The regulations designed to ensure that customers are protected and businesses maintain ethical and legal standards can hinder efficiency, making it a challenge to balance compliance and productivity. Call centers are essential components of customer service, technical support, and sales. Improving contact center productivity and maintaining compliance is truly a balancing act.
These days, contact center leaders are stuck between a rock and a hard place. One minute they’re dealing with the pressure to maintain performance and the next minute they’re struggling to stay within regulations to remain compliant.
Compliance and productivity in call centers cannot exist without training and continuing education. Call center employees who understand the regulations and laws that govern their work are highly effective. Regular training sessions on compliance regulations can help employees stay updated and reduce errors in their work. Strategically, your employees and your workforce should not have to sacrifice one for the other. Designing your tools and processes thoughtfully can help your workforce manage their workload without compromising compliance.
The most effective way to balance compliance and productivity is through technology. The impact of automation tools, analytics software and platform integrations for the call center in 2023 is undeniable. Automation tools help call center employees reduce the time spent on repetitive tasks, minimizing careless errors and allow administrators to monitor compliance by providing a more streamlined approach to compliance management. Implementing and integrating technology such as speech analytics, real-time data analytics, and CRM software can identify compliance issues and provide insight into customer behavior, while real-time data analytics can help managers monitor employee performance and identify areas where they can improve their productivity.
While technology is driving the capability of balancing compliance and productivity, performance management is enhancing it. Managers need to monitor employee performance and provide feedback to help them improve their work. Performance management can help identify areas where employees may be struggling with compliance regulations, and managers can provide additional training or support to address these areas. This helps foster a culture of compliance in their workplace. Creating a culture of compliance not only means making it a priority, but embedding it in the company's values, mission and cadence. Managers should lead by example, reinforcing the importance of compliance and providing employees with the necessary resources to comply with regulations. This way, employees can work within a culture that prioritizes compliance, reducing risk and promoting a productive work environment.
We know that balancing compliance and productivity in call centers requires a multifaceted approach. With the right strategies and tools at their disposal, call center employees can perform their work effectively while adhering to regulations and ethical standards, promoting a productive and compliant work environment.
We’ve already discussed a few of the ways that training and education, automation tools and platform integrations, and performance management can help strike a balance between compliance and productivity. Join our Accelerate session Wednesday, May 10th at 11:00 AM EDT / 8:00 AM PDT to learn how companies can use a proactive outreach strategy to keep the balance between contact center compliance and productivity.