What’s Your Call Center’s Company Culture?

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July 12th, 2022

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fnol call centerSeveral elements define a company’s culture. The company’s mission, values, and leadership style all affect how employees engage with each other and how customers view the company. A strong, positive company culture drives employee motivation, productivity, and morale. Establishing a company culture takes time, but businesses have several styles they can cultivate within their call centers.

  1. Adhocracy Culture. The term adhocracy culture comes from ad hoc and prioritizes innovation and creativity above all else. Adhocracy culture encourages employees to take risks and accepts that failure may occur. However, this style of culture eliminates barriers that restrict creativity and often produces rapid growth and impressive innovations.
  2. Clan or Collaborative Culture. Businesses that embrace a clan or collaborative culture tend to treat employees like family members. Clan culture often abolishes traditional hierarchy roles and values all employees’ input equally regardless of their management level.
  3. Customer-Focused Culture. The customer experience dominates in customer-focused companies. They aim to provide paramount service and often go the extra mile to ensure a high-quality customer experience. These companies often equip employees with the technology and freedom required to exceed customer expectations.
  4. Hierarchy Culture. Hierarchy-driven businesses are the most traditional, with rigid tiers of management and responsibilities. High-risk organizations often develop a hierarchy culture to control and minimize failure. Although a bit old-fashioned, this culture style is more efficient than most.
  5. Market-Driven or Competitive Culture. Companies with a market-driven culture focus on getting their products on the market as quickly as possible. Employees in these organizations tend to work hard, thrive on competition, and focus on results. Businesses with market-driven cultures often emphasize an employee’s performance and ability to produce results over the workplace experience.
  6. Purpose-Driven Culture. Purpose-driven culture has taken off as customers show more interest in a company’s values. Employees have a strong sense of purpose and understand the importance of their work to the organization. The workforce often unites behind a shared belief, such as improving sustainability or advocating for human rights. Purpose-driven businesses aim to give back to the community that supports them and often donate to charities that align with their mission.
  7. Innovative Culture. Similar to an adhocracy culture, companies with an innovative culture focus on inventive ideas. However, innovative cultures have several distinguishing features. Innovation-focused companies aim to improve processes and existing technology while also creating new solutions. The primary goal is to continuously produce new ideas, products, and technologies that meet existing and unforeseen customer needs.
  8. Creative Culture. Creative company culture focuses on establishing goals and bringing those aspirations to fruition. They strive to create new products and services that build a unique customer experience. Employees often work in teams to encourage innovative thinking.

Companies can make several strategic decisions to define their call center’s culture. For example, some may choose to focus on the customer by equipping agents with the best customer service technology and providing rigorous training to establish service standards. Others may unite their call center representatives behind a common purpose that speaks to their customer base. Whichever approach an organization decides to take, they need a high-quality call center to fulfill customer needs. Contact Actec to discover how a nearshore call center can improve your company’s customer service and loyalty.

5 Methods to Improve the Quality of Your Call Center

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January 4th, 2022

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Businesses need a call center that answers customers’ questions quickly and satisfactorily while providing superior service. If customer satisfaction dips, companies can implement several strategies to enhance the quality of their customer service. These include:

  1. Ensure call center employees understand the standards. Poor quality of service reflects badly on a company. Without clear guidelines, call center employees will struggle to provide the level of service a company expects. For example, if a company’s culture prioritizes friendliness, call center employees should adopt a friendly tone rather than a strictly corporate one.
  2. Train new employees. Onboarding and training new employees are norms, but how thorough the training is affects the quality of service employees can provide. For example, allowing new employees to shadow veteran employees improves their understanding of service expectations.
  3. Coach employees often. Call centers often record customer calls, which companies can use to coach employees. Companies can recognize high performers to help new employees learn the desired quality of service. Managers can also coach employees that are struggling to meet KPIs.
  4. Ask customers for their input. Companies may believe their call center is performing well, but they can’t know for sure without feedback. Businesses can ask customers to fill out satisfaction surveys either via email, text, or on their website.
  5. Learn from negative feedback. Angry customers aren’t likely to take employees’ feelings into consideration when they leave feedback or reviews. However, it’s valuable insight into weak areas of the company’s customer service.

Providing clear standards, training employees well, mentoring them, and learning from customer feedback are critical to providing quality customer service. If your current call center isn’t performing to your standard or if you’re searching for a provider, contact the experts at Actec to learn more about our nearshore call center services.

4 Traits Call Centers Need for Effective Crisis Communication

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December 21st, 2021

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Insurance providers need a call center that can handle all their incoming calls, particularly when it comes to emergencies. When insureds initiate first notice of loss (FNOL), they’ve often experienced a high-stress incident. From house fires to car accidents, insurance call centers need to have the skillset to navigate customer crises. Here are several characteristics of call centers that communicate effectively during a crisis:

  1. High call volume preparedness. Some crises affect a significant number of customers. For example, hurricanes can damage property and vehicles. Insureds may find themselves homeless while waiting on repairs. Call centers need to have the capacity to handle a sudden influx of calls, particularly for imminent covered perils.
  2. Crisis management experience. Not every industry needs call centers with experience handling emergencies. Insurance companies need a call center staffed with agents that understand how to perform FNOL intake during a crisis and how to respond appropriately to frantic customers. Similarly, agents need to be able to identify a true emergency. What seems critical to a customer may not require immediate action. In those instances, agents need to know how to diffuse the situation and help customers navigate the next steps of their claim.
  3. Strong emotional intelligence. During a crisis, call center agents need to be able to identify how the customer is feeling and respond with empathy. Customers will likely be upset or angry during a crisis, and call center agents need to know how to contain the situation without allowing their emotions to affect the level of service they provide.
  4. Insurance providers need a call center that can adapt to meet their needs. Increased call volumes during a crisis often require additional agents to field all the calls in a timely manner. Some call centers achieve this by having agents on-call or tapping into a work-from-home network.

Accidents happen, and it’s not always possible to predict when disaster will strike. Insurance companies need a call center that can handle critical situations whenever they arise. Contact the experts at Actec to learn more about our nearshore contact center services.

5 Reasons Why You Need to Outsource Your Call Center

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August 24th, 2020

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Customer service is a significant element of any business regardless of industry. Providing superior customer service can help improve customer satisfaction, referrals, and a business’ bottom line. However, it’s not fiscally practical to have a full-time team of employees to handle all of these calls. Many customers call outside of normal business operations as well, which further complicates the issue. To address these challenges, many companies of all sizes are looking to call centers as a solution.

The following are some of the best advantages of hiring a call center:

  1. Reduced costs. Businesses can utilize call centers to handle all of their calls 24/7. To pay a full-time team of employees to work on-call is often astronomical in comparison.
  2. Better use of time. Not all businesses can afford or need a full-time employee to handle customer service calls. As a result, team members in various departments often rotate who handles incoming calls. By diverting customer service calls to a call center, those employees can focus on their primary job without interruptions.
  3. Around the clock service. Many call centers offer their services 24 hours a day or extended well outside of usual business hours all year round. This is particularly useful for industries like the insurance sector whose clients may require customer service at unusual hours following an accident or loss.
  4. Superior quality of service. Call center employees receive training on how to provide excellent customer service. They are able to provide knowledgeable answers to customers’ questions and concerns while remaining polite and professional.
  5. Actionable reports and data. Many call centers monitor calls to ensure the quality and for training purposes. They can use these reports to improve their employees’ skills as well as provide insights to the company on common pain points for customers.

Call centers can improve customer satisfaction, reduce business costs, and boost productivity. Opting for a nearshore call center can amplify these benefits. Nearshore call center employees are located in a similar geographic location, which eliminates cultural barriers. Contact the experts at Actec to learn how our nearshore call centers can help lower your costs, improve the customer experience, and more.

Employee Absence and Fraud Prevention Through Call Center Services

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November 18th, 2014

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Don’t let employee absences slow down your organization. As soon as an employee reports an absence, there are many steps to be taken. Automatic notification of all affected parties, activation of procedures to find a replacement, and beginning the intake process for absences related to short-term disability, long-term disability, or Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) incidents are all crucial elements. Beyond this, Actec also records when the absence will begin and when the employee will return so you can plan accordingly, all without consuming your supervisors’ valuable time.

It’s equally critical to stay connected with feedback from your employees regarding fraud, theft, sexual harassment, ethical concerns, equipment breakdowns, and safety matters to eliminate potential problems before they evolve into serious liability issues and lawsuits. Proactively soliciting feedback from your employees not only reduces your liability, but it also increases retention and improves the working environment for all of your employees and keeps you in compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which mandates that companies provide a way for employees to submit anonymous reports about financial irregularities without fear of retaliation.

Claims Management and FNOL: The Bottom Line

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October 6th, 2014

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Cost-effective incident reporting management is dependent upon capturing accurate information, the first time an incident occurs. When policyholders report a notice, they should be greeted on behalf of your organization by a qualified Intake Specialist, trained to handle worker’s compensation, auto, property, general liability, short-term disability, and long-term disability claims. Intake Specialists capture all relevant data using a best practices workflow developed over years of first notice of loss (FNOL) experience. Alternatively, enter notices can be entered directly into your in-house claims management application via the Internet or secure connection. Providing Medical Coding, Duplicate Checking, Quality Assurance Reviews and Notice Completion in addition to streamlined and skilled services keeps Actec Intake Specialists ahead of the curve.

After hours, Overflow and Call Center Closure coverage for FNOL

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December 7th, 2011

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Since July 2004, Actec has provided all after-hours, overflow, holiday and unanticipated closure coverage for a large national insurance company. We currently have nearly 40 phone lines coming in for this client, for each of their claims offices, their primary care center and several large accounts with custom requirements. Calls range from 50 to 500 daily (primarily after-hours). When unexpected volume is directed to Actec, an additional several hundred calls can be offered during a 2-3 hour timeframe with short notice (if any). Our Intake Specialists enter claims real-time via Internet directly into the client’s claim system and take inquiry messages in our own application, which are automatically emailed to the appropriate recipients for prompt handling.

Fraud Prevention and Absence Management Via Outsourced Call Centers

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June 6th, 2011

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Unmanaged employee absences can grind an organization to a halt. As soon as an employee reports an absence, many steps must be taken. Automatic notification of all affected parties, activation of replacement procedures, and the intake process for absences related to short-term disability, long-term disability, or Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) incidents are all pivotal in unfettered operation. Beyond these necessary and basic requirements, Actec also records the intended beginning and completion of the absence so you can plan accordingly, all without consuming your supervisors’ valuable time. Another equally critical component is to stay connected with feedback from your employees regarding fraud, theft, sexual harassment, ethical concerns, equipment breakdowns, and safety matters to eliminate potential problems before they evolve into serious liability issues and lawsuits. Soliciting such feedback from your employees not only reduces your liability, but it also increases retention and improves the working environment for all of your employees as it makes them better appreciate the important role they play in the communication cycle. It also keeps organizations in compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which mandates that companies provide a way for employees to submit anonymous reports about financial irregularities without fear of retaliation. Going without an expert outsourced call center can have a devastating long-term impact on a company’s future. Without FNOL, organization and loss mitigation technologies, things fall through the cracks.

Top 3 FNOL Blogs

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May 25th, 2011

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We’ve been blogging for a while now here at Actec, and we thought it was time to share with you a few of our most popular blogs on first notice of loss, outsourcing, claims management, and other related issues.

For other insights on FNOL, outsourcing, claims handling, overflow, and other resource management, visit our website or check back soon here on our blog!

Zurich Receives High Marks

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May 13th, 2011

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Zurich was rated a close second in its category by risk managers, and 4th in class for claims handling. Actec handles all after-hours, weekend, holiday, and overflow calls for Zurich, and celebrates this triumph of efficiency and outsourcing FNOL in the insurance and risk management industries.