INDUSTRIES AND ROLES: HIRING CALL CENTER SUPPORT WITH NEXTPHASE REMOTE

Hiring call center support staff and ensuring you work with the right partner is vital. We are here to make things easy.

The Philippines is the premier call center destination, ranking 27 in the world in terms of English proficiency while coming in at number 2 in Asia.

Take a look at all the Call Center related roles we employ here at NextPHase Remote!

What we provide is world-class. The oversight, the cheaper staffing costs, the speed at which people can be hired is much faster with us. With some jobs taking as little as a week or even a couple of days to fill. If you need an entire customer service department, for example, depending on your requirements we could have one up and running in a month for you.

Communicating with your team is simplified with the use of team chat apps such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Skype, and Zoom. In some cases communication within a team actually goes up with the use of a chat application. It might take some getting used to if you don’t have experience being active in a group chat, but it is an easy enough transition to make.

It doesn’t matter where your remote staff is located, they can work whatever schedule you need them to. Of course, there are certain caveats that come with this, such as, higher salary for those who are on the night shift. This shouldn’t discourage you as the price will still be competitive.

For remote staff working for a call center, there is oversight in the form of account managers, team leaders, and their internal HR department. This oversight is on top of your daily interactions with them, so while you work on the operational side of things, the call center staff will continue to provide oversight and reports. In most cases, you have a choice of whether the newly hired staff can work from their home or from the remote staffing company’s office, either way, the staff will be monitored. In the case of staff working from home, time management applications can be provided if requested, adding another layer of oversight.

Just like in-office CSR staff, remote customer service agents have one main job, improving customer experience. They can still be broken up into 2 main types: voice and non-voice. The typical voiced CSR resumes will have a minimum of 1 or 2 previous voiced call center experiences, the outliers will be fresh graduates looking to start making money and professionals looking to try a different industry. The same can be said for non voiced resumes, with their experience being with other email or chat-style CSR jobs.

You will be able to dictate what times your remote staff works. If you wanted to cover 24 hours, for example, you could hire 3 staff members and have them work different shifts to cover your desired time. You can also put them on a shifting schedule, where every month or a couple of months you give them new working hours, sometimes even days. In addition, you are also able to choose whether or not your staff works in an office or in their home.

In terms of tools, you select the programs your staff will be using. If you have software you used to use for customer service, you can continue to use that. Training may be required for the staff unfamiliar with your software. You can use any chat system you’d like to communicate with your staff. A couple of popular choices include Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Google Chat, and Skype.

Technical Support Representatives

Technical support agents who work remotely function much like their CSR counterparts, the biggest difference is that their goal is to resolve customer issues in the least amount of time possible. They can also be broken down into voice and non-voice. Experience-wise, you’re going to see similar resumes to CSR applicants, where they will have a minimum of 1 to 2 years in technical support roles. The outliers here are fresh graduates and former customer service agents who got tired of doing voiced calls.

In terms of working hours, you are able to pick which hours your staff will work. For ticket or email-based support, you have the flexibility to let them work their country’s dayshift hours, which results in lower turnover. If you need them to work shifting schedules, feel free to, just make sure you inform the remote staffing company you’re partnered with as the schedule does directly impact how many people will apply.

The system you want your tech support team to use is up to you. Be aware that additional training may be needed to use your system, whether it’s a ticket system or a live chat system. For phone calls, a large majority of the applicants already know the drill. In terms of a communication system, any chat service you prefer works.

Data entry agents are sent documents to review or check and once that process is over, they input the information into the database. This position is easily done remotely, as most documents now are digital, for hardcopies it’s as easy as having them scanned in a computer. The resumes from these applicants are generally a grab bag. You will likely see former data entry personnel applying along with a plethora of other people including fresh graduates and blue-collar workers.

In terms of database systems, experienced data entry personnel will either know how the system works or will acclimate quickly. New staff should be trained in your specific systems and processes in order to adjust to your business style.

Like CSR and TSR, smaller teams don’t really need a supervisor as you should have an account manager to watch over the administrative side of things. Bigger teams should have a supervisor in order to keep things running as efficiently as possible.

Quality Assurance Specialists

QA agents usually work wherever the rest of the team is. If you hire a QA to check the calls your CSR staff are producing, then that QA should be working around the same time if not the same time as your CSR staff. This is to provide real-time or regular feedback/coaching sessions with the staff in order to maintain a high standard of service. Their resumes usually show some sort of CSR or TSR combination of experience, then a promotion to quality assurance within the same company.

As stated before, their schedule should be the same or around the same time as the staff they will be checking. If you are opposed to real-time feedback or don’t find it helpful, then you can put your QA staff on any shift.

There should be training on your specific software. Even if you hire someone with prior experience in the analytical software you use for your QAs, there should be some sort of refresher course that explains how you want things done.

Want to improve the quality of your staff? A dedicated QA team will take care of that for you.

Sales Representatives

Sales reps should be able to focus on closing deals. Like customer service representatives, they come in two main variations, inbound, and outbound. Their resumes will look very similar, the most notable difference being the type of sales they did. Inbound sales reps will almost always have upselling written down as a skill while you will mostly find upselling on more successful outbound sales reps. Functionally, it doesn’t matter if this position is in the office or not. Phone salesmen just need a way to call people in order to do their job.

For experienced sales agents, there only really needs to be product training. For all hires that have no experience, there should be full training on the procedures and flow. Usually, there is a training period where the material is taught, mock calls are done, then the final test is real calls. This period lasts anywhere from one week to a month.

Team leaders or supervisors, work as your boots on the ground in a remote environment. They give you updates on the team and they help keep the team’s morale high. Their resumes usually include previous team lead experiences. A majority of them would have other call center experience before becoming a team lead for that department. For example, a quality assurance team leader would have some prior QA experience.

Wrap Up

The general jobs you’d find at a call center can be used in numerous industries. Their flexibility is what makes them useful for any industry. Whether it’s auxiliary remote workers or something like sales where it directly affects how much capital you have, there is a spot for any of these jobs on any team.