How to Advance Your Career in a Contact Center

The unwritten rules

Contact center jobs offer excellent career paths in an in-demand service sector. Though technology is continually advancing, customers prefer phone or voice as their primary customer service channel. In a survey conducted by Microsoft, it was found that 44% of people prefer this – almost double those who expressed a preference for other communication channels.

In your call center job, you thrive in the environment of teams and structure, motivated by KPIs, commissions, and other incentives. However, though career centers offer some great routes to management, knowing how to accelerate your career advancement can be difficult.

In this article, you’ll discover how can you carve a rewarding and fast-track future in contact center jobs.

Be an Ideal Employee

In any job, there are three things every good employee must be:

• Punctual
• Reliable
• Trustworthy

These are the three golden rules to stand by. They will form the firm foundation on which you can build a rewarding career.

Stick to the Policy

A call center environment succeeds on structure and policy. It’s there to support you.

Handle calls in line with policy. Operate within set procedures, demonstrating your ability to comply and achieve your targets. Never take shortcuts.

Use targets and KPIs to your advantage – challenge yourself to go above and beyond the goals that management have set.

Master Your Role First

It’s tempting to focus on the next rung on the ladder, but to reach it you must master your footing first.

You’ll be much more likely to be considered for development and offered a promotion when you’ve laid the foundations and excelled in your current role. Developing excellent skills and mastering what you do now will serve you very well throughout your career.

Have Passion

When you’re passionate about something, you ooze enthusiasm and care for what you do.

Demonstrate your passion by researching updates in your field, in the news or within company press releases. Show focus and commitment in team meetings, be motivating toward others, and ask questions that show your desire to learn and progress.

Your passion will drive you towards stretching goals. Management will identify your dedication and enthusiasm and help you reach them.

Be Healthily Competitive

Let’s pinpoint this: don’t tread on your colleagues’ toes. This will go heavily against you. Call centers are workplaces that need individuals to strive to reach their personal goals while helping the team achieve its collective goal.

Of course, some healthy competition amongst your peers will assist you in smashing your targets and incentives both personally and as a team effort. Make it enjoyable, motivating, and inspiring.

Cultivate Good Working Relationships

Nurture the professional relationships you have with your colleagues. You may be focused on self-development, but it’s crucial you work well in a team too.

Hit targets together, learn from each other, and help each other. Support within the ranks will be recognized by management, and help you gain the right leadership skills needed for management positions in contact centers.

Show Initiative

Be self-aware of your progress and how you perform, and ask for extra mentoring in those skills in which you are weakest.

Sit down with your supervisor and ask if there are any training and development programs that you could enroll on. Let them know you’re interested in moving forward.

If there’s a secondment going, consider applying for it to increase your knowledge within another department.

Consider External Qualifications

Further to showing initiative, if you feel you’ve mastered your current role and absorbed and acted upon all feedback given, you should consider an external qualification that will enhance your skills and expertise.

Using your own free time to learn outside of work (many courses are available online) will be viewed as showing your determination and commitment, and help you to excel in your current role as you boost your career opportunities.

Behave on Social Media

Don’t spoil your skills and passion with a controversial (public) personal life. You’re considered a representative of your company. If you’re expressing controversial, uncomfortable, or indiscriminatory material in any way, your chances of advancement are likely to be floored.

Detox your social media. Connect with those you can learn from professionally, and act positively and respectfully to create a strong professional identity in your workplace.

Develop the Will to Succeed

Two of the critical qualities that management look for when promoting within a contact center are will and skill. A skill can be learned, but will cannot.

There have been many excellent call center agents who have failed to advance to their potential because they have lacked the willpower to succeed. Without will, there is nothing management can do to help them go further.

Summing Up

You are in charge of your own destiny. You have a choice in how your career progresses. In contact centers, you’re surrounded by opportunity and the people to help you get there – but the buck stops with you.

If you feel like you need to branch our further, contact Everest now. We’ll show you the way to a successful career.