What Does a Call Center Representative Do? A Typical Day
Nearly 460,000 people work in call centers in the United States alone. Why? Because the industry is always growing and the opportunity to help customers with concerns is a great way to make a difference both for businesses and their patrons.
Though every day is different and brings new challenges, most of a call center representative’s core duties remain the same. So, what does a call center representative do, and what makes them successful in their work?
What Are the Duties of a Call Center Representative?
The primary duty of a call center agent is to represent the companies that hire the call center to take calls on their behalf. During those calls, agents must provide stellar customer service and demonstrate detailed knowledge of a business’s products, services, and values.
Call center agents do what they can to make sure the customer has a positive experience on the phone and feels confident working with the company again in the future. This means tailoring their responses to suit each individual situation and taking the time to get the answers needed to satisfy the customers calling in.
The number of calls representatives answer each day varies based on the business’ needs, but some may take as many as 50 calls each day. This means representatives will be on the phone for most of their shift, interacting with customers.
What Are the Top Call Center Representative Skills They Need?
Since call center representative duties center around helping customers, they need to have stellar customer service skills. These are a few of the traits that make a great call center representative:
- Patience
- Ability to learn new things quickly
- Great communication skills
- A firm understanding of technology
- Strong organizational skills
- A willingness to think outside the box
Most call centers offer on-the-job training, so as long as agents have experience in customer service and demonstrate a willingness to learn new things, they’ll develop any skills that they lack quickly. Once they’re fully trained and able to take the full volume of calls each day, most call center agents earn an average of $14.29 an hour. That higher rate of pay means more call center agents are willing to stay in the job longer.
The longer agents continue to work, the better equipped they’ll be to handle tough situations and represent different companies with confidence.
What Types of Calls Do They Take?
It depends on the types of clients the call center helps. Typically, this can be broken down into two main categories: inbound and outbound calls.
Inbound Calls
Inbound calls are made by customers and clients directly to the company’s customer service line. During these calls, call center representatives may receive feedback about the products or services the company provides, deal with customer complaints, or even take happier calls where customers want to rave about the services they received.
The key function of call center agents taking inbound calls is making sure customers feel heard and valued.
Outbound Calls
Depending on a business’ needs, call center agents making outbound calls may be trying to sell products or services to a company’s target customers. However, sales calls aren’t the only outbound calls that call center agents make.
Some of them also make outbound calls to follow up with customers about issues or concerns they brought to the company’s attention. During these calls, call center agents try to find out if the customers’ issues are fully resolved. If they’re not, the agent will take the necessary steps to get the customer the information they need.
These calls show that the company cares about their support services and is willing to do what they can to make their customers happy every day.
What Are the Most Difficult Things About Working in a Call Center?
Answering calls day in and day out can be trying. Call center agents often deal with customers that are confused or unhappy with the services or products they received from certain businesses. Unfortunately, those customers can take their aggression out on call center agents.
This negativity can be difficult for some representatives to handle, but it’s possible to learn to deal with it.
What a call center agent should know when dealing with these customers is that for every negative interaction with a customer, there are likely to be far more positive calls each day. Every call is a chance to make a customer happy.
Work with the Best
So, what does a call center representative do? They represent businesses and provide great customer service to consumers in need every day. Instead of trying to hire call center agents on your own, outsource all of your call center needs to ROI Solutions. Our team members are professionals, trained for your particular company’s needs.
