Top 10 Call Center Challenges in 2024:
Explained & Solved

Call centers are still one of the best ways for customers to reach businesses today, which is why there are more than 7,500 of them today in the US alone. However, as the market grows, so do the biggest call center challenges.

That’s why today, we’ll guide you through the top 10 biggest call center issues and show you how to overcome them. Keep reading to learn more!

Key Takeaways: 

1. Some of the biggest call center challenges are connected to complex legislation, ensuring employee productivity, and satisfying customer demands.
2. Cloud-based solutions, software integrations, and powerful automation tools are able to lower the demands placed on employees and improve productivity.
3. Each call center issue requires careful consideration and strategic planning to effectively address and ensure the desired positive effect.

Top 10 Biggest Call Center Issues & How to Solve Them

As promised, we’re about to discuss the most important and common call center issues businesses face. However, remember that every company is different. You may easily handle some of these contact center challenges and struggle with others.

While reading this article, be honest with yourself and evaluate your call center processes critically. It’s better to find issues earlier and work on fixing them than to be caught unprepared and let your business suffer.

Challenge #1: Complex TCPA Compliance

Since their inception in the 1960s, call centers remained unregulated for 30 long years. However, that all changed in 1991 with the US Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which opened the door for further regulation and the need for call and SMS compliance.

Under the threat of legal penalties, fines, blacklists, and the poor brand reputation that comes with them, these laws require call centers to act in a responsible and non-exploitative way towards customers.

Solution:

If call centers want to ensure their business continuity without the risk of suffering legal consequences, they need to make a significant effort to comply with relevant local and international regulations. You can contribute to these efforts in several ways.

• Invest in compliance software,
• Schedule regular compliance training,
• Employ a lawyer for necessary consulting,
• Leverage call center monitoring tools to evaluate conduct.

Challenge #2: Agent Burnout & Attrition

Thanks to quota requirements, demanding work hours, and a never-ending supply of angry and dissatisfied customers, call center agents’ work is possibly one of the most stressful within the telco industry. 

As a result, 67% of agents are close to burnout at any given time. And that’s a problem because disengaged employees are 17% less productive, 15% less profitable, and have 35%  higher absenteeism, which can cost you $20,000 to $100,000 in salaries.

Solution:

If companies want to hold onto their best employees while keeping recruitment and separation costs low, they need to ensure that they keep their employees relatively stress-free and happy. You can contribute to these efforts in several ways.

• Foster a supportive work environment,
• Offer career development opportunities,
• Employ flexible scheduling and automation tools,
• Invest in comprehensive, tailored training programs.

Challenge #3: Evolving Customer Expectations

With globally plummeting attention spans and a growing number of commercially viable alternatives, it should come as no surprise that companies need to continually improve their customer experiences to prevent shrinking customer bases.

According to McKinsey, 71% of customers expect tailored customer service, and 76% of those feel frustrated when they don’t receive it. This often leads to lower purchases, customer churn, and reduced customer lifetime value.

Solution:

Companies that want to both attract new customers and retain satisfied clients need to properly understand their prospects’ expectations and tweak their operations accordingly. You can contribute to these efforts in several ways.

• Remove friction with multichannel contact options,
• Speed up response time with chatbots and automation,
• Personalize experiences with synchronized data from CRMs,
• Continue developing your practices based on customer feedback.

Challenge #4: Low Contact Rates

Most call centers employ both inbound and outbound tactics to maintain customer happiness and convert new prospects. And since the average conversion rate of a call is only around 2%, companies increase their odds of success by making more calls.

However, these efforts are often held back by various factors, including incorrect client information, poor timing, limited calling capabilities, too many repetitive tasks, small local customer pools, and more. 

Solution:

Often, the difference between a call center struggling with low contact rates and a bustling business with sufficient contacts and conversion is just a question of the correct tools. You can address this issue in several ways.

• Leverage advanced dialers to improve call efficiency,
• Synchronize your call center with CRM integrations,
• Utilize automatic or manual time-zone scheduling,
• Take advantage of local and international numbers for more contacts.

Challenge #5: Scaling Difficulties

Growth is often the highest priority for call centers. As companies mature, they organically begin taking on more customers at a rapid pace, which can strain their resources, lead to poor experiences, and limit their expansion.

This is a significant issue, as it contributes to customer churn, falling revenue, potential lay-offs, and a generally stressful working environment with high levels of agent burnout and attrition.

Solution:

Preparation is key when it comes to efficiently expanding your call center’s inbound and outbound operations alike. Therefore, you should plan ahead and onboard tools that will grow alongside you. This can include several solutions.

• Implement cloud-based call center solutions,
• Onboard workforce management tools to simplify processes,
• Invest in scalable IT infrastructure to remove friction and stress,
• Hire additional agents ahead of time or outsource necessary tasks.

Challenge #6: Inefficient Processes

Inefficient processes are some of the most frequent and damaging call center issues. They are particularly common in growing operations, where smaller teams grow far too fast and find themselves unable to make heads or tails of their daily tasks.

This can contribute to general workplace confusion, low productivity, agent frustration, burnout, poor customer experiences, churn, shrinking revenue streams, and many more undesirable consequences.

Solution:

The first step to increasing your call center productivity is acknowledging the issue and starting to reorganize teams and change workflows. Although it may take some time to adjust, the benefit far outweighs the investment. Here are a few things you can try.

• Carry out regular process audits to discover inefficiencies,
• Incorporate LEAN methodologies into your call center processes,
• Leverage automation tools to remove time-consuming, repetitive tasks,
• Foster a culture that values efficiency and rewards proactive improvement.

Challenge #7: Poor Data Management

Data silos are usually the first contact center challenge people think of when discussing information. However, the issue is far more complex than you might think. Getting more data and using the information you have effectively is equally important.

If you’re unable to maintain a good flow of relevant data to drive decisions and can’t communicate it efficiently to other departments, it can lead to poor strategy-making, slow and unreliable operations, and poor service, with all the effects those hold.

Solution:

The best way to prevent data-related call center problems is to develop a strategy and deploy a centralized solution that can contain, evaluate, and share relevant information with other tools and stakeholders. You can do this in one of several ways.

• Train your employees to work with data and tools efficiently,
• Implement data governance policies to maintain data quality,
• Invest in a comprehensive data management system, like a CRM,
• Leverage call center Analytics tools for real-time insights into operations.

Challenge #8: Inadequate Training & Development

Often, the quality and skills of your employees can outweigh the limitations of a small team. Unfortunately, agent training is frequently overlooked, which is a significant outbound call center issue, as 55% of sales employees lack the skills to succeed.

Agents struggling with technical and people skills can contribute to lower productivity, more mistakes, workplace stress, low customer satisfaction scores, and high staff turnover rates. 

Solution:

Develop comprehensive training programs and offer ongoing development opportunities through workshops and e-learning platforms. Implement mentorship programs to ensure agents are prepared and motivated to deliver excellent service.

• Invest in comprehensive and targeted training initiatives,
• Purchase subscriptions for e-learning platforms to save on coaches,
• Implement mentorship programs where skilled agents teach new hires,
• Offer ongoing development opportunities and reward personal initiative.

Challenge #9: Technology Integration Challenges

As mentioned in a previous section, if you want to keep up with your customer’s demands, you need to stay on the cutting edge of technology to deliver the best experiences. But this can be particularly difficult if you’re using a legacy system.

Integrating new solutions into existing wired call centers is a slow process that can cause disruptions, data inconsistencies, agent and customer frustration, poor experiences, as well as a hefty IT/engineering bill. 

Solution:

Avoiding technical issues is a two-step process. First, you need to make sure you choose a platform that can support your operations for years to come. And second, you need to keep people who can actually work with it on retainer. This can involve…

• Implement new solutions in phases to effectively address issues,
• Consider a scalable and modular cloud-based platform over a PBX,
• Train all employees to work with new solutions to prevent problems,
• Choose a platform with good tech support or hire in-house engineers.

Challenge #10: High Operational Costs

Finally, the call center challenge every business can relate to. High operational costs that strain budgets, affect profit margins and limit investment opportunities in other areas cost you more than just money.

Salaries, utilities, infrastructure, and other costs can quickly escalate if not properly managed, leading to team downsizing, delayed technology upgrades, lower service quality, and worse overall performance.

Solution: 

Call center success requires careful cost management and ensuring you invest enough money to stay competitively viable while not unnecessarily cutting into your business’ margins. There are several ways to solve this issue.

• Adopt cloud-based solutions to lower infrastructure costs,
• Automate unnecessary and repetitive tasks to boost productivity,
• Implement remote work and BYOD policies to save on local offices,
• Audit your spending and use analytics to discover saving opportunities.

Conclusion

As you’ve seen, the call center challenges discussed in this article should not be underestimated, as they can affect nearly every aspect of your business. Save yourself the trouble and ensure you stay on top of your game by letting CloudTalk help you.