The Blue Collar Call Center Chapter Two: Setting the Stage

Chapter Two: Setting the Stage

“To win in the marketplace you must first win in the workplace.”

- Doug Conant

If you want to have a call center, you’re going to need equipment, software, cubicles, chairs, keyboards, mice, internet and employees. Or you can have a BYOD (bring your own device) policy, but that can be a bit risky, and honestly, it does seem a bit weird.

To be 100% this can be as sophisticated or as bare bones as you see fit. But to keep your employees sane and happy, I would caution against old run down equipment. I would warn against having your agents take calls and input data on clunky, slow, Windows XP running in 2022 dinosaurs and talking using actual deskphones where they have to cradle the receiver (or whatever it’s called) between their ear and their shoulder. Unless you want them to be stressed out and sore.

You probably want to aim somewhere between that and state of the art. Let them take some pride in their desk, and the equipment they use.

If I had my way, all of our Directors of First Impressions (what we call our CSRs) would be able to work off of a Chromebook with a wireless noise canceling headset in the outdoor location of their choice, but the key is Simple is Best.

Don’t overcomplicate the setup.

If you are planning on having everyone work from the office or a centralized location, cool. You’re gonna need desks, preferably cubicles (open air Contact Centers are loud, annoying, and make it so the CSRs can’t hear the customer, or concentrate. Don’t do that.)

They need somewhere to sit, somewhere to put a few personal items, a working computer, a headset, and a stable internet connection. As long as they’re comfortable, it’s all good.

The desk space should be big enough for the employee to put a couple of personal effects up, and have a place to store their bag if they have one. A designated spot for employees to put their bags, coats, whatever sounds good, but it’s really not. It can lead to accusations of theft, things getting lost or misplaced, and kind of reminds one of kindergarten.

The Contact Center agent is going to spend upwards of eight hours a day at this desk, so make sure it’s cozy and the chairs are comfortable. Eight hours of staring at a screen is as natural to humans as unicycling is to leopards, so for the love of all that is holy, please make sure the chairs are good quality with back support.

(As an aside: If you can spring it, how about those cool desk things that can lower and raise their workstation so the employee has the choice to sit or stand? Not necessary, but really cool regardless.)

For headsets we use USB gaming headsets. They work great, they’re comfortable, and they have noise reduction. They also light up with LEDs for all your effective aesthetic Contact Center needs.

You probably want to stick with Windows computers. Macs are a bit expensive, and Chromebooks aren’t compatible with much (but if you’re using a web-based CRM and deskphones- have at it, as it's very cost effective). Windows 10 or 11 with some minimal security set-up is the best bet.

Speaking of security– you don’t want viruses or agents looking at things that can get them or you sued. You probably will want to get a site-blocker in place. You know, porn sites, terrorist sites, incel sites, political sites, religious-extremist sites, stuff like that. You definitely want to block those (on your wifi too…)

What about Social Media sites?

Yeah, unless you run the Social Media pages from your Contact Center (not that bad of an idea, within reason) and want everyone to have access to them all at the same time, block em.

Except YouTube.

YouTube is a treasure trove of resources. From customer service videos, to time management videos, to productivity videos, and much much MUCH more, YouTube is perfect for Contact Center downtime if training, role playing, or reviewing calls isn’t an option.

Most software is web or cloud based, so your CSRs can work from literally anywhere with an internet connection. That’s cool, after COVID-19 hit, a lot of companies had to quickly pivot to this model, and many failed to do it effectively. But Contact Centers with web or cloud based software? Unless the owner or manager was weird or a jerk, the moment lockdowns happened, no big deal, control the background noise and go to town. Or go home. Wherever.

A lot of companies have elected to keep the work from home (wfh) model, others have called everyone back into the office, and some (like us) have opted to adopt the hybrid or work from anywhere (wfa) model. It works.

For our software, we use ServiceTitan, and have since it first launched. In fact, the founder of Rooter Hero is a main reason ServiceTitan exists. For our phones, we use a company out of Las Vegas called BluIP who supply us with softphone software.

For the Trades, I would heavily suggest that you use ServiceTitan for your business, it will make your life, and the lives of your Contact Center employees easier. No, ServiceTitan is not paying me for this plug, but they should.

Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more.

Now ServiceTitan and BluIP aren’t requirements to do or act upon anything in this book, I just wanted to let you know what we use.

You’re going to need email too, an address for everyone. And don’t have it be @gmail or @yahoo or @outlook. No. Spring for an actual branded business email. Not only will this help with, well, branding, but it will bring ownership and unity to your employees.

Kathy is no longer kathy.awesomebusiness@gmail.com, no. she is kathy@yourawesomebusiness.com. What a difference.

It’s a temptation for a lot of smaller companies to forgo the branded business email, but don’t. It’s dumb to do that. Email is used for customer communication, interdepartmental communication (fancy word for other departments), and leads.

If you’re wfh, wfa, or hybrid, (or in the office…) you’ll also want to use a chat communication platform like Slack, Discord, or Microsoft Teams. Don’t be intimidated by this. Discord has been an absolute game changer in our center.

A lot of people fear that you can’t have a good company culture if you’re not all crammed into the same room like sardines, breathing the same air, and smelling the same fish curry that Gary just heated up in the breakroom microwave, but you see, that’s wrong. Dead wrong.

For proof, I present World of Warcraft.

That’s right, World of Warcraft.

The game where Guild Leaders coordinate forty people to run an eight hour raid with one goal: clear the raid without dying. This involves scheduling, knowing all the strengths and weaknesses of each individual player, knowing how well they work together, and fostering a sense of community all within a digital, mostly text based medium. Rapport and trust has to be established within the guild, and interviews are held for people wanting to get into the guild, where it would be determined if a new player is a good fit, both culturally and skillswise.

In a robust guild, you’re not just Orak, Troll Warrior. No, you are Orak, Troll Warrior of <Nightmare Kingdoms>. There is a sense of community, of fellowship, of purpose. Most guilds are fun places, but growth and goal oriented. Sound familiar? Yeah? When it comes time to work, you work. Hard.

This can be done in a remote Contact Center. Quite easily.

The arguments for remote work are many, and we won’t be covering them here as it’s not relevant to our main goal, but if you don’t believe me, or want to read further on how World of Warcraft and other massive online games were a testing ground for remote work culture, there will be a couple of links in the Resources section at the end of this book.

We could get into AI, chatbots, automatic scheduling, and all that jazz. Some of it’s really good, most of it is really bad. I have friends at some big AI companies, so we’ll leave it at that.

I have always preferred human beings answering the phones and chats as opposed to computers, but that’s me. You may want that. The best AI companies I have seen (in no particular order) are Yellow.ai, Replicant, and Level.ai. Have at ‘em, tell them David says hi. My word of caution is this, people calling into Trades Contact Centers are normally calling while in panic mode, and want to speak with a human who has empathy and will reassure them that help is on the way.

There is some really good speech analytic software out there, and then agent assist software like what Balto or ProcedureFlow offer. Great stuff, and very helpful, but not necessary to have.

Once you have your computers, phone system, and CRM all set up and ready to go, and your communications platform rockin’ and rollin', set up a Knowledge Base with FAQs, policies, procedures, scripts, everything. This can be just a Google Sheet with hyperlinks, or it can be an elaborate masterpiece of web design. I opted for an elaborately designed Google Sheet. It was quick to set up, easy to edit, and even easier to share. However you do it, a knowledge base is essential.

LinkTree is another helpful site. Put all or your most used sites on a list, in order of use, and make it the home page of every station.

Ours looks like this:

RH CC LinkTree: (abbr are neat)

ServiceTitan


Discord


Outlook


Knowledge Base


Company Directory


Company Website


So on and so forth

So, let’s recap what you’ll need:

Desks and Cubicles


Computers, Keyboards, Mice


USB headsets


CRM and Phone System


Email


Communications Platform


Knowledge Base


LinkTree


Employees (see the next chapter!)