Earphones and headsets were always a staple for contact centres, and the pandemic has pushed demand to new heights.
Companies are eager to equip their WFH agents with durable, comfortable headsets that can last through an indefinite remote working period. Also, headsets are subject to natural wear and tear, seeing organic recurring demand over the years. But did you know that you can minimise headset-related spends and efforts by following a set of simple best practices? Here is our failproof guide for 2021.
Why Do You Need to Follow Headset Management Best Practices?
Contact centres often make the mistake of deprioritising headset management, expecting IT to take ownership. But this adds to operational overheads and brings down the total bottom line.
- Headsets are treated as easily replaceable, abandoned by agents and submitted to IT in heaps
- Mishandling of headsets brings down audio quality and hinders agent performance
- The hassle of availing warranty services propels companies to buy cheaper variants
- Devices are prone to theft, in the absence of proper tracking and accountability
- Contact centres miss out on useful device analytics without headset management
5 Best Practices for Managing Headsets in Your Contact Centre
- Bring headset under a services SLA: Instead of IT taking complete ownership, create a services model where IT “leases out” a specific amount of headset resources to the contact centre for a given time. This encourages contact centres to stay in-budget, and ensure that the devices aren’t misused
- Adopt theft deterrence measures: Large contact centres employing several shifts of agents sharing the same equipment can struggle with device theft. Training is an effective pre-emptive measure, but you can also build a mounting platform where the headset jack is fastened using screws. Another measure for theft deterrence is to provide employees with a headset allowance so that they can purchase their own device
- Training agents in headset hygiene: While contact centres typically train their agents on using headsets, maintenance and hygiene is a different story. Agents should know how to clean the equipment at the end of a shift, the best way to mount them, and how to protect it from water damage or humidity
- Treat headset management as an opex: When you opt for all-out headset purchases, intending to replace them after sufficient wear- and-tear instead of going in for warranty services, maintenance costs are swept under the rug. It is smarter to splurge on an expensive variant that helps agents stay productive, diving into a dedicated opex fund for repairs, instead of constantly replacing them with cheap, low-quality headsets
- Match agents with the right headset: A lot of the wear-and-tear can be traced back to an essential dissonance between the agent’s needs and the headset’s capabilities. For instance, an employee who frequently needs to move between desks and helps colleagues will also tug on a wired headset, reducing its lifespan
A Final #ProTip
Check with your device vendor if there is a unified device management platform you can use to monitor headset adoption, roll out firmware updates, and anticipate repairs.
