When you call a company for customer support, often you will hear the message “this call is being recorded for quality assurance and training purposes.” Call recording and call monitoring allow managers to supervise customer service and sales agents to provide feedback. To continue this trend of supervision and monitoring, VoIP providers now offer call barging as a feature. In this post, we will outline how call barging works and its benefits.
What is Call Barging? Benefits of Using a Call Barging Feature
Call barging builds on call recording, call monitoring, and call whispering to allow managers to conference in on a call. Users are often confused by the above terms, so let’s do a quick review:
- Call recording — records incoming calls and saves the recording to be reviewed later.
- Call monitoring or call listening — allows users to listen in on an employee or agent’s call without interference.
- Call whispering — allows users to interact with the employee or agent during the call without the customer’s knowledge.
- Call barging — allows users to jump in on the call and interact with both the agent and the customer.
This way, call barging allows for conferences to occur between a manager/ supervisor, the employee, and the customer to resolve issues and provide alternatives and support.
So, how can your business benefit from using call barging?
1. Train Agents Thoroughly
Managers can join in on conference calls and train new agents by highlighting appropriate and successful behavior as well as teaching best practices for a call center in 2021. This way, agents can see firsthand how to handle customers and what moves are more successful than others.
2. Improve Quality Assurance
Call barging can improve quality assurance by letting managers and supervisors listen in on calls and jump in to help agents if required.
3. Implement Conflict Resolution
Reduce escalated calls by bringing managers in to resolve calls with angry or upset customers. Furthermore, call barging helps increase customer satisfaction and retention as agents don’t need to transfer the call to have a colleague or supervisor resolve issues.
4. Manage Remote Workers
If your team is working remotely, then call barging can help you monitor and manage virtual call center agents to ensure everyone is doing their job well. This feature can also be used to conduct yearly performance evaluations and more.
5. Offer VIP Support
Finally, you can offer special VIP service to valuable customers by having the manager join certain calls. This can help increase customer satisfaction by showing your loyal customers how much you care about their business.
When and How to Use Call Barging
Call barging should only be used when needed most. This includes training new agents, de-escalating an issue, or when an agent needs additional information that only a manager can provide. Avoid using this feature for every call as that can have negative effects on caller experience. Here are a few ways you and your teams can use call barging.
1. When Training New Agents
Call barging is useful when training new agents because managers not only get to monitor the potential of the new agent, but can also provide onboarding help. For example, during test calls or calls made early in the agent’s tenure. Being able to jump on a call can be a safety net for new agents as they start working.
2. When a Rep Needs Additional Guidance
If the agent is stumped by a question or doesn’t have the answer to a query asked by the caller, then bringing their supervisor in on the call can be helpful. The supervisor can answer the question and other follow-up questions and then leave the agent to close the deal or wrap up the session.
3. When an Angry Customer Requests the Manager
Finally, when an angry or upset customer asks for the manager, reps can quickly and easily bring managers in for de-escalation. This is useful as customers will appreciate not being transferred or having to wait to speak with the manager.
Improve Customer Support with Call Barging
Use call barging to give your customer service reps the tools they need to offer good customer support. Improve caller experience and keep your loyal customers close. To learn more, call us at 1 (888) 908 6171.
