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Like any other major telecommunications service operator, Volya is constantly faced with
Before opening our own call center in KhmelnitskyVolya used the services of external companies providing call centers on an outsourced basis. An own call center was necessary for better control over the situation and increasing customer satisfaction, which had significantly declined during the previous turbulent years of development and acquisition of small market players throughout the country. According to company representatives, there are about 500 operating call centers in our country. Khmelnitsky was chosen for several reasons: firstly, there were none of these call centers in this city. Accordingly, there is no great competition for employees (and for their salaries). True, this also meant that there were no qualified personnel, but the company was ready to invest in their training. Secondly, the majority of residents of the region speak Ukrainian and Russian equally well. Another reason for the “relocation” of the call center to the province was the increased (according to company employees, doubled) staff turnover in the market. Therefore, the emphasis was placed not just on training, but also on employee retention along with career opportunities.
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Today the call center "Volya" in Khmelnitsky isa million dollars of investment, 1,200 square meters of office space located on three floors of the building on Prospekt Mira. 175 jobs (in the pictures below) for operators and a staff of 200 consultants.
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What was done
Company employees talk about the implementation of the projectto prioritize subscriber calls (that is, a special program evaluates the importance of calls and distributes them among center operators). We redesigned the voice menu (IVR - Interactive Voice Response, what is colloquially called “robobaba”), making it (of course) simpler. And they launched “Troubleshooting Soft” - an interactive assistant for solving subscriber’s technical problems, simplifying the operator’s work and speeding up his response. This allowed us to halve the average time to resolve a subscriber’s issue and triple the number of switches to technical specialists (by the way, they are all still located in Kyiv and answer calls from the capital’s office). The call center's CSAT (customer satisfaction) index is now 9.2 points on a 10-point scale. Another metric—NPS (Net Promoter Score—an index of willingness to recommend a company’s services to others) has grown since 2012 from -34% to 47% in 2017. These figures relate to their own call center employees, but Volya representatives say that, firstly, the study was conducted anonymously, and, secondly, NPS among subscribers does not differ much, maintaining the same dynamics of change over the past 5 years.
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For those who want to know more: what is CSAT and NPS, and how are they calculated
Every time you receive a call from anycompanies and are asked to rate something related to their service experience on a scale of 10, this means that your answer will be used to calculate one of the metrics used to evaluate the performance of their support staff. If with the customer satisfaction index (CSAT) everything is simple - it is simply the arithmetic average of all ratings, then NPS is calculated a little more complicated. Only scores of 9 and 10 points are taken into account. Scores of 7 and 8 points are not used in statistics at all, and the final figure is the difference between the number of scores 9-10 and scores 1-6, expressed as a percentage. Thus, if there are more ratings from 1 to 6 points than ratings from 9-10 points, then the NPS index is negative. Accordingly, in the opposite case it is positive.
How much do call center employees earn
In addition to the official salary, about 6,000 hryvniacall center employees have a flexible bonus system that allows them to receive up to 10,000 hryvnia per month (those who are involved in sales can earn even more, sometimes 2-3 times). Representatives of the company say that “Volya” in one fell swoop became one of the largest legal employers in Khmelnitsky. Information boards located on each floor contain messages and tables with open numbers. For the first time in my memory, a company not only declares everything transparently, but also gives journalists the opportunity to photograph everything.
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How the company motivates and encourages career growth of call center operators
There are signs throughout the office highlightingindividual employees. Experienced operators, always ready to help, have “1st Call Assistant” signs (assistant for first calls). The best sellers of the month are marked with a “Sales Shark” sign, those who accumulated the most hours of work at night are recognized as “Owl of the Month”.
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In the call center, a system of internaldevelopment, allowing the most active and ambitious to get career growth in the company. 15% of employees receive a promotion during the first year of work. For 2 years of work of the call center, 27 of its employees have moved to work in other divisions of the company, and all 100% of managerial positions are closed by candidates who are promoted and not hired.
Volia is ready to invest in training and developmentstaff, managers say that the profit from the work of the call center is growing faster than the cost of it. The training program for beginners takes 2 weeks, only after that they are released in the "field" for answering calls. In parallel, there are 70 hours of training and 10 hours of distance learning throughout the year. The new employee leaves for planned indicators of work in 2 months from the beginning of work. The head of the call center, Nikolai Umanets (in the picture), says that in two years the company has become much more flexible in approaching the work schedule of the employees - they can choose a convenient working time and number of hours.
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In 90% of cases, their requests regarding the work schedulesatisfied. Those who work night shifts are provided with transportation to work and back home by taxi. And even just 2 hours of work at night is beneficial to the company than the additional wait for the client on the line. At the same time, vacancies are always open in the call center and residents of Khmelnitsky no longer need to travel to neighboring countries for seasonal work - well-paid work can be found in their hometown without losing contact with their family.
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In the call center, gamification of work inin the literal sense of the word. In addition to the plates at workplaces, everyone participates in the office game “World of CallCraft”, raising its status and tracking its dynamics in comparison with its colleagues.
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There is a small improvised hall in the office.for sports. This is a small room with simple equipment. Table football, as we were told, is here temporarily - it was moved here because of the visit of journalists, in order to make room for the briefing.
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There is an office and its own kitchen. Spoiled residents of the capital are not surprised by such an innovation in the office (see our virtual excursions to the offices of Kiev IT companies), but for the regional center with a population of only 260,000 people, this is another argument for finding employment.
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How does the work with the objections of customers
The most difficult thing in an operator's job is working withcustomer objections. Almost every workplace has lists of prohibited phrases. What you should never say to a subscriber, and what phrases are better to use instead of prohibited ones. There is a sign comparing a similar (mobile communications + Internet + television) offer from Kyivstar, which, presumably, is considered the main competitor in the promotion of comprehensive services.
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A few more pictures that convey the atmosphere of the call center. This is the place of the head of the unit. But not the workplace itself is interesting, but the information on the board.
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In particular, I was curious to see this:
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In the office hangs a small bell. It is called every time a telemarketing employee’s conversation ends with a new subscriber. This happens, as we were told, about 3000 times a month.
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In addition to motivational messages, you can find this in the office.
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The meeting rooms are named after the Volya TV channels.
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What results have been achieved
“Volya” declares (here we are talking more about the company’s comprehensive indicators, and not just the work of the call center) the following results:
- the subscriber’s average waiting time was reduced to 40 seconds;
- customer satisfaction rating of the company rose to 9.49 points (call center rating - 9.2 points);
- reduced the average number of calls to the call center (presumably due to solving the problem from the first time);
- the number of calls to the company - 28% of clients per month, of which 55% solve their problems on their own (through the user's account, application or IVR);
- growth of NPS clients (desires to recommend the services of the company to their surroundings) +20 points;
- 35,000 subscribers are connected to lifecell mobile service (FixMobile service);
- FixMobile connects every 10th new “Will” subscriber;
- The OTT user base has doubled over the year.