Telephone representatives spend the whole day talking on the phone; receiving calls and answering to them as best as they can to satisfy the customer. You feel satisfied if can be of help to the customer and meet his expectations. But it is not so sweet talk all the time. There comes a time when some customer call up and starts abusing you the moment you said Hello!  You are flabbergasted, astounded at receiving such a call; you might not be able to figure out the reason. May be the customer was having a bad day and found an outlet in you to blow his steam. Reacting to such calls will depend on the type of your personality. If you are the one who would not tolerate such nonsense, will tend to start abusing the customer in turn.

Whatever be the reason for the customer blasting; you have to keep your cool and try to pacify the customer as much as you can. Some customers are so rude that they will start attacking you personally; using abusive language. Such language will naturally make you furious as well and you may be tempted to give back in kind. But you should learn not to take such assault personally. As it is,  the customer do not know you personally, never seen you and may not be knowing you name even. You should tackle such customers with tact and try to calm down the customer first before you show aggression. If the call goes beyond your self-control, you can always refer it to the supervisor or the call center manager to tackle it. Since they are there with more experience than you and also senior to you; you can let them handle the rude customer.

If you are the kind who easily gets depressed by such onslaught of abusive language; you might take a break for a couple of minutes, off the telephone, to calm down and be yourself once again. If you are very much offended, and took the thing personally, you can talk this over with your supervisor or the call center manager. Most of the call centers have a system of recording calls; and they will be able to play back the conversation and might be able to soothe your injured ego and pep you up. You should always consult your seniors on such matters; they will be able to guide you since they might have experienced such situation previously.

Call center job has its own hazards and you have to cope up with them. Whatever may be the attitude of the customers, it is your responsibility to answer to their queries and satisfy them in any way they want. If you do not respond favorably, the call center will get a bad name and may even lose the customer. Don’t let a bad call take the day light out of you. Always remember that most of the customers are good people and want to talk to you in a friendly way and even appreciate your help. Don’t get disheartened, just concentrate on you job.

Setting up a call center is not an end in itself; you have to have the proper personnel to run it. You need a manager to manage the show. Call center is managed by a person who is designated as the Call Center Manager (CCM). He is responsible for smooth running of the call center without any problem.

As a call center manager you have to ensure that your supervisors and your representatives are in high spirits and the services that the call center provides are in line with the company’s policy and standing in the market. Being the head of the center you should be able to bind those working the call center into a team. And you being the team leader should attach importance to each and every member of the team. You should always remember that as you are watching over them, they are also watching your every move. You should be able to speak their language. Your verbal communication will create a lot of impact on the performance of your team. Hence, you will have to be very careful when you communicate with them; you should not say something, or do anything, that will have damaging impact on them. This will eventually affect the performance of your team and eventually the performance of the call center as a whole.

The role of a call center manager is more than the paper work he does. You are not made the manager for nothing. Spending your days keeping books, keeping a tab on everyone is not the only job you have. You have to interact with your staff on a personal level and drive home the fact that they are very important for the survival of the call center and that personally you would do anything to make them feel at home. If you can make your team members feel great; they will put in their best effort to ensure that the call center performs the best amongst its peers.

Your representatives are an important element in your scheme of things. If you make them feel superfluous, they will retaliate in kind, which will prove detrimental to the growth of your call center. You should keep in mind that the representatives are in touch with your customer directly. If they want, they can very well malign the name of the company; which can greatly influence the customers’ perception of the company in the long run.

As the call center manager, you should be ready to listen to your team members individually; and if there is any problem, be it personal or official, always be prepared to help them out. In fact, you should also become a part of the team. You should be prepared to lead by example. If you do so you will find a supporting team always behind you who are willing to do the extra bit to back you all the way. You representatives are the backbone of the call center; you should ensure that the backbone is not injured.  Job of a call center manager is not just a mechanical one you should be able to bring out the humane in you to be successful.

The link between the call center manager and the telephone representatives is the call center Supervisor. He is the person who interacts directly with the representatives. Call center manager’s job may be objective in nature; but the supervisor cannot do so. As a supervisor you have to interact with the representatives constantly. Your task as a supervisor is to ensure that the call centre staff is kept motivated all the time. To do this you have to act like a team captain. Leading the team verbally is a short time measure, which may motivate the staff for sometimes but the effect wear off soon. You should make an effort to lead by example. Best leaders are those who lead from the front.

The supervisor is responsible for keeping the atmosphere of the call center in  balance. The ambiance of the call center should not be so severe that the staff begins to get demoralized and start looking for more acceptable jobs in other call centers. As a supervisor you should not be biased towards some and treat the rest with prejudice. If this happens; it will create an atmosphere of distrust amongst the staff; which eventually will lead to disruption in the smooth functioning of the call center. It is your task as a supervisor to establish the right course of action.

A supervisor can be successful if the type of job done by the call center matches with his temperament. If he is good at sales then a call center dealing with sale will be suitable for him. He will be able to excel in such an environment and never feel the stress that this position demands. And if the job does not match his nature then he will soon begin to feel the stress. When he is over stressed he will tend to make mistakes and thus affect the performance of the telephone representatives, which again will affect the overall performance  of the call center.

Appointing a supervisor is a very critical matter and not to be taken lightly. The candidate has to be of open mind with good communication skills. He should be able to handle stress quite naturally, and should be flexible in his attitude. He should have the skillfulness to coordinate between the call center manage and the service representatives. He should be able to handle day to day work without prejudice. He should be able to communicate the grievances of the representatives to the call center manager, so that appropriate corrective actions can be taken to keep the work force in good humor.  He should also be able to acquaint himself with the working of the telephone representatives so that he can understand their predicaments and the hindrance they face in the work place.

The job of a supervisor is stressful no doubt; but he can add a bit of fun element in it. This will not only help him cut down his stress level but will keep the representatives happy. If this happens then the ambience of the call centre will be conducive of business which will be beneficial to the call center ultimately.