THE RANGE OF SKILLS & COMPETENCIES

In order to understand the areas of learning and development that are found in contact centres it is helpful to categorize them so that the organization can structure the training provision and participants can mentally organize what they are receiving. Research was conducted into publications about skills in call centres and these areas were compiled to provide a more comprehensive listing. Table 1 provides an overview of the area.

Table 1: Contact centre adviser skills – overview

A wide range of terms were found including: hard skills, so skills, technical skills, attributes, competencies, personality, social skills, interpersonal skills, characteristics, traits and knowledge. These various categories have been consolidated using the ABC of learning ie, attitudes (affective), behaviour (skills) and cognition (knowledge). We will now look at these areas in turn.

Hard skills

Hard skills generally refer to the IT skills, system skills and product knowledge a CSR is expected to have to successfully complete a transaction with a customer. Literacy and numeracy are considered to be necessary aptitudes. Hard skills are emphasized more in the public and finance sectors and the latter, in particular, demands a greater degree of product knowledge, which is o en combined with a legislative requirement for qualifications.

During induction training there is o en a strong emphasis on IT skills with at least 50 per cent of time devoted to this area. The reason for this may be that organizations o en employ people based on their attitude and believe that IT skills can be learnt after recruitment.

In England and Wales, NHS Direct nurse advisers were required to possess at least five years’ experience after qualification, which provided them with a ‘licence to practice’. These ‘hard’ skills and knowledge were then complemented by a training period of five to six weeks in the Clinical Assessment System so ware and clinical nursing knowledge. This was then followed by ‘nursery desking’ or buddying where the new nurses listened in to live calls before progressing to taking calls under supervision.

Without good product knowledge it is very difficult for agents to provide a satisfactory service. Thus, a basic instruction book given to agents is insufficient and should be supplemented by informative training. The amount of training should be dependent upon the role of the agent, and eight levels of products and services training have been described:

1. Basic information: Information likely to be found in company literature and catalogues.
2. Background explained: This includes the basic information found in 1 combined with an understanding of how the elements relate to one another.
3. Detailed product knowledge: This involves understanding and being able to discuss the pros and cons of product features, which are very useful in sales roles.
4. Application knowledge: Knowing how the product or service is practically used and the implications. The agent will benefit from having practical experience rather than just having an understanding of the product or service in isolation.
5. Competitor knowledge: Understanding what is offered by competitors will allow comparisons to be made between the products and services.
6. Basic support: In addition to points 1–5 a knowledge of the most common problems customers have with the products and services, and clear ideas of how to resolve them.
7. Intermediate support: Builds on the basic support with general technical knowledge to allow the diagnosis and correction of unexpected problems.
8. High-level support: Builds upon the intermediate support with a detailed technical knowledge so that the agent can alter or guide the customer to fix the problems or make modifications.

Soft skills

Soft skills address the interpersonal skills of communication and personality and it is o en believed that social skills are more important than hard skills. Indeed, outsourcers tend to provide more attention to the development of transferable and so skills because agents will o en move between systems and products.

So skills or social skills can be subdivided into communications skills and people skills. Communication skills refer to the competencies required for good interaction with a customer. ‘Customer focus’ is the attitude required as well as the ability to empathize with the customer. Importantly, well motivated individuals who possess a caring attitude are sought by managers.

In addition to the requirement for good communication skills with the customer, employees also need people skills to work successfully with colleagues. Although most of the work is individual, agents are o en grouped in teams of eight to 15, which allows them to interact socially, share information, encourage a coaching culture and develop friendly competition.

Personality

It is debatable whether or not personality is a skill or not; however, it is an important element in the total communication message delivered by the agent. During recruitment managers look for people who possess high levels of confidence, were ‘bubbly’ or lively, and had a natural ability to talk, develop rapport and smile down the phone. For people who work in technical support, communication skills are less highly valued; the ability to problem solve is considered more important. Moreover, the people in these roles are considered less likely to possess ‘bubbly’ personalities.

Having a lively manner even if it is not a person’s natural predisposition is encouraged in call centres. However, presenting a lively personality in the call centre which is different than normal can be very challenging and stressful over a long period of time. 

Attributes/traits

Another area described in Table 1 is that of attributes and traits. A person’s attributes and traits are very deeply embedded and hard to change; indeed, it is debatable whether or not they are a skill. However, call centre advisers benefit from:

• personality: positive attitude, sense of humour, enthusiasm;
• communication: energy, fluency, rapport, warmth, tone, pitch;
• acting;
• conscientiousness;
• tolerance of pressure;
• resistance to stress;
• emotional intelligence;
• flexibility;
• motivation;
• stamina.

A number of other abilities have also been described. The work can be very repetitive and stressful and therefore another attribute required by agents is that of having the strength and stamina to survive an intensive workload. Also, it has been suggested that agents need ‘guile’ to manage the whole process while being constantly monitored.

A further ability for working in call centres is that of patience. One adviser emphatically said, ‘In my opinion the main skill you need is patience in abundance’.

Sales skills

Another skill area is that of selling, which can be very demanding, particularly when there are sales-related pay targets. It o en involves out-bound calls to potential or existing customers although many organizations now consider most of the calls they receive from customers (ie, in-bound) as an opportunity to cross-sell (eg, linking home and car insurance together), or up-sell (eg, an enhanced package where people buying car insurance are encouraged to choose a more expensive option with more benefits).

The skill sets and attitudes of employees who prefer in-bound calls and those who are involved with out-bound calls are o en very different. Many employees in each of these categories are reluctant to change from one role to another and the challenge is to get traditional in-bound agents to recognize the value of selling.

Generalists and specialists

The level of skills required in the contact centre industry would appear to be partly dependent upon the nature of the interaction and also the value of the customer to the organization. With low-value customers requiring a standard service, eg directory enquiries, advisers tend to have little discretion in how they work and communicate. At the other end of the scale, high-value customers who have more complex needs are supported by agents with greater skills and training, and also with more discretion.

This may involve a form of value-based routing in which the most valuable customers are channelled to the best advisers. This can be achieved along product or service lines and also many telecommunications systems recognize customers’ telephone numbers and allow these to be prioritized in order of importance. Combining value-based routing and skills-based routing is a powerful strategic approach to support the most valuable customers.

There has been a steady decline in the number of contact centres using specialist advisers: in 1999 this was 12 per cent, in 2003 it was 9 per cent and in 2004 it was 4 per cent. There has also been a reduction in multi-skilled advisers from 56 per cent in 2003, to 45 per cent in 2004. At one time, multi-skilled advisers were considered to increase the number of functions provided by a centre; however, Dimension Data suggested that this may have been difficult to achieve and not provided a sufficient return on investment. Moreover, for both specialist and multi-skilled advisers, the cost of training and levels of attrition may have reduced the incentive to operate these two forms of provision.

The balance, preferred by 42 per cent of respondents, is a combination of generalists and specialists. This allows for an appropriate level of specialists who can be financially motivated and retained while having generalists who may cost less, require less training, but have a higher turnover.

The policy of increasing first-time resolution of calls has a number of implications for advisers. On the positive side:

• Advisers need to possess a wider knowledge and broader skills base in order to handle the increased range of calls.
• Agents normally complete the whole transaction, which can result in higher levels of satisfaction.
• The increased variety of calls can create greater interest and stimulation.

There are also a number of challenges associated with multi-skilling:

• Advisers need more skills and knowledge, which requires more training.
• The increased knowledge and skills may place excessive demands on advisers.
• To compensate for the increased requirements, systems and prompts may become more restrictive thus reducing the scope of the adviser and making the work boring.
• The skills required for up-selling and cross-selling of products and services are not found in all advisers.

Feminine skills

A visit to a contact centre will, in most cases, illustrate the predominantly female nature of the workforce with women making up approximately 70 per cent of the workforce. One of the reasons for this is that women are perceived to possess better communication skills than men and these are the qualities required in customer service operations. It is not just the ability to communicate but also the skill to develop a rapport with the customer and smile down the telephone that makes women attractive to employers. Naturally, not all women are good communicators and not all men are poor communicators but it would appear that femininity has become a market requirement.

Identifying these social skills and detailing them as has happened with the competencies described in the e-skills Contact Centre Career and Skills Framework may benefit women. Citing the work of the OECD Belt et al stated that, ‘If women’s social skills are to become more visible, widely recognized and be er compensated they must be formally identified and recognized as skills.’