Ways to Reduce After-Call Work in an Inbound Call Center

After each call, agents are bombarded with after-call work and countless tasks. In traditional call centers, this is often one of the most overlooked agent duties. Many don’t realize that much more goes into completing a conversation with a caller before getting ready for the next.

Wrap-up time, after-call work, and post-call processing are a few of the names used in call centers to identify the work that is needed to help agents finish up any tasks related to a call. This time is vital for agents and gives them the necessary time to document any notes, process any follow-up emails, or potentially make another department aware of an urgent situation. The whole idea of streamlining after-call work is to improve customer satisfaction.

To make your call center and agents a smooth operation that is fast, flat, and flexible, you’ll need to invest in processes, training, and call center software that increases customer and agent happiness.

Fortunately for you, we’ve boiled down the list to our top four ways to help your agents reduce after-call work.

1. Proper Training and Onboarding

Most agents have never used (or even heard of) the software or technology that they will be using to accomplish their job. Agents will need to be taught, trained, and then retaught and retrained not only on the call center software but also, phone systems, policies, and escalation techniques to name a few. Detailing a proper onboarding process for after-call work can quickly help your agents manage their time while making your customers happy. 

The training and learning should not stop there in an ideal scenario and managers share the load in continuous coaching and learning classes. One option would be to bring in outside trainers or guest speakers to help build comradery amongst the team. In addition, these courses should be ongoing, documented, and used for future onboarding and training purposes and documented in a centralized knowledge base.

2. Integrate Your Call Center Software

Along with the tip mentioned above, properly integrating your call center software into your entire organization is one of the best things a contact center can do to improve efficiency, for both the agent and organization. 

Integration points into CRM’s like Salesforce or Zendesk will dramatically cut down on the number of places an agent will need to update during post-call work. Updating account information or finalizing an email can easily be cut down into one step. Key integration benefits can include:

• Integration benefits
• Increased visibility to access CRM data in real-time
• Easy, cordless setup with no hardware required
• All features are streamlined and are automated into the interface for easy access
• Improved ROI

3. Automate Repetitive Tasks

Automating can save and shave precious time off mundane and repetitive tasks. This can add up to hours of saved time over a day and be viewed by many as a competitive advantage. You can start to see the real savings that automation can provide when multiplying that by the number of agents in a typical call center. Modern call center software solutions can automate with ease. 

For example, you can automate:

• Account and number matching if it’s from a known customer or phone.
• Voicemail forwarding to the right department or agent.
• Creating a task or scheduled call back for follow-up at a later date. 
• Call logging, recording, and disposition codes to the CRM.

Automation done right can take the repetitive and time-consuming tasks out of an equation for an already overworked agent, making them more readily available to help customers.

4. Utilize Office Communications 

When answers are not quickly available through an internal knowledge base, agents will need to lean on either a manager or coworker for help. Time spent hunting for the right person can lead to wasted time during after-call work. And not to mention lots of walking back and forth across the office. Using an internal chat application, like Room 303, can bring agents, managers, and the technical team together in chat rooms. The free flow of information and transparency will empower the entire organization with the ability to solve problems quickly. 

Reducing the amount of after-call work, time spent taking notes, or sending emails should be a top priority for call center managers. Following these simple steps could be the start of how our call center becomes more efficient and productive. In the end, we are all striving to streamline our business processes while making our customers happy. 

Your agents are your most prominent advocate; help them by requesting a demo of TCN’s call center software and start transforming your contact center today!