Excellent time management is crucial for efficient call center operation and high agent productivity. This, in turn, helps you provide top-notch customer service. However, managing time in a customer support center can be difficult due to unpredictable call volumes, agent burnout, and other factors. So how do you improve time management for call center agents? In this document, we’ll share 12 smart tips to improve time management for call center agents and three reasons why it’s important. We’ll also introduce a powerful time management software for call center agents. Original Blog: https://biz30.timedoctor.com/time-management-for-call-center-agents/

1. 10 Amazing Benefits of
Time Management
Source: Time Doctor’s Blog - “12 Tips to Improve Time Management for Call Center Agents”
12 Tips to Improve Time Management for Call Center Agents

2. Why Time Management is important?
However, managing time in a customer support
center can be difficult due to unpredictable call
volumes, agent burnout and other factors
1
Excellent time management is crucial for efficient call
center operations and high agent productivity. This in
turn helps you provide top notch customer service.
2
Here are the 12 smart tips to improve time
management for call center agents.

3. 1. Prioritize tasks in the To-do list
Excellent project time management leads to
efficient use of one’s time.
1
2
Coach your customer service agents to prioritize
tasks based on their importance and urgency.
You can ask your agents to take up the tickets in
chronological order. This way you can ensure that
customers who approach you with issues don’t wait
for a solution.
3
You can also ask agents to solve premium
customers tickets before others. This is to ensure
high satisfaction levels for loyal customers.
Sometimes your agent may not be able to achieve their
daily targets. This could be because they’re prioritizing
tasks in their to-do list incorrectly.
So, even if you work longer, you will still
have time to finish it while remaining calm.

4. 2. Prevent Overworking
Look out for agents who regularly take up
additional responsibilities and end up working
for long hours.
Establish guidelines regarding when tasks can be
passed on among employees and ensure such
agreements happen with your knowledge.
This way, you can spot if an agent is overworking
and reassign tasks to prevent it.
Taking on more tasks can seem like the agent is being helpful.
But in reality, they can be overworking or burning themselves
out, which can lead to poor agent performance and low job
satisfaction at some point.

5. 3. Set Achievable Targets
To avoid that, you need to train agents to set SMART (Specific,
Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound) goals.
This goal-setting methodology ensures that the agent gets a
clearer picture of their targets and helps them mentally prepare
for work.
How to solve this?
At times, your customer service agents may fail to estimate
their targets correctly and end up setting unrealistic goals.
This could lead to burnout, poor self-image, and low agent
satisfaction.

6. 4. Delegate Easy Calls and Tasks
Due to workload management issues, some
agents may end up getting a disproportionate
amount of work.
1
2
You need to see that agent you’re delegating has the capacity to
complete the task perfectly. You can also utilize this opportunity
to train a talented newly hired agent
Delegate tasks to others. Divide the work among agents fairly, so
that no one in the team stresses out.
3
Besides attending incoming calls, a senior agent may also need
to conduct a training session. You can redirect some phone calls
to a new agent and free some space for the senior agent.
This way, you can
prevent agent burnout
and also ensure a
high-quality customer
experience.

7. 5. Monitor How an Agent Spends Time
Monitoring employee time can help you get insights into employee productivity.
To monitor employee time usage, you can track KPIs like:
The percentage of
customer issues
resolved in the first call.
The average amount of
time required to manage
an inbound call from
beginning to the end.
The longest time a
customer was put on
wait before
attending the call.
Average Handle Time
(AHT)
Longest Hold Time
Rate
First Call Resolution
(FCR) Service Level
The percent of the KPI
goals a call center
meets during a
particular time period.
Time tracking lets you know how
long a customer service agent
takes to go through the training
modules, solve a customer issue
and other non-call activities.These
metrics and data can give insights
into agent productivity and aid call
center performance management.

8. According to a 2020 study, the tiring effect of commuting
affects agent performance negatively. It also reported that
agent satisfaction decreases with increasing commute time.
6. Facilitate a Flexible Work Scheduling
Hybrid
Work Model
Reduce the commute time for
employees by adopting a
hybrid work model. It allows
agents to work from home and
office.
Flexible work systems let
them manage their work and
personal life without stress.
As a result these modern
systems can build a relaxed
work environment that can
increase job satisfaction and
agent productivity over the
long run.
Additionally, commuting
takes amount of time from
agents day and by
avoiding it, they can
incorporate other
important tasks into their
schedule.

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7. Develop a Time and Attendance Policy
Regulate the time a customer service agent spends
coming in via social media by specifying a time
limit.
1
2
Ask customer service agents to track and control
the time they spend on customer phone calls.
Now, let’s look at the essential
processes of project time
management.
Creating a clear attendance and time use policy can
help set the right expectations among your agents.
3
Ask your team not to spend more than 10 minutes on
customer call. If the issue is unresolved, they can
transfer the call to their center supervisor.
4
Your attendance policy needs to clarify log in
and log out times, as well as meal breaks to
show agents how to manage their work time.

10. 8. Develop a Time and Attendance Policy
The customer service industry is growing quickly, and their technology is also improving to
accommodate different demands. Today, there are several tools that help with call center
management, task automation, customer interaction optimization, and more.
Your goals need to be realistic and
achievable. You can set your goals using the
SMART method.
Urgent Not Urgent
Not Important
Do
Do these tasks right
away
Delete
Set these aside to do
later or eliminate them.
Computer Telephony
Integration
01
● Shows customer caller information like phone
number, previous tickets, etc on the computer screen.
● This saves the time agents would otherwise spend
asking customers basic details.
Automatic Call
Distribution
02
Workforce Management
04
● Recognizes calls and routes them to appropriate
agents.
● For a call center receiving high phone call volumes,
this device can improve customer experience and
save time
●
●
03
● Record calls and screen activity to monitor agent and
customer interaction.
● You can also observe recorded calls to train agents
to improve their communication skills and customer
service.
Call Recording Tool
● Forecast the number of agents you may need to
achieve call center service level goals.
● You can plan staffing and efficiently carry out
center workforce management based on this tool.
Chatbots
05
● An Al (Artificial Intelligence) based software that
conducts online conversations via text or text to
speech.
Customer Self Service
Portals
06
● A knowledge base that provides answers to
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).

11. 9. Focus on Quality Management
A work breakdown structure
(WBS) is a project management
chart that visually organizes tasks
and sub-tasks in a project. WBSs
minimize time wastage when
completing objectives and
demarcates milestones to
measure progress.
You can get an insight into an agent’s performance and
identify their weak spots using time management.
Identify weak spots using time management
You can get an insight into an agent’s performance and
identify their weak spots using time management.
Planning can improve your ability to
identify priorities.
A supervisor can follow the amount of time an agent takes to
complete a task and compare it to the average time all other
agents take.
Compare average time for tasks
If a newly hired agent takes longer than others to complete ACW
(After Call Work). You can control this by conducting training
before onboarding.
Conduct Training

12. Successful call center time management is all about
empowering agents to complete their tasks on time without
taking any undue stress.
10. Promote Work life balance
This activates the shipment process.
The customer receives the product.
The order is closed.
T
Want to determine how long it should take to
complete each activity.
Accounting for work capacity and delegating
tasks efficiently will help boost quality
management and work productivity.
Schedule control involves regularly updating
the project status and following up with
expected deliverables.
It’s a crucial time management skill that
includes recognizing issues and addressing
them to ensure that you’re meeting project
objectives and timelines.
The schedule plan requires revisions throughout
the project’s lifecycle. Regular revisions based on
current progress reports streamlines project
activities and resource allocation.
Pro Tip: Getting feedback from various
project team members and stakeholders
can help improve the efficiency of the
project time management process.
When agents wrap up their
work at the right time, it
gives them enough time to
spend on personal
commitments.
They can use this time to
improve their health,
develop new skills, spend
time with family or on other
non-work activities.
This may help them
develop a healthy
lifestyle and have a
great work-life balance
while increasing
employee
engagement.
Time for
personal commitments
Improves
health and overall well
being

13. 11. Take Regular Breaks
Create a time management strategy to
meet each goal.
Your goals need to be realistic and
achievable. You can set your goals using the
SMART method.
However, your goals need to realistic and
achievable. This means your goals should be
Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant
and Timely.
Urgent Not Urgent
Not Important
Do
Do these tasks right
away
Delete
Set these aside to do
later or eliminate them.
Social media, mobile phones, and gossip are
common distractions at work.
Practice effective time management skills by
eliminating or at least minimizing these distractions.
You can allot a fixed time to scroll through your social
media feed or join watercooler conversations.

14. It’s essential to train your agents to concentrate only
on a single task at a time and avoid multitasking.
Although multitasking seems like a great time
management practice, it can lead to errors and affect
quality assurance.
12. Prioritize high quality work
This activates the shipment process.
The customer receives the product.
The order is closed.
T
1
Cuer orders a product or a service.
You have to work on the same task again -
spending twice as much time and decreasing
customer satisfaction.
2 A multitasking agent may record wrong information
during customer satisfaction.
Better workplace satisfaction.
You can become known as an individual who
doesn’t give into procrastination or push tasks off
on others
3
When the customer calls for a follow-up, a team member could
suggest solutions based on wrong information, disrupting
effective customer service.

15. Create a time management strategy to
meet each goal.
Your goals need to be realistic and
achievable. You can set your goals using the
SMART method.
However, your goals need to realistic and
achievable. This means your goals should be
Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant
and Timely.
Urgent Not Urgent
Not Important
Do
Do these tasks right
away
Delete
Set these aside to do
later or eliminate them.
If employees manage their time
well, they may not have to put in
extra hours close to the deadline.
Divide tasks throughout the week
or month. This can decrease
overall stress and induce a
peaceful working environment.
A. Prevents
Burnout
It can help reduce agent
turnover by improving the work
timings and ensure high job
satisfaction.
Cultivating time management
skills can develop self- discipline
in the personal and professional
lives. Employees who complete
work on time may get promoted
quickly
An agent with self-discipline is more
likely to follow the call center
scheduling correctly. They may start
and end their shifts on time. It can help
smoothen call center management
process.
B. Develops Self
Discipline
3 Reasons Why Time Management is Important for Call Center
Great time management skills ca
ensure that agents close tickets
and complete tasks on time. They
are less likely to rush through
tasks. This can help boost
customer satisfaction
To track how your employees
spend time, use a powerful and
smart time management
software, that’s perfect for your
customer service agents.
C. Improves
Customer
Satisfaction

16. Time Doctor is a powerful time and agent
productivity tracking software used by SMBs
like Thrive Market and large enterprises like
Ericsson.
Time Doctor: An Effective Time Management Tool For Call Centers Agent
Here are some Time Doctor’s key features
The tool can effectively track an agent’s time on
customer calls and other tasks, helping agents
improve their productivity and time management
skills.

17. 1. Manual and Silent Time Tracking
Create a new task or choose one from the task list
Press the play button to begin tracking to begin tracking
time for that specific task.
To track time manually in the Time
Doctor app:
Simply click on the Stop button once you’ve completed
your task or if you want to take a break.
The software offers a manual or interactive time
tracker, which the agent can operate by clicking on the
Start and Stop buttons.
It also has a silent time tracker that
starts logging time automatically when
agent switches the system on.
Additionally, this timer runs in the
background and doesn’t disrupt the
agent’s workflow.

18. The tool helps you set flexible or fixed schedules for
each agent and note whether they start their shifts on
time.
It automatically shows an agent is ‘Absent’ if they
didn’t record time, ‘Partially Absent’ if they’re late,
and ‘Present’ if they start their shift on time.
2. Work Schedules
1
Select all the users and the date
range and export as a CSV file
2 Enter the shift timings in the exported
CSV file.
3
Upload the CSV file back to the
system.

19. 2. Idle Time Tracking
When there is no activity, TimeDoctor sends an idle time
pop-uo to prevent employees from getting distracted.
This time management tool doesn’t record keystrokes
during activity monitoring to maintain employee privacy.
The idle time tracking feature tracks how long
employees track idle time and puts them on a break if
they’re inactive (no keyboard or mouse activity for a
defined interval).

20. 3. Productivity Reports
1
Time Doctor generates detailed real-time productivity reports to help you spot productivity
trends, understand the overall call center performance, and workflow optimization.
Activity Summary Report : View a user’s active,
unproductive, manual, and mobile time for a selected time
period.
Project and Tasks Report: See the time an employee spends
on different projects and task
Timeline Report: Shows the time team member spends
working and on breaks in daily and weekly formats.
Hours Tracked : Indicates how many hours your team
members tracked weekly or for a specified date range
Web & App Usage : Lists the sites and applications employees use
during work hours and their time on each of them.
Custom Report : You can customize what you want in a report, so
you don’t have to download individual reports from multiple
pages.

21. 4. Powerful Chrome Extension & Integrations
1
You can use Time Doctor’s powerful Chrome extension
that lets you integrate with other productivity and tracking
apps with ease.
You can use the timeboxing method and track time
directly through 50+ third-party apps.
Time Doctor offers native integrations with tools like:
Helpdesk : Freshdesk, Zendesk, etc.
CRM : Pipedrive, Zoho etc.
Payments and invoicing: Paypal, Wise etc.
Project management: Evernote, Asana etc.
Communication :Podio, and more.

22. Establish Accountability
Escalate Issues Faster
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