Here is a list of ten practices that will definitely improve your quality of call routing. Be sure to see throughthe end of the list, and employing these practices will decisively make a change in the process of your call routing. 

1. Inform Senior Management

One of the most important differences that distinguish successful call centers from others is that the top managers of the call center have explained the benefits they bring to the company well to the senior management. In time, the importance of call centers increased automatically as consumer awareness increased, companies gave importance to customer loyalty, customers became more demanding by becoming more conscious. They were able to make their choice among many different companies. 

2. They Get The Necessary Budget

Successful call centers spend more than twice as much time on pre-training as others. Successful centers conduct employee satisfaction research and spend money on improving the problems that come out of it. Successful centers replace outdated technologies; They purchase and implement many new technologies such as multidimensional online reporting, voice recognition, and chat. They take the training budget necessary for developing their employees and use it to the fullest (and even find additional funding when necessary). Don’t forget that motivation is one of the keys of better call routing.

3. Creates a Positive Climate (Weather)

The classic cycle is this: Happy and satisfied employees create happy and satisfied customers. In other words, it is necessary to consider employee satisfaction and loyalty first. This is not an easy task to do in call centers with a large and young population. It should be done in a planned, continuous, and systematic order. Creating a positive working environment and an open communication platform and applying advanced management methods do not happen overnight.

4. They Set Up Their Customers’ Transportation Strategy Correctly

The most important/first factor affecting customer satisfaction is “accessibility.” Call centers that keep their customers waiting in the queue for a long time do not get out of trouble regarding their call routing. Customers complain because they wait for a long time; customer Representatives who constantly respond to complaints not only get demoralized but also the availability (Service Level) at a specific Agent level decreases as call times start to get longer (due to responding to complaints) as accessibility decreases, as a rule, the occupancy of Agents increases. 

5. Their Customers Are at the Center of Their Business.

We should note that call routing is directed at the customers primarily and exclusively. When designing their business processes, successful call centers proceed by knowing their customers’ expectations and taking them into account. They look at them from the customer’s point of view in every process they come into contact with (the work that the customer sees) and in every process that is done in the background (results that the customer does not see) while performing these services, and they behave in this way.

6. They Focus on Quality and Constantly Improve Their Work and Their Processes.

Successful call centers set up the performance cards/report cards of their people who go up as Agents and Team Leaders correctly and in a balanced way. They focus on numerical values (such as average talk time, number of calls received) that are “absolute” and not always under the Agent’s control to the criterion that the Agent basically controls, namely quality (and the other is shift schedule compliance). Successful companies know that Agents can match all other average data at the expense of poor quality, so they give quality the highest score on the scorecard, i.e., most value/importance. Agents pile up data to enhance the quality of call routing

7. They Seek Optimization and Efficiency

Few places have as many measurement possibilities as call centers (incoming call numbers, durations, response rates, etc.) but are difficult to optimize. ICMI’s definition of call center management is: “The art of achieving predetermined service level and quality targets by accurately predicting the incoming call load, ensuring that the right number of workforce and supporting resources are available at the right place at the right time.” In simpler terms, always, everywhere, using the correct number of workforce is essential to optimize the call routing.

8. They Handle Changing Demands Well (Read the Company’s Trajectory Well)

Everything is changing at a dizzying pace, especially technology, competition, and ways of doing business. And one should comply with the technology to match the quality of their call routing to modern requirements. The priorities and expectations of our customers and other units within the company vary. E.g., It’s not too far away; while call centers were seen as a sales channel by very few companies 5-6 years ago, now almost every company has turned call centers into revenue-generating functions at the same time. Customer retention has always been necessary, but in sectors such as finance and communications, which lead the call center industry, competition is increasing, and new customer acquisitions are decreasing. In this case, it becomes even more critical to retain the existing customer. 

9. They are Open to Innovations, and They Experiment

If you’ve grown to over 100 people and don’t have workforce planning technology at your inbound center, it’s time to look at workforce management software. Suppose your workload (the number of calls x call duration = load) is constantly increasing, and you are not looking for specific automation (voice recognition, IVR, etc.) without reducing customer satisfaction. In that case, you miss out on essential event opportunities. 

10. They are Good in Every Way and Balanced in Terms of Call Routing.

 In other places, they convert a very high percentage of incoming calls into sales. Still, they are a bit of a “guerrilla sales approach,” and their customers are not very happy with it. Some places have taken the latest technology and have driven most of their customers to the IVR, forcing them to do the work there, thus reducing the cost. Still, their customers are furious to connect to a Live Agent. Some places are unaware of the “quality management techniques” that can be applied in many areas in call centers, which link productivity gains only with effective shift planning and suitable follow-up of their employees.