Contact centre supervisor

Contact centre supervisors oversee and coordinate the activities of contact centre employees. They ensure daily operations run smoothly by resolving issues, instructing and training employees and supervising tasks.

The duties of a contact centre supervisor typically include, but are not limited to:

• Overseeing and assessing customer service staff activities, and providing them with regular performance-related feedback.
• Strategizing and monitoring the daily activities of customer service operations.
• Assisting customer service staff with duties where required.
• Training staff in areas of customer service and company policies.
• Managing cashier coverage and customer flow to ensure proficient customer service.
• Monitoring and authenticating returns, exchanges, and voids.
• Investigating and solving customer service complaints.
• Assisting with developing and implementing service policies, and explaining these to staff and customers.
• Maintaining documentation pertaining to customer service department activities.
• Performing additional duties where needed.

The following job titles also refer to contact centre supervisor:

customer service supervisor

A high school diploma or equivalent is generally the minimum required to work as a contact centre supervisor, as well as a senior experience in a contact centre or a similar structure.

ISCO skill level is defined as a function of the complexity and range of tasks and duties to be performed in an occupation. It is measured on a scale from 1 to 4, with 1 the lowest level and 4 the highest, by considering:

• the nature of the work performed in an occupation in relation to the characteristic tasks and duties
• the level of formal education required for competent performance of the tasks and duties involved and
• the amount of informal on-the-job training and/or previous experience in a related occupation required for competent performance of these tasks and duties.

Contact centre supervisor is a Skill level 3 occupation.

These occupations, although different, require a lot of knowledge and skills similar to contact centre supervisor.

contact centre manager
call centre supervisor
call centre manager
ICT help desk manager
laundry and dry cleaning manager

These occupations require some skills and knowledge of contact centre supervisor. They also require other skills and knowledge, but at a higher ISCO skill level, meaning these occupations are accessible from a position of contact centre supervisor with a significant experience and/or extensive training.

client relations manager
after-sales service technician
commercial director
membership manager
art restorer

This knowledge should be acquired through learning to fulfill the role of contact centre supervisor.

• Characteristics of products: The tangible characteristics of a product such as its materials, properties and functions, as well as its different applications, features, use and support requirements.
• Call quality assurance management: Recording systems and monitoring procedures used in keeping track of call quality and methods for improvement.
• Customer relationship management: The customer-oriented management approach and basic principles of successful customer relations that focus on interactions with customers such as technical support, customer services, after-sales support and direct communication with the customer.
• Characteristics of services: The characteristics of a service that might include having acquired information about its application, function, features, use and support requirements.

These skills are necessary for the role of contact centre supervisor.

• Create solutions to problems: Solve problems which arise in planning, prioritising, organising, directing/facilitating action and evaluating performance. Use systematic processes of collecting, analysing, and synthesising information to evaluate current practice and generate new understandings about practice.
• Motivate employees: Communicate with employees in order to ensure that their personal ambitions are in line with the business goals, and that they work to meet them.
• Perform data analysis: Collect data and statistics to test and evaluate in order to generate assertions and pattern predictions, with the aim of discovering useful information in a decision-making process.
• Manage staff: Manage employees and subordinates, working in a team or individually, to maximise their performance and contribution. Schedule their work and activities, give instructions, motivate and direct the workers to meet the company objectives. Monitor and measure how an employee undertakes their responsibilities and how well these activities are executed. Identify areas for improvement and make suggestions to achieve this. Lead a group of people to help them achieve goals and maintain an effective working relationship among staff.
• Forecast workload: Predict and define the workload that needs to be done in a certain amount of time and the time it would take to perform related tasks.
• Fix meetings: Fix and schedule professional appointments or meetings for clients or superiors.
• Delegate activities: Delegate activities and tasks to others according to the ability, level of preparation, competence and legal scope of practice. Make sure that people understand what they should do and when they should do it.
• Supervise work: Direct and supervise the day-to-day activities of subordinate personnel.
• Perform project management: Manage and plan various resources, such as human resources, budget, deadline, results, and quality necessary for a specific project, and monitor the project’s progress in order to achieve a specific goal within a set time and budget.
• Present reports: Display results, statistics and conclusions to an audience in a transparent and straightforward way.
• Analyse staff capacity: Evaluate and identify staffing gaps in quantity, skills, performance revenue and surpluses.
• Train employees: Lead and guide employees through a process in which they are taught the necessary skills for the perspective job. Organise activities aimed at introducing the work and systems or improving the performance of individuals and groups in organisational settings.
• Liaise with managers: Liaise with managers of other departments ensuring effective service and communication, i.e. sales, planning, purchasing, trading, distribution and technical.
• Follow company standards: Lead and manage according to the organisation’s code of conduct.

This knowledge is sometimes, but not always, required for the role of contact centre supervisor. However, mastering this knowledge allows you to have more opportunities for career development.

• Customer service: Processes and principles related to the customer, client, service user and to personal services; these may include procedures to evaluate customer’s or service user’s satisfaction.
• Teamwork principles: The cooperation between people characterised by a unified commitment to achieving a given goal, participating equally, maintaining open communication, facilitating effective usage of ideas etc.
• E-commerce systems: Basic digital architecture and commercial transactions for trading products or services conducted via Internet, e-mail, mobile devices, social media, etc.

These skills and competences are sometimes, but not always, required for the role of contact centre supervisor. However, mastering these skills and competences allows you to have more opportunities for career development.

• Handle helpdesk problems: Investigate what causes problems, test and improve solutions in order to reduce number of calls to the helpdesk.
• Handle customer complaints: Administer complaints and negative feedback from customers in order to address concerns and where applicable provide a quick service recovery.
• Recruit employees: Hire new employees by scoping the job role, advertising, performing interviews and selecting staff in line with company policy and legislation.
• Contact customers: Contact customers by telephone in order to respond to inquiries or to notify them of claim investigation results or any planned adjustments.
• Measure customer feedback: Evaluate customer’s comments in order to find out whether customers feel satisfied or dissatisfied with the product or service.
• Keep records of customer interaction: Recording details of inquiries, comments and complaints received from customers, as well as actions to be taken.
• Manage resources: Manage personnel, machinery and equipment in order to optimise production results, in accordance with the policies and plans of the company.
• Create a work atmosphere of continuous improvement: Work with management practices such as continuous improvement, preventive maintenance. Pay attention to problem solving and teamwork principles.
• Coordinate operational activities: Synchronise activities and responsibilities of the operational staff to ensure that the resources of an organisation are used most efficiently in pursuit of the specified objectives.
• Measure call quality: Calculate the total quality of a call including the ability to reproduce a user’s voice, and the system’s ability to limit impairment during conversation.
• Analyse customer service surveys: Analyse results from surveys completed by passengers/customer; analyse results to identify trends and draw conclusions.
• Respond to customers’ inquiries: Answer customers’ questions about itineraries, rates and reservations in person, by mail, by e-mail and on the phone.
• Monitor customer service: Ensure all employees are providing excellent customer service in accordance to company policy.

3341 – Office supervisors

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References

1. Contact centre supervisor – ESCO
2. Customer Service Supervisor Job Description – Betterteam
3. Featured image: By Rept0n1x – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0