Just like any other business, a call center code of ethics is critical to ensuring the best possible work environment. When it comes to a poor call center environment, ethics issues could be affecting your bottom line.

Learning to recognizing possible vulnerabilities helps you fix problems before they do irreparable harm to your business. After all, your call center employees’ performance is often what decides whether a customer stays or not.

Lack Of Training

A common issue with a call center code of ethics is a lack of training. This is especially true when you outsource your employees. Improper training can easily result in employees treating customers poorly. Without proper training, they might give wrong information or lose their temper easily.

It’s vital to give every employee the proper training. This helps them learn how to talk to customers, where to find the information they need and how to keep customer information secure.

Trying To Get Ahead

Some businesses have a performance bonus or pay based on the number of calls handled per day. This can often create a major code of ethics vulnerability. In order to perform better, some employees may ask friends and family to call in with fake calls. Or, they reach out to people on their list outside of standard hours.

This business model also creates another issue – getting aggressive with customers. For instance, if someone wants to cancel their service, the call center representative might push and frustrate the customer.

However, this hurts your company’s bottom line. It ruins your customer service reputation. And, if you’re rewarding the behavior, you might lose other employees who are following the rules.

Pushing Employees Too Hard

In a busy call center environment, many employees feel like they have no rights. If a call is too short or takes too long, they’re penalized. They even have timed bathroom breaks in some places. Pushing employees to perform better is okay, but pushing them too hard is unethical. Asking employees to work longer hours, especially if you’re paying them accordingly might let you handle more calls, but eventually, it catches up with you.

Employees deserve to be treated ethically. As part of your code of ethics, include how people should be treated. If management or anyone else is pushing employees too hard, it needs to be reported to your company’s ethics hotline.

Otherwise, you’re at a high risk of poor customer service and losing great employees. With the time and money put into training employees, you can’t afford a high turnover rate.

Taking Advantage Of Callers

Call centers have a reputation as a tough place to work, but they don’t need to. Taking advantage of callers should definitely be against your call center code of ethics. You don’t want employees to trick callers into buying services they don’t want or need just to boost their own numbers.

By creating a clear code of ethics and enforcing it, you can create a better call center environment. Whether it’s employees treating each unethically or employees treating callers unethically, incorporate an ethics hotline so employees can report issues before they damage your business.