IID customer service contact centers handle a million calls a year
IMPERIAL — With about 1 million phone calls sent and received in 2017, the employees at Imperial Irrigation District’s customer service contact centers are no strangers to near constant telephonic interactions with their customers.
According to Daniel Hurtado, IID customer service supervisor, the call centers receive about 700,000 inbound calls per year, or an average of about 58,000 calls per month. About 50 percent of these calls are answered directly by contact center agents, with the rest being handled by the automated phone system.
Additionally, the employees make about 300,000 more outbound calls to customers each year, and also interact through social media and via email.
While the volume of calls is substantial, Hurtado said his employees are trained to handle each call with courtesy and respect, to keep wait times as limited as possible — the aim is less than 60 seconds — and to aim for each call to be concluded successfully within an average of about three minutes.
“We do strive for three minutes, but there are calls that are shorter than that and calls that last longer, and we do have many different key performance factors set in place to try to provide the best customer experience possible,” Hurtado said. “I think as far as customer service, we have very good staff that work for us here at the district. Our folks, we really do take pride in our work, and we try to give our best at all times to our customers in all situations. We are always there for them — just a call away [or] a walk-in away.”
In the call center at the main IID campus at 333 E Barioni Blvd., in Imperial, there are usually about 27 employees on staff during regular business hours to conduct over-the-phone business with customers, Hurtado said.
Antonio Morales, a customer account and service representative, has been working at the main call center for the past year, and said he fields up to 160 calls during a regular nine-hour shift.
“Every day is different,” Morales told Imperial Valley Press last week during a tour of the call center. “Every customer is different. You’ve got different situations. It’s nice that you can help out the customers.”
Morales said he greatly enjoys helping underprivileged people find ways to pay for their electrical bills during the summer months when the use of electricity is at its peak.
“You’ve got customers who have a hard time paying a high bill because of the usage of [air-conditioning] in the environment we live in,” he said. “It drives customers’ bills up and they [may] have a challenge [paying], but it is nice that they call us and reach out to us, and we can give them extensions and work with them. We understand the situation and how hard it is. That is the gratifying part of this job, when you are helping someone out.”
Sometimes, Morales and his fellow employees are on the receiving end of frustrated customers who voice their displeasure in a sometimes angry fashion.
“Having to deal with irate customers” is the most difficult part of the job, Morales said. “You’ve got to find a way to empathize with them — how to just sympathize and provide a solution. They are calling for a solution, and when they are upset — finding a way to calm them down, address the situation and make them know you are here to help them out … that is probably the most challenging.”
Morales said the best way to handle such high-stress situation is to “just listen,” he said. “Find out what the problem is and then advise them that you are going to take care of them. That is why you are here.”
Morales said it is important not to take such interactions personally.
“They don’t know you,” he said. “You are the representative of the company and they are upset. You are going to get sometimes the blunt end of the customers being irate, and you’ve just got to find a way to calm them down.”
Training key
Hurtado, who has been in his position at IID for the past 12 years, said the employees are trained to handle such interactions, which are a minority of phone calls received.
“As far as our training program, we do try to provide our service representatives with all different tools available to them to diffuse customer situations,” he said. “I think what the biggest thing is to provide them with all the solutions that are available to our customers. It is our job to provide them the best solution possible to best fit their account and their needs. Especially now that we are in summer time with some of our higher bills, there are services that we can provide … and we can work with them to give them what is best available to them.”
The mantra for the call representatives is to stay positive no matter what happens on the other end of the line, Hurtado said.
“Smile through your voice. That does say a lot.”
The summer represents one of the busiest times of the year for the call center, Hurtado said, adding that the day after Labor Day experiences of the highest volumes of calls for the year. Other than that, Mondays are generally the busiest days year round.
“Mondays are very busy for us due to the weekends,” he said.
“We do have things in place for our customers on Monday to help streamline their service [and lessen] customer wait times. We try to do the best we can, especially on Mondays and days after holidays, which are very peak for us.”
Typically, late winter and early spring will see a drop in the volume of customer interactions, Hurtado said, which allows time for intensive training to take place.
“As far as call volume, there are not as many calls as in the summer, so we do try to use that time to focus on training and staff events — learning new items and different things so we can continue to help our customers,” he said.
New employees are trained for a minimum of 120 hours when they are hired, with one week in a classroom setting and another two weeks being shadowed by a supervisor while fielding phone calls. Calls also are monitored for training and quality assurance. Further training is conducted throughout the year.
In addition to routine customer interactions, the focus of the training is to provide the patience necessary to successfully interact with an irate customer, Hurtado said.
“Patience is key and staff understands that most of the time the customer is not mad at them per se, it is just more focused on the situation and not really directed at the staff or the individual,” he said. “We have things that can help. Our job at times is difficult, but we do the best to diffuse and offer our customers different things. It is not personal at the agent.”
Another key to success is teamwork, Hurtado said.
“I would say we have tight-knit group here because teamwork is key,” he said. “We rely on the person next to us. We all are [only] as good as our fellow employees. We just cannot do it on our own.”
Disaster preparedness
While call volume can be large on a typical business day, the number of customer interactions skyrockets during times of emergency such as power outages due to storms or natural disasters, Hurtado said.
“Disaster recovery is very important for us,” he said. “We do have afterhours staff available at times to handle those power outages, power emergencies, disaster recovery situations, and we do have protocol in place to bring in more staff when needed so that we can handle those different events, whether it be a storm or a major disaster. We are a public agency and that is our responsibility.”
The call center continues to operate even in the event of a widespread power outage because of onsite electrical generator that is turned on when needed, Hurtado said.