CSR Downtime

[bfoster]

What are your best practices for what your CSRs do when they are not on the phones? Thanks so much for your thoughts!

[jmoutray · Accepted solution]

I have my girls hand write thank you cards, classify calls, send GLSA reviews, update campaigns/age of equipment, etc. Hope this helps! 

[jamied · Accepted solution]

Outbound calling, clearing abandoned calls, taking courses in the academy.

[bfoster · Accepted solution]

Taking courses in the academy...great idea.

[asnow · Accepted solution]

Hi! Thanks for asking this question! When CSRs are not taking inbound calls, they should be making outbound calls to book additional appointments to help you meet your desired number of booked jobs. Outbound calls can include happy calls, follow up calls, idle accounts, recurring services, and expired membership calls, etc. We did a great outbound call webinar a few months ago, and added these tips to our contractor playbook linked here. 

In addition to outbound calling, use the strengths of your CSRs to assist with other office tasks: permits, warranties, rebates, referrals, financing, or other office duties that will help them cross-train and learn more workflows in the office. 

Also, I LOVE having CSRs do ride-alongs with technicians to experience a service call/ maintenance call, etc. It's a great learning experience, and provides industry context for the CSR. 

[david-powers · Accepted solution]

Hand write thank you cards, train and role-play, and listen to and score their own calls.

[KhianaKlatt · Accepted solution]

As a CSR my office manager gives me a variety of tasks: reclassifying calls, listening to old calls to gain more experience, taking courses in the training academy, listen to podcasts or videos or webinars for training, explore the ST community pages, inventory, uploading receipts into Quickbooks and filing them, registering customer's warranties, ordering parts, doing follow up calls for recurring services, cleaning/tidying of the office, research what brands/products we sell to learn more about them, etc. They always have many tasks to help keep me busy!

[david-powers · Accepted solution]

Hand write thank you cards, train and role-play, and listen to and score their own calls.

[bfoster]

David, "listen to and score their own calls" that is a great that I have not that of before.  This will be great for them to bring to their coaching meetings.  Thanks for that feedback!

[cassiepo]

We dont use "filler" work for them. Dont get me wrong, we used to! Now- if the phone isnt ringing, we are outbounding. CSRs are expected to make a minimum of 50 outbounds a day unless the inbound call flow proves they didnt have time to do that. We spend a lot of time in the opposite month (6 months ago). So for May, we are talking to the customers we saw in November. 

[LeonWright]

We have ours work on A/R, reclassify calls, and plow through the follow ups section.  

[bbiswell]

I have my CSR's calling customers who need service, doing on-line learning, cleaning etc. 

[mel-deyto]

If you use ServiceTitan Phones Pro, the PowerDialer feature can help reduce idle time by automatically dialing from a list of targeted customer numbers in an outbound campaign whenever the CSR is not on an inbound call.  

[bfoster]

@mel-deyto that is something that I have never looked into.  Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

[asnow · Accepted solution]

Hi! Thanks for asking this question! When CSRs are not taking inbound calls, they should be making outbound calls to book additional appointments to help you meet your desired number of booked jobs. Outbound calls can include happy calls, follow up calls, idle accounts, recurring services, and expired membership calls, etc. We did a great outbound call webinar a few months ago, and added these tips to our contractor playbook linked here. 

In addition to outbound calling, use the strengths of your CSRs to assist with other office tasks: permits, warranties, rebates, referrals, financing, or other office duties that will help them cross-train and learn more workflows in the office. 

Also, I LOVE having CSRs do ride-alongs with technicians to experience a service call/ maintenance call, etc. It's a great learning experience, and provides industry context for the CSR.