Categories: Business

What Does It Take To Work In A Call Center?

If you want a job with plenty of opportunity for growth and a steady paycheck, working in a call center could be an excellent option. If you’re passionate about giving others a positive customer experience, pursuing a job as a support agent could be an excellent way for you to help others while making a good hourly wage, too. Once you’re working in a call center, your employer will most likely use call center QA software in order to monitor and assess how you’re doing in your new role.

These quality assurance platforms, such as the one developed by Bright Pattern, help companies offer guidance and ensure that each support agent is properly following established protocol and best practices. So, what does it take to actually get a job in a call center? Read on to learn about just a few of the qualifications you’ll need to meet in order to work in an enterprise-level call center.

IMAGE: PEXELS

Call Center Agent Education Requirements

Like many other jobs, in order to get work as a call center support agent, you’re going to need to meet some basic educational requirements. While most call center roles only require a high school diploma or equivalent, depending on the company you may also need to have graduated from college. This requirement usually varies from industry to industry, with a college degree being more important if the company you’re working for has a more technical product.

Customer Service Skills

It should go without saying that you need to be a great people person if you want to excel as a call center agent. Communication skills are a must since you’ll often be talking to customers over the phone or live chatting with them online. In these situations, you need to be able to practice active listening skills and use a professional voice when speaking verbally or writing responses.

Sometimes, an angry or frustrated customer will be on the other line, in which case you may need to diffuse the situation or ask clarifying questions to get to the bottom of an issue. All of these attributes need to be in service of your company’s overall goal, whether that’s selling a product, processing customer returns, or troubleshooting technological issues with a product or piece of software.

Technological Skills

Working in a call center, you’ll need to be able to use technology and learn new software platforms. This is because, in addition to using a phone or computer to complete support requests, you’ll also be using a call center software dashboard that helps you perform your work more efficiently.

Call center software offers powerful tools for multitasking and looking up appropriate information in a knowledge base, making it much easier to do your job once you’ve mastered the platform. You’ll also want to be a fast typer with a high level of accuracy since your productivity will sometimes be determined by time management and how quickly you can field different support requests.

Criminal Background Check

Like many other roles, you may be required to pass a criminal background check in order to work in a call center. In some situations, a background check is only used to make sure you didn’t lie on your job application, so if you do have a felony or misdemeanor on your criminal record, make sure that you tell the truth when applying.

Some of the most common felonies include drug abuse, disorderly conduct, and vandalism. Depending on how severe the crime was and when it was committed, you may not rule yourself out of a job just by disclosing that you have a felony conviction. Remember to be honest on your application and explain the situation calmly and you may still have a future career in a call center.

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