Call center agents need help, and customers deserve the best experience possible.

What ties these two together? Call center monitoring. It’s one of those things that needs to happen but is rarely done well.

Want a bona fide method to measure how well you’re meeting customer expectations?

Read on for detailed tips to solidify your call center monitoring processes and improve the customer experience.

What Is Call Center Monitoring?

Call center monitoring is the process of listening to calls in real time or once completed for the purpose of agent training and customer service improvement.

Depending on the scenario or business goal, your monitoring may be selective or random.

For example, you can choose certain calls by agent, team, or type to gauge performance and create a benchmark. 

You can also randomize the calls you monitor to remove the possibility of bias. When a computer or algorithm chooses which calls get monitored, no prior history or personal feelings are involved.

In call center operations, monitoring plays a crucial role. It’s not just to ensure agents are following a script or plugging your latest product. It’s also about making sure everyone is providing value to your customers.

When you provide value-enhancing interactions, there’s an 82% probability that your customer will remain loyal when presented with an opportunity to switch. Monitoring a selection of calls is one of the easiest and most effective ways to ensure your agents consistently add value.

You can monitor calls in both an on-premises and virtual call center setup. There aren’t any restrictions stopping you from putting call center monitoring in place right now. You just need the right technology.

You may come across several different types of call center monitoring:

• Live call monitoring: During calls, agents (or software) may flag they need help.
• Post-call monitoring: If there’s been a bad call, you can check on it instantly.
• Call center quality assurance monitoring: A formal process to ensure calls meet the expected standard across the board.

In all these scenarios, you will come across different types of calls. The right solution needs to be capable of monitoring all of them.

Types of Calls Monitored

Inbound calls

You can monitor calls when a customer calls into your call center.

Inbound call centers include many types of calls:

• Customer assistance: Keep track of how well staff perform with first-line queries.
• Technical support: Record complex troubleshooting to help create better scripts.
• Billing questions: Keep an eye out for recurring issues and find the root cause.
• Order statuses: Find out why customers aren’t using self-service options.
• Complaints: Check if issues could have been solved before they escalate them.

Outbound calls

You can also monitor calls when you make an outbound call. A best practice here is to make sure the person on the other end of the call knows they’re being recorded.

Call centers often play messages or ask agents to state, “This call is recorded for monitoring and training.”

Types of outbound calls include:

• Sales promotions: Find out what messaging is working for outbound campaigns.
• Surveys: Measure how effective your research is.
• Appointment reminders: Gauge if agents are stressing the importance of meeting appointments.
• Debt collection: Ensure payments are taken in a PCI-compliant manner.
• Follow-ups: Make sure agents provide all the details customers need so they won’t have to call back.

Internal calls

Yes, even internal company calls can be monitored.

Types of internal calls include:

• Agent training: ensure supervisors are providing quality advice to agents.
• Team meetings: review structure and content on a regular basis.
• Quality management: ensure agents are adhering to quality standards using a formal plan.
• IT support: Check for security verification and test against social engineering attacks.

Specialized calls

You may have niche calls where recording and monitoring are of particularly high value. Not recording and monitoring them might have a costly negative impact.

Specialized calls include:

• High-value customer interactions: Formalize verbal agreements for sales contracts.
• Dispute resolutions: Capture a unique skill that junior agents can learn from.
• Crisis/emergency scenarios: Identify vital factors for learning and development.

Randomly selected calls

Using a call center monitoring program, you can randomly select calls to monitor. This ensures unbiased quality assurance.

Sometimes, you might find yourself reviewing calls from the same agent repeatedly. This could be because you’ve witnessed one bad interaction and think they need more monitoring than their peers.

That might be the case. Sometimes, targeted call center monitoring is the right choice. 

Best practice dictates you use random calls for “regular” monitoring alongside flagging certain agents or departments for dedicated monitoring. For example, if one month there is a high number of complaints about technical support, focused monitoring is a good idea.

Flagged calls

Choose to have monitoring systems highlight phone calls based on criteria like duration, tone, or keywords. This is useful to remove the need for constantly looking over the shoulder of agents. 

Instead of assuming a team needs constant monitoring, rely on automated call center technology. It can identify long calls, repeat callers, or curse words in your office.

Call Center Monitoring Best Practices

If you’re new to call center monitoring or haven’t done it in a while, remember these tips.

Set clear objectives

As the old adage goes, failing to prepare is preparing to fail. The same is true for setting objectives at the start of a call center monitoring program.

If you fail to set clear objectives, you waste time listening to calls without a good reason.

Objectives must be:

• Clear: There is no doubt why you’re monitoring calls.
• Measurable: You have a set number of calls (and metrics to deem them good/bad).
• Aligned to business goals: You’re working in line with other business units to better a specific target.

One example of a clear objective for starting call center monitoring is a conscious effort to improve Net Promoter Score (NPS). 

Suppose you want to improve the likelihood of customers recommending your service. In that case, you must ensure agents are performing at the level you expect, using the latest scripts, and dealing with objections in a friendly and helpful manner.

Related: How To Record Sales Calls: What Team Leaders Need To Know

Conduct regular training

If all you do is monitor agents, how can you expect them to improve?

Continuous training for agents (and supervisors) is vital to the success of your call center. Therefore, the output of your monitoring must become the input of your training sessions.

When you monitor the right combination of calls, you start identifying training needs. From here, you can plan a call center strategy backed by information gathered in real customer calls.

One example is when no one is using the new troubleshooting script. In this scenario, flag it and explain to agents why there’s a new script.

It might be the case that they need more practice and don’t yet feel confident. Use these training sessions as rehearsals for real-world scenarios.

Create a customer feedback loop

Continuous training is most effective when you receive constructive feedback. And there’s no better place to find genuine feedback than your customers.

Call centers can create a feedback loop by implementing post-call surveys and using online customer survey software.

When you get feedback, listen to recorded calls to verify complaints and suggestions.

Once given the green light, solving these problems must feed into your training programs.

Use the right platform

When you’re busy managing a call center, it’s hard to work out which calls to monitor, which to prioritize, and who needs the most training.

Selecting the right software pays dividends in terms of productivity, bias removal, and consistency.

You need a monitoring platform that does several things:

• Integrates with your call center software
• Provides a holistic view of your call center performance
• Drills down into low-level analytics

Only when you’ve got the right platform will you see the benefits of call center monitoring.

Develop reporting templates

Ideally, your call center platform will include out-of-the-box reporting templates. You can take these and run with them or make them your own through customization.

If you do create your own, make sure you include all types of calls, agents, and scenarios. What you’re aiming for here is uniformity and removal of bias. 

Every reporting template must be based on data and facts rather than personal opinions and external influences.

Consider including the following criteria in your reporting templates:

• Completes identity and verification
• Follows script
• Is polite and courteous
• Practices active listening
• Provides a viable solution
• Asks if they can help further

Uphold consumer privacy

In every scenario mentioned, the privacy of your customers’ information is paramount.

Announcing that calls may be recorded for monitoring and training purposes is a simple and effective method to ensure customers know what’s happening.

Customers may, however, request that calls are not recorded. In these cases, ensure your call center solution can accommodate this.

You may also be subject to legal considerations. If your company has to follow any of these rules, ask your call center software provider for advice before starting monitoring:

• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA): health information must be protected by access and audit controls.
• Payment Card Industry (PCI) Compliance: payments must be taken without the caller reading out card numbers.
• California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA): you must gain consent from customers before retaining their details.

Call Center Monitoring KPIs You Should Measure

When you’re thinking about implementing call center monitoring, the conversation shouldn’t just be about what you’re monitoring; why you’re doing it is equally important.

Your reasons for monitoring should be adjacent to the key performance indicators (KPIs) or metrics you set as a business unit. 

Here are some of the most effective call center metrics you could be tracking.

Customer satisfaction scores

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) is a metric used by customer service functions to gauge how happy their customers are.

You measure CSAT by conducting a customer satisfaction survey. When you’ve implemented training off the back of your monitoring efforts, you should aim to see a higher CSAT score than previous efforts.

As your score increases, keep doing more of what works when it comes to monitoring and customer feedback loops.

If your score dips, it’s a sign to rethink the content and/or structure of your agent training.

First-call resolution rates

First-call resolution (FCR) is when you solve a customer’s problem the first time they contact your company. 

By calculating the number (or percentage) of client problems solved in one call, your company can better measure the success of its documentation, materials, product design, and call center staff.

To calculate FCR, take the total number of reported issues resolved on a first call, divide that by the total number of calls, and then multiply by 100.

A solid contact center benchmark for FCR is 70%–75%. But this will vary from industry to industry.

Agent feedback scoring

This is the process of asking customers to score the most recent transaction they had with an agent.

Differing from NPS, this is asking for a score for a specific agent rather than a query about the customer’s overall experience.

For example, Mohammed might have done everything in his power to solve the problem but was let down by technology.

This client might score Mohammed a 10 but still be disappointed they didn’t get a resolution immediately.

Average handle time

Average handle time (AHT) is the amount of time it takes to help a customer in a call center. 

This includes talk, hold, and follow-up time divided by the total number of calls.

Let’s say you had 10 phone calls for the day and spent 50 minutes talking, five minutes on hold, and five minutes adding notes in your CRM.

Your average handle time formula would work out like this:

🛟 [50 mins + 5 mins + 5 mins] / 10 calls = 6 minutes AHT

Once you’ve calculated your AHT, you can use the figure to optimize staffing. You can forecast the headcount you’ll need if you know the average amount of time to help each customer.

Once you’ve calculated your call volume and AHT, you can enter these figures into an Erlang calculator.

Agent occupancy rate

Agency occupancy rate measures the time call center agents spend engaging customers on live calls and doing admin tasks related to those calls.

You measure the agent occupancy rate by using this formula: 

🛟 (Total Contact Handling Time ÷ Total Logged Time) × 100%

It’s important to balance occupancy rate with agent well-being. It’s no good asking agents to do more if they’re constantly blocked by internal workflow and stress. It’s your role as a contact center leader to enable their success. 

Low occupancy rates may be due to: 

• Longer breaks
• Poor agent work habits
• Duties unrelated to calls
• Frequent meetings/events/training sessions

Here, we’re talking about agent productivity, agent activity levels, and call quality standards.

You don’t want your agents to be simply going through the motions while waiting for the workday to end.

A productive and motivated agent is more likely to have a high occupancy rate. Most importantly, they’re more likely to stay at your company and provide high quality of customer service.

How Can Call Center Managers Improve Team Performance?

When you start monitoring calls, you open the door to continuous team improvement.

Here are several strategies you can use to enhance performance.

Regular coaching sessions

Both one-to-one and group training sessions are important for continuous improvement in your call center.

Group sessions offer a broader spectrum of learning, like product updates and tweaks to regulations.

One-to-one coaching is a more personal type of coaching. It helps uncover the reasons behind problems or agent struggles, like with new scripts or processes.

In these one-to-one scenarios, make sure you take advantage of monitoring data to identify when things go wrong and reoccurring issues.

Team meetings and calibrations

When teams get together, you have a unique opportunity to share common challenges and best practices you’ve learned. One method that works well is team calibration. 

Team calibration is a great way to drive alignment and consistency in interpreting customer interactions with call center agents. Why? It helps align expectations and the thought processes that go into monitoring calls. 

It might be how one specific customer reacts to an upsell opportunity or constant pushback on opting into a feedback survey. Document a customer experience — such as a new sales or negative review — and work backward to analyze past engagements. 

You can also use these sessions to gauge who will make good matches for peer-to-peer learning. By pairing agents with similar (or different) personalities, you can vary the types of learning new agents receive.

Incentivize the right behaviors

In many call center environments, gamification is a great way to motivate agents.

By rewarding top performers, you create a sense of competition and spur agents to outperform their peers.

Be aware that some people aren’t motivated in this way, though. 

Outside of league tables for most sales and the highest numbers of tickets closed, think about recognition and rewards for things like improvement, contributions to other areas of the business, work rate, and community-based achievements.

Open communication channels

For an agent, there’s nothing worse than not knowing what to do. If your call center culture is to keep everything back until your annual review, open up communication channels to make yourself more reachable for agents.

Start by scheduling regular one-to-one check-ins between agents, supervisors, and managers.

When agents (and managerial staff) know there’s a safe space at a set time, they can prepare questions and concerns and learn before they make a mistake.

The alternative is to bottle up all emotions and take it out on customers.

Top 5 Call Center Monitoring Solutions

1) Nextiva Call Center

Nextiva provides call center technology for small and medium-sized businesses looking for a quick setup and instant results.

The core technology comes with omnichannel functionality like inbound routing, web chat, email, and social media so you can service customers through any channel.

When you use Nextiva’s call center monitoring, you can access real-time and after-the-fact monitoring. This includes features like call recording, enabling you to listen to all recorded calls online.

Here, you can grade and analyze how your agents are performing, either by selecting calls or choosing to randomize the process.

In-call supervisor features like barge-in allow you to coach agents on the fly. For example, if there’s a difficult call in progress, you can join the call and let the agent know what to say without the caller hearing you.

If the call escalates and you feel you need to take over, the barge-in feature allows you to announce yourself and join or take over.

All Nextiva technology is compliant with regulations like HIPAA, PCI, and CCPA. This means you can get set up straight away without the need for security audits.

Nextiva also provides a cloud phone system option. This means you can use one unified solution to record and monitor both internal and external calls. 

The biggest advantage of Nextiva is having everything in-house. Call centers have long desired the “single pane of glass” approach. 

When you choose Nextiva, you choose uniformity across the business alongside a feature-rich and easy-to-use interface.

2) Five9 Contact Center

Five9 is a contact center provider with a major focus on practical artificial intelligence (AI) and automation. 

If removing manual processes and spending more time on human value-adds are top of your agenda, Five9 introduces functionality like 24/7 self-service bot support and predictive analytics.

Alongside its core AI-powered customer experience platform, Five9 includes monitoring features like call center quality monitoring and quality management.

You can monitor real-time calls as well as recordings. When you’re listening to a specific agent, the software highlights agents being monitored with color codes.

Besides recording phone calls, Five9 allows you to record agent’s screens. This enables you to see what they’re doing as well as hear how calls are going.

For example, if agents are experiencing a high average call time, it might be because they don’t know where support materials are stored or are struggling with navigating their call center software.

The major advantage of Five9 is combining its monitoring features with powerful AI. If you’re inclined to use AI for call center operations, Five9 is a great option.

🛟 Did You Know? Nextiva Fully Integrates With Five9

3) Enthu.ai

Enthu.ai is a standalone quality automation platform for sales teams. Unlike Nextiva and Five9, there is no built-in contact center solution.

Instead, Enthu.ai uses AI to capture calls, voicemails, webchats, and video messages and to automatically grade their quality.

By capturing keywords, the AI is looking for opportunities for agents to upsell when a new product is available. It’s also searching for the moment you could’ve put out the fire and prevented the issue from dragging on.

Key features include graphs and charts that show how often you can upsell, cross-sell, and renew.

You can use this data to power your next sales training session, inform sales materials, and feed into product management teams.

The major advantage of Enthu.ai is you don’t have to do any of the work. Once you’ve set up Enthu.ai with your dialer or CRM, AI works in the background and produces an output for you to take action.

4) Gong

Gong is a call recording platform for sales teams. Self-titled as a “revenue intelligence platform,” Gong aims to take the information in your conversations and turn it into insights about different stages of the sales cycle.

Inside the call recording tab, you can set filters and triggers for competitor mentions, alarming words like cancel, and opportunities missed to seal the deal. 

You also get deal heath scores per account based on the recorded conversations it’s tracking in the platform.

You can also integrate the recording platform into other channels like email and voicemail. Wherever there’s an opportunity to push a deal further down the funnel, Gong is hunting for it.

The major advantage of Gong is the focus on sales. Everything inside Gong is focused on turning a conversation into revenue or a learning experience.

5) Insightful

Insightful is a workforce analytics program designed to keep teams productive. Insightful tracks activities like active time, break time, idle time, and manual time to provide data on how much (or how little) your staff is working.

This activity time extends to tracking which apps are in use so you can see where staff spend their time.

When this data gets captured, it provides a productivity score. You can then see comparisons of how productive/unproductive certain team members or departments are.

Key features of Insightful include time and attendance reporting, operational efficiency analysis, and technology usage reports. You get a holistic and easy-to-understand view with the option of drilling down to a lower level.

If tracking internal employee productivity and usage is your goal, Insightful does a great job.

As you can probably tell, there’s a lot of software and features out there. When selecting your call center monitoring software, look out for these core features.

Core Monitoring Features Needed in a Call Center Platform

⚡️ Real-time monitoring tools

The ability to monitor phone calls while they’re happening is a must for any call center.

Call center tools like Nextiva allow you to immediately intervene if the situation calls for it. 

Supervisors can judge if an angry customer needs help during a call. They can listen in when customers won’t accept being put on hold.

It might be the case that you use the barge-in feature and join the call. Alternatively, you can use the call whisper feature to speak to the agent only and coach them through the call.

If you use a team chat app, agents and supervisors can exchange messages here too. If agents feel uncomfortable being spoken to by supervisors at the same time as handling a customer, this is a great middle ground.

📼 Call Recording and Playback

Creating a bank of calls means you have an inventory of calls to create new scripts and showcase examples of customer interactions.

For one-to-one reviews or wider training programs, reference your agents’ best calls as an example of what great calls look like.

Thinking about quality assurance, you have all calls stored, so you can work backward and find the root cause of major or common issues.

Call recording is the bread and butter of call center monitoring software. The insights you gain are an invaluable source of training material.

🎛️ Analytics and reporting

What gets measured gets managed.

Yes, it’s a little cliche. But it’s 100% true when it comes to call center operations.

With data-driven insights, your teams can spot trends and make informed decisions instead of guessing.

If there’s a major disruption to your business’ product and you’re flooded with unexpected calls, reporting on how agents handle high call volume can provide great insight for future planning.

With performance metrics like average talk time, average handle time, and first call resolution providing key insights into your business, having them front and center is a must.

Phat Scooters, for example, needed visibility into how their calls were performing. It needed a system to record calls and help the support team maintain conversation quality as the business grew.

After choosing Nextiva to support its customer experience, Phat Scooters is now maintaining quality via advanced call recording and analytics. 

The ability to replay past calls helps them uphold their legendary customer service.

👀 Agent performance dashboards

With access to real-time data, you can see how agents are performing at any given moment. 

In the screenshot below, see how Mark has answered 59 calls this month with a total duration of over seven hours. In comparison, Carol has taken fewer calls but has a higher total duration.

An at-a-glance view like this shows a clear discrepancy between the two agents. From here, you can explore further what the root cause is and bring them back to parity.

Armed with this data, you can provide personalized feedback into your performance-tracking program.

If Carol takes too long to wrap up, she may need conversational training. If Mark is too abrupt, practicing active listening and more patient customer handling may be the key.

🗣️ Speech analytics

When you can analyze agent-to-customer conversations, you get a view of how both parties are feeling.

The use of expletives or emotional language during a call is a sign that there is a problem. Likewise, lots of pauses and filler words mean that the agent is struggling to get to the crux of the matter.

If the same words, tones of voice, or irritations keep occurring, you can flag these as areas of improvement and feed them into training schedules.

Speech analytics software does the hard work for you here. Automated programs now detect signs of agitation in the office so you don’t have to.

🔒 Secure data retention

In some cases, due to legal obligations, you may be unable to keep call recordings over a certain period.

Making sure your call center monitoring software allows for time-based storage and secure removal is one of the most important factors when considering monitoring and recording software.

In certain financial institutions, for example, customer data can’t be stored in the cloud. To fulfill this requirement, make sure you can export recorded calls for long-term storage.

🔑 Permissions and access control

Not everyone needs access to agent monitoring and recordings. The standard practice is to empower managers and supervisors.

In some cases, contractual commitments or industry regulations may state that only a certain number of people can access recordings. If this is the case, ensure role-based access or individual access can be configured for your recording software.

You must also think about staggered access for certain features. For example, a senior agent can be more productive if they have access to their team’s call recordings. 

By empowering someone at this level, you remove the need for escalation and help achieve first-call resolution more often.

🔀 Omnichannel monitoring

If you run an omnichannel contact center, you’d be right to want to monitor other interactions like web chat, email, and social media.

To ensure a consistent customer experience, make sure your monitoring software caters to all channels you offer as a means of contact.

Like how you can check for certain words, phrases, and emotions in calls, some monitoring software scans web chats, emails, and social media messages too.

If you have a lot of interactions from these channels, ask your prospective provider about omnichannel reporting.

Monitoring Is a Gamechanger for Your Call Center

When considering call center monitoring, you must align the need with your business objectives.

Be it improving CSAT, FCR, or another important KPI, make sure they go hand in hand.

You will need the help of specific monitoring software, and there are some must-have features to look out for, including recording, reporting, analytics, and access control. 

Ultimately, your monitoring goals should aim to improve team performance. This, in turn, will improve the customer experience. 

When agents are happy, empowered, and have access to the tools and training they need, your call center comes together like a well-oiled machine.

Your next step is choosing a monitoring provider to take your call center to the next level. 

Nextiva provides a complete contact center solution with built-in monitoring and recording and delivers a super customer experience. 

When you’re scoping out a new call center, there comes a time when you just need an in-depth list of features available. Perhaps you’re looking into call center software and want to know which features actually matter most to your team. 

So, let’s cut to the chase.

We’ve listed the best call center features you need to be aware of when planning to buy your next call center solution.

Read on for our top 24!

1. Computer Telephony Integration (CTI)

When a customer calls you, it pays to have all their information on hand.

CTI is the technology that links your computer and phone to bring you features like screen pop, click-to-call, and CRM integration.

When you enable CTI, expect the following functionality and benefits:

• Screen pops: give agents details about who’s calling and self-service attempts.
• Call routing: ensures every call gets to the desired destination.
• CRM integration: ties the enhanced phone and computer experience into your CRM.
• Call management: lets agents accept, reject, mute, and place calls on hold.

2. Interactive Voice Response (IVR) System

When you hear, “Press one for sales or two for support,” that’s an IVR in action. 

It’s the gateway into your business for callers. 

With customizable call menus, customers choose their reason for calling and get routed to a relevant, skilled agent. This removes the need for constant explanation and passing around of customers.

A smart IVR even comes with voice recognition capabilities that make it easier for your customers to get through to the right department.

Customers can say, “I have a query on my December invoice,” and get routed straight to the billing team. There’s no need to hang around for the right option.

If you use chatbots in your omnichannel contact center or run a website that you want to use chatbots on, you can build in IVR technology there too.

Here, we’re talking about intelligent virtual agents (IVAs). Your basic chatbot only responds with pre-loaded information. An IVA, on the other hand, uses natural language processing to simulate human conversation and provide helpful answers.  

IVAs can answer basic queries like, “How much was my last bill?” or “What time does the Arizona store close?” but also route complex queries through to agents with specialized training in the matter at hand.

Related: What Is Outbound IVR? Use Cases and Examples

3. Automatic Call Distribution (ACD)

ACD is intelligent call routing to the most appropriate agent or department, every single time.

With automatic call distribution, you can distribute phone calls based on caller ID, business hours, customer support level, and IVR selections. 

As a result, inbound calls reach the right agent or department quickly and without the caller having to dial a different phone number.

If balancing calls between agents is your priority, you can choose to send the next call to the agent who’s taken the least calls that day.

Sound a little like IVR?

It is. But IVR focuses on getting the customer to the right place, whereas ACD focuses on directing calls to available agents.

If agent balance is your priority, look into ACD. If customer experience is your priority, go for IVR.

Or, for a perfect balance, implement both!

4. Unified Communications Integration

Unified communications (or UCaaS) is the solution that looks after your calls, messaging, and video. 

When you use these communication channels throughout the rest of your business, you need your call center agents to have access to the same.

What’s more, you need a streamlined approach for those agents to have constant access between the front and back offices.

With 59% of customers saying they’ll end the relationship if getting help requires too much effort, you must ensure your call center solution integrates with your unified communications solution to streamline collaboration between agents and specialists.

Vendors like Nextiva provide a single platform for both unified communications and call centers, meaning a consistent experience and easy access for all users and agents.

Benefits:

• Lower average handle times
• Higher first-call resolution rates
• Higher net promoter scores
• Higher customer satisfaction scores

📖 Read the full whitepaper: UCaaS + CCaaS: Never Compromise the Customer Experience

5. Call Monitoring and Recording

When you monitor and record calls, you open the door to continuous improvement — of both your agents and your processes.

There are two types of call monitoring: 

• Real-time monitoring: providing on-the-spot coaching and interjection.
• After-the-fact monitoring: reviewing call recordings to see where things went wrong.

Use these in conjunction to create both a reactive and proactive quality assurance program for agents. You can fight fires on the fly while also creating a formal review program for random or selected calls and agents.

All calls get recorded and securely stored in a cloud-based environment for easy retrieval. You can download the files locally if compliance or regulation requirements dictate so.

Nextiva’s call recordings comply with HIPAA, CCPA, PCI, and other industry standards. 

Related: Best Call Center Software to Try in 2024

6. Predictive Dialer

If you run an outbound call center, or have outbound sales or account management teams, you can benefit from automated outbound calling proven to increase agent talk time and productivity. 

Using pre-configured algorithms, agents no longer need to find and dial numbers to make outbound calls.

Instead, a predictive dialer does the legwork to ensure agents have another call in the queue after completing their current call. 

No time wasted and less chance of failed call attempts.

Predictive dialers are great in these cases:

• Proactive customer service
• Lead generation
• Collecting customer feedback
• Appointment setting
• Correcting billing issues
• Scheduled follow-up calls

7. Inbound & Outbound Phone Calls

When you’re making and receiving calls all day, your customers expect to hear you well. Being accessible to customers via the public switched telephone network (PSTN) is core to every call center.

A VoIP phone system underpinning your calls guarantees high-quality voice calls over the internet. You can attach a physical handset or a softphone with a headset to your VoIP connection and start making HD calls quickly.

Another major benefit of using VoIP is you save money on calls compared to traditional telephony.

For example, the VoIP phone service from Nextiva comes with the following:

• Unlimited voice and video calls
• Voicemail to email delivery
• Complimentary toll-free number
• Outlook/Google Contacts integration
• Unlimited internet faxing
• 99.99% uptime and reliability

8. Softphone Apps

When agents work from home or need to log into call queues between offices, softphones give them access from anywhere.

Inside your softphone app, be it on a computer or mobile, agents can make and receive calls and access their internal colleagues too.

They can get real-time notifications as if sitting at their desks and have the same functionality as if they were at their workstations.

9. Post-Call Surveys

What’s 100x better than assuming your customer had a good call?

Getting immediate feedback.

Using customer experience software, you can create and automatically send surveys that rate agent performance and call satisfaction.

When you capture data like this, you can feed it into training and performance programs, encouraging continuous improvement.

Ask questions like:

• On a scale of 1–10, how would you rate your call?
• On a scale of 1–10, how satisfied are you with the outcome of your call?
• Did the agent resolve your issue?

10. Virtual Queuing

During busy periods, customers get frustrated waiting in long queues.

Instead, you can allow customers to keep their position in a queue without staying on the line.

Unlike a regular call queue, where customers wait on hold until an agent becomes available, a virtual queue saves their position, allows them to hang up, and notifies customers when their turn approaches.

This both reduces hold times and improves the customer experience. 

At the end of the day, we’re all customers at some point. Given the choice, wouldn’t you rather someone held your place too?

Related: What Is Call Queuing & How Do Businesses Use It?

11. Escalation Management

When a customer interaction gets heated, escalation to a higher-level agent or department is needed.

Documenting a clear escalation path is paramount for timely escalation handling and resolution, as is enabling agents to be proactive.

When something goes wrong, ensure your call center software empowers agents to flag and transfer calls before they get out of hand.

Reacting at the right time will always result in higher customer trust and satisfaction. Failure to allow agents to self-escalate can only have a negative impact.

12. Whisper and Barge-In Features

When you get the feeling an agent needs help, or if an agent flags their need for help, the ability to coach them through the situation is one of the most powerful call center features.

During live calls, supervisors can join and “whisper.” This means the agent hears the coaching, but the caller is unaware anyone else has joined.

If the situation isn’t being diffused, supervisors also have the choice to intervene and take over (barge in) the call.

Not only is the situation remedied but agents also learn on the spot and know what to do next time around.

13. Self-Service Portals

If you have queries that occur time and again, why not move them to a self-service portal where customers can get answers themselves?

By granting access to FAQs, knowledge bases, and troubleshooting guides, you reduce agent call volumes and improve customer satisfaction.

Use a self-service portal to let customers access information like:

• Billing and invoicing
• Service status updates
• Progress of support cases
• Progress of orders
• Delivery statuses

14. Skills-Based Routing

Skills-based routing is a system that matches customer issues with specialist agents. 

It allows you to rank your agents based on their abilities. You can then rank incoming calls by specific skills, which are listed per queue. Your call center software routes calls to agents who are ranked higher in those skills.

The end result?

Customers get through to an agent qualified to answer their particular questions.

What if the best-matched agent is busy on another call?

Dynamic rerouting happens automatically, so you can always ensure that customers are being served by the best possible agent at any given time, improving first-call resolution rates and customer satisfaction.

15. AI Assistance

When there’s the opportunity to make a process more efficient, you must grab it with both hands.

With artificial intelligence (AI) assistance, like that of IVAs, you can automate responses to common queries like:

• When does my nearest store close?
• When can I expect my order to arrive?
• Is there any update on my support ticket?

AI can take care of the menial and repetitive tasks so agents can spend more time providing human value.

If AI can’t fully satisfy a customer query, its machine learning technology knows when to hand things off to live agents.

Learning with every customer interaction, AI is constantly getting better and more personalized when serving your customers. The more customer information you have, the better the customer experience.

16. Quality Management

What gets measured gets managed.

By using call scoring and evaluation tools for your call center, you can create a quality benchmark that all agents should strive for.

Quality management incorporates feedback tools for agents so supervisors can pick or randomly get assigned calls to run through preset criteria.

Typical quality management scoring includes the following criteria:

• Completes identity and verification
• Follows script
• Is polite and courteous
• Practices active listening
• Provides a viable solution
• Asks if they can help further

Scorers then have the option to add comments about intangible factors if an agent has done particularly well or missed a key item.

You can give this feedback one-on-one or include it in continuous training and development modules.

17. Real-Time Analytics and Reporting

When you subscribe to top-grade call center software, you get access to dashboards with live metrics as well as detailed reports on performance and call outcomes.

Real-time metrics include:

• Call volume
• Average wait time
• Average handle time
• Average time in queue
• Average speed of answer

These are your during-the-day metrics that managers and supervisors need to know so they can make changes on the fly.

Post-call reporting includes:

• Trend analysis for continuous improvement
• First-call resolution rates
• Number of repeat callers
• Customer satisfaction scores
• Customer journey mapping
• Forecasting accuracy

These are the high-level metrics that inform call center strategy and operations.

18. APIs and Integration Capabilities

If your call center is the beating heart of your customer service operation, think about how important these other components are, too.

• CRM
• Emails
• Knowledge bases
• Ticking systems

Through the use of open APIs and customizable workflows, you can link your business systems with your call center.

This not only streamlines usage by reducing the number of clicks between apps, but it also enhances functionality through plugins and extensions.

One common example is Salesforce integration. When you combine your phone system or call center with Salesforce, you open the door to essential features like:

• Call logging
• Screen pop
• Click-to-call
• Task management
• Integrated dialer

These all help to provide a more productive environment with less need to switch between apps.

19. Text-to-Speech and Voice Recognition

If a customer sends you a text message, by error or on purpose, have your phone system read out the message to agents so you never miss a query.

For customers who have difficulty speaking, text-to-speech provides an alternative to writing an email and waiting days for a response.

You can use the same technology in reverse, too. Give your customers the option to say why they’re calling, allowing them to explain in more detail rather than simply, “option one for support.”

Instead, they can say what type of support they need and navigate to the most suitable agent.

The Nextiva Advanced IVR includes a comprehensive applications library that integrates speech recognition with:

• Voice commands 
• Text-to-speech
• Voice biometrics

When used to their potential, you can increase productivity, streamline processes, and improve customer satisfaction, which increases your bottom line.

20. Speech Analytics

One of the more advanced call center features gaining rapid adoption momentum is speech analytics. It involves using AI to sift through voice interactions and find keywords and sentiments inside conversations.

If customers use expletives or there are long pauses, speech analytics detects these and informs a supervisor. When calls get flagged, you can identify areas of improvement or training needs. 

For example, agents might be skipping key components of your script, like informing customers their calls are being recorded. 

Let technology find the problems so you can focus on solving them.

21. Customer Callback

There’s nothing worse than waiting on hold. In fact, 66% of people say more than two minutes of hold time is too long.

Luckily, there’s a call center feature to combat exactly that.

Customer callback allows customers to request a callback instead of waiting on hold. They select that they’d like to do so, hang up, and then get a call back when the next agent becomes available.

Less time on hold = happier customers.

22. Auto Attendant

An auto attendant is like your virtual receptionist — only you don’t need to spend money on extra staffing resources.

Its most basic function is directing callers to the appropriate department or individual. But it also offers customizable greetings and menu options for a humanized caller experience.

Not only do customers love the personalized menu, but your business also benefits from the efficient handling of high call volumes. Likewise, customers prefer auto attendants to the alternative: multiple call transfers and excessive hold times.

23. Workforce Management (WFM)

Workforce management (WFM) ensures you have the right number of agents at the right time. There’s no need for “just-in-case” staffing, and the chance of agents becoming overwhelmed with calls is reduced.

Whether you’re running a remote workforce or a traditional office-based call center, make sure your forecasting volumes are accurate every single time by letting WFM software analyze your data and present forecasts.

Scheduling agents and planning shifts no longer involve hours of sifting through spreadsheets.

24. Group Text Messaging

When customers reply to your calls with a text message, your team can read them. Many consumers don’t realize that companies might not see their responses. Now, you can with a cloud contact center platform that spans multiple channels like SMS/MMS.

Imagine having customers take a picture and send it to your team. This way, you’ll be ready to book more appointments.

Related: What Is a Contact Center? Definition, Features, and Uses

All the Features You Need With Nextiva

There are basic features like call routing and call whisper that you can get from most call center providers. What differentiates top providers from the others is how easily (and quickly) you can gain value right away.

When you integrate your unified communications, CRM, and contact center software together into a single powerhouse solution, everything comes together.

Agents are more productive than ever.

Customers are happier than ever.

With the added spice of AI and automation, features like IVAs and virtual queues result in fewer repetitive tasks that agents dislike and more time spent delighting your customers.

Nextiva is the one call center solution that hits all these notes.

And our customers agree too:

Ready to experience these call center features yourself?
👉 Get a personalized tour of the Nextiva Call Center.

Virtual communication channels can fall far behind face-to-face interactions when your workforce consists of in-person, remote, and hybrid teams. 

This creates an internal communication gap between on-site and off-site employees that can become a huge problem if not managed properly.

This guide will show you how to maintain team communication and collaboration across the enterprise for your in-office, remote, and hybrid employees.

What Is Virtual Communication?

Virtual communication is how employees collaborate and interact with each other when they are not working in the same physical space. People often use collaboration software as a means to share information.

Real-time interaction — like virtual calls, online meetings, and instant messages — is an integral part of this, but it also includes:

• Asynchronous project management
• Virtual team-building activities
• Documentation and note-taking

All of this reduces the friction that comes with in-person and remote employees collaborating across multiple locations and time zones. It keeps them on the same page, ensuring tasks are delivered on time and work performance stays at its peak.

What Are the Types of Virtual Communication?

For most employees, business communication takes place over many different channels.

Instant messaging apps: Teams, Slack, WhatsApp

About 86% of respondents in a Vitally survey said that chat workspaces are their most-used virtual communication channel.

Instant messaging apps like WhatsApp and iMessage help employees interact with each other in real time. Someone working from home cannot skip over to a colleague’s desk to ask a question. But they can pop them a quick WhatsApp message or jump on a Slack huddle for a chat.

Chat workspaces like Slack and Microsoft Teams also let you share files and track all your tasks and updates in one place by syncing with other work tools, like your project management software and email client.

Despite these benefits, instant messaging apps are one of the biggest distractions for remote workers. 

When you’re not in the office with the rest of the team, you risk missing important information. To avoid this, remote workers stay plugged in and check every message notification, even though very few need immediate attention. 

Honestly, the updates in the pet channel can wait. “But it’ll only take a few seconds to read a Slack message,” you may think.

While this may be true, refocusing on your work after a distraction actually takes at least 23 minutes. You could waste an entire hour by checking just three notifications.

Video conferencing tools: Nextiva, Zoom, Google Meet

Sometimes, instant messaging isn’t enough. 

Say you want to organize a workshop for off-site and remote employees. Slack and iMessage aren’t built for that — you’ll need a virtual meeting platform.

Virtual meeting tools let you host engaging video meetings, conferences, and presentations for people in different locations. During these virtual meetups, attendees can chat with each other, contribute to collaborative whiteboards, and share screens and files, among other things.

All in all, these features create immersive experiences that make it feel like everyone is in the same room.

As with any technology, video conferencing has its challenges, the most obvious being internet connectivity. Poor or unstable internet connection causes lags and freezes, which ruin the meeting experience. Sometimes, you may even need to reschedule.

🛟 Helpful Tool: Check Your Connection Stability for Live Meetings

However, a bigger problem is how businesses use these tools.

Many companies overload their teams with frequent, long, and sometimes pointless virtual meetings to the extent of hindering their jobs. An Otter report found that employees spend over one-third of their working hours in meetings, leaving little to no time for productive work.

Project management tools: Asana, Trello, Monday

More than 80% of respondents in Vitally’s State of Knowledge Sharing report said they use a project management tool at work.

Project management software gives you a bird’s-eye view of tasks. You’ll see who’s working on what, how far they’ve come, and the due date for deliverables. This helps remote and in-person teams stay on top of goals and responsibilities as they work together. 

After adding a new project to the software, you can map out timelines, assign tasks to collaborators, and share automatic status updates with the rest of your team, among other things. Asana, Trello, and Monday offer templates to help you quickly set up projects, tasks, and to-do lists. They also sync with calendars, email messages, and chat workspaces for better task visibility. 

Your project management software is only as effective as your maintenance culture. If you don’t archive outdated information, tick off completed tasks, and update delivery dates regularly, employees will miss deadlines, and you’ll lose track of important information.

Knowledge base tools: Confluence, Notion, ClickUp

A knowledge base is a library of information. It’s where you store documentation, onboarding guides, customer tutorials, and everything else your team needs for its job. It will help your team collaborate asynchronously. 

Picture this: John, an on-site employee, needs information from Mary to complete an urgent task. But Mary works remotely, and her day doesn’t start for another five hours. 

Luckily, Mary documented the information in the company’s knowledge base. John goes into the library and finds what he needs quickly instead of waiting.

As a rule of thumb, if you’re asked the same question three times, document and add the answer to the knowledge base. 

Beyond documentation, a knowledge-based application lets you create collaborative project plans, visualize tasks with whiteboards, and sync lists from your project management tool. 

However, it can quickly become cluttered and outdated if you don’t maintain it regularly. Consider hiring someone to organize and update the content as your business grows.

Email clients: Apple Mail, Outlook, Gmail

Email is the most popular internal communication channel, according to ContactMonkey’s 2023 Global State of Internal Communication report. Businesses use it to interact with employees and customers, track tasks, and save important documents like invoices, pitch decks, and information threads.

If you choose email clients like Gmail and Outlook, you automatically have access to a suite of cloud-based software for running your business. 

Gmail, for example, syncs with Docs, Google Meet, Drive, and Google Calendar. Outlook, on the other hand, syncs with Microsoft Word, OneDrive, Teams, and more. These integrations make it easy for you to move business data around.

The biggest challenge with email is clutter.

Hiver’s State of Email study found that employees receive, on average, 180 emails daily and only open slightly over half. If email is your business’s only communication channel, important information will inevitably get buried under a pile of unread messages.

Social media: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter (X)

More than 90% of businesses in Sprout Social’s 2023 State of Social Media report said that they use social platforms to learn more about their target audience and build brand reputation and loyalty. 

These platforms help brands connect with billions of potential customers. Sharing content on Facebook, for example, potentially places your brand in front of 3 billion users.

Social channels let companies reach a large audience, but there’s also a lot of competition. You’re competing with other businesses in your niche for your target market’s attention. On top of that, rapid algorithm changes can tank the reach and engagement of your content.

To stand out: 

• Treat social media as an integral part of your communications strategy.
• Publish content based on monthly themes and clusters.
• Use native engagement features like live videos, carousels, and polls to serve your audience and boost content visibility.

Phone calls: Desk phones, VoIP apps, mobile phones

Remote and hybrid teams can also use phone calls for virtual communication. You have three options: Desk phones, VoIP apps, and mobile phones.

VoIP desk phones are the traditional office phones that are connected to a landline. They are reliable and provide good call quality. However, they are limited to a physical location and may not be suitable when some members of your team work remotely. 

VoIP apps allow users to make voice and video calls over the internet. You can use them on computers, tablets, and smartphones. 

Nextiva provides an all-in-one business phone app with advanced VoIP functionality plus other features. It lets users manage their call schedules, chat with their teammates in the app, and join meetings in one click. It’s the best way for remote and in-office workers to connect and collaborate. 

Mobile phones are portable and can be used anywhere, anytime. They are especially useful for field workers or employees who are always on the road — however, their call quality drops in areas with poor network coverage.

Challenges With Virtual Communication

Here are the top challenges teams face when communicating between remote, on-site, and hybrid employees.

1. Remote team members may feel isolated from hybrid and in-office team members

Remote workers have always struggled with isolation, which may be compounded as people return to the office.

It’s one thing to miss in-person interactions during a lockdown; it’s another to watch your colleagues form personal connections while you’re stuck behind a screen hundreds or thousands of miles away. You can’t skip over to their desk to talk about the Netflix show you watched over the weekend or join them for a quick drink after work.

This affects how employees work. In-person employees will find it easier to collaborate with the folks they interact with every day versus their remote colleagues. Analytics firm Gallup found that people with friends at work put more effort into their jobs.

On the other hand, people working remotely may feel left out of meaningful conversations and decisions.

Related: Overcoming Remote Work Challenges: 10 Data-Backed Methods

2. Remote team members may be distracted

Granted, the office has its own set of distractions, like the chatter coming from a call center team.

Though distraction doesn’t ease up when you’re working from home. You’re faced with new situations like kids, pets, or package deliveries. These distractions pull your virtual team members away from their computers, and they’ll need to attend to the interruption before they can return to their desks.

The real problem? While the distraction might only last two minutes (like answering the door for a delivery), it has a longer-lasting impact. It takes over 23 minutes to get back on track after a distraction.

3. Your staff is in different time zones

Are your team members working in different time zones? It’s one of the biggest challenges for virtual communication. Time differences can get in the way more than we’d like to admit.

Let’s say you’ve got a project with a deadline of Friday at 5 p.m. Your on-site team works EST hours, while the remote team works across three time zones: Which time zone are you using for the due date?

Similarly, you might have staff on opposite ends of the world. When your American team is working, your members in Asia are asleep. You’ve got a minuscule window for communication.

It’s not just a global issue. This point applies to businesses in the United States as well. An in-office staffer in California might ask a question at 4 p.m. but not hear back from your remote New York team until the next working day at 4 a.m.

4) Conflicting communication styles

John works in the office. He’s used to rolling over to a colleague’s desk when he has questions and getting a response quickly. Sally, on the other hand, works remotely. She checks Slack and other communication tools at specific times of the day.

Now, they are working on a project together. There’ll be a lot of friction because their communication styles are different. 

John may feel frustrated if he doesn’t get a response from Sally immediately because the delay stalls his work. On the other hand, Sally may find it difficult to concentrate on her work due to John’s frequent messages. 

These differences draw out the project for far too long and affect the quality of the final output.

5) Company culture feels diluted

Remote employees experience company culture differently from in-office workers. Owl Labs found that more than 40% of remote workers find it difficult to fit into their company’s culture. 

When you leave the office to work from home, you don’t have the regular pep talks you’re used to in the office. You don’t have the opportunity to give a team member real-time feedback on why an action was wrong. You lack regular face-to-face communication. You are isolated from the company culture. 

It’s different for your in-office colleagues. They can always stop by your manager’s desk for feedback or have a pep talk with a coworker on the way to lunch. Plus, on-site folks receive company updates long before they make it to the Slack channel. 

When you work from home, it feels like you’re playing catchup with the rest of the team. 

How to Improve Virtual Team Communication

You need to optimize virtual communication channels to keep up with in-person interactions. Here are some tips to help you.

1) Empower your team to do their best work

Create systems and processes that help employees do their best work, regardless of their work arrangement. This goes beyond investing in tools — the best tools cannot compensate for a dysfunctional work environment. 

Start by setting and communicating expectations early. Employees, remote and on-site, should know their roles and responsibilities, task deadlines, and the criteria for assessing work performance. This way, it’s easier for everyone to stay accountable. Nearly 60% of respondents in Hypercontext’s State of High-performing Teams report said that they’re more productive when they understand the company’s goals and expectations for their roles. 

After doing this, leave them alone, really. 

If you have to watch your virtual team like a jail warden, maybe you’re not cut out for remote work. There is no need to request a task update multiple times a day when it’s not due until the following week — it only hurts trust and productivity.

2. Create a structured onboarding process for new hires

Onboarding is how you set employees up for success. Get it right, and you’ll improve new hire productivity and reduce attrition.

Your goal as a team leader should be to deliver the same onboarding experience to new hires, whether off-site or on-site.

Here are some tips to help you pull this off:

• Create a step-by-step plan for onboarding new hires, including timelines, goals, and objectives. It should include what they’ll do in their first 30 days and a breakdown of your organization’s processes and tools.
• Assign a mentor or buddy to help them navigate the company culture and provide support. The buddy should have the same work arrangement as the new employee. Don’t assign an off-site mentor to an in-person employee.
• Schedule regular check-ins with new employees to see how they’re settling in and resolve any questions or concerns.

3) Define the channels used for virtual communication

Virtual communication can feel overwhelming. On-site employees might struggle with what information to share on instant messaging apps. On the other hand, remote employees might feel like they have to be on Slack or Teams 24/7 to keep tabs on work conversations.

A communication plan can help here. It details how people should use each virtual platform, such as:

• Project management tools for comments and questions related to a specific task
• Instant messaging for quick questions
• Email for in-depth conversations unrelated to a particular project
• Text messaging for mission-critical issues

Once you have a communication plan, it’s time to set expectations.

• What’s the expected decorum for a given channel?
• Do you use emojis to vote on a Slack message?
• GIFs in email?
• Should in-person employees reply to announcements in Slack?
• How are decisions made or escalated?
• Most importantly, what is the default communication method everyone uses?

Having clear answers to these questions makes communication easier. You might still run into instances where your team uses the wrong tool, so use these as learning opportunities.

4) Make information easy to access for everyone

The beauty of working in an office is that you can ask someone for something and get an answer immediately. Remote workers don’t have that luxury. For them, asking about the status of a project or requesting some other information isn’t as simple as dropping by a coworker’s desk.

Establish a system to share information to prevent that from becoming a problem. A remote contributor based in New York might need a file created by your in-office team in Reno. But since it’s outside of the team’s working hours, they can’t ask. The same goes for in-person teams requiring information from off-site colleagues. 

To avoid this, use knowledge base tools to share information asynchronously.

Document important information in a tool like Notion or ClickUp so people can find what they need quickly. Also, establish file naming conventions, especially for version control. A good place to start is to include the date, your initials, and a “draft” or “final” status.

Store your files in folders organized by the department. Remote staff can find what they’re looking for without interrupting a coworker. They can also share information easily without being distracted by someone asking for help.

5) Maintain regular check-ins and 1:1s

It’s easier to tell when an in-office employee is struggling than a remote worker. You pick up subtle body language signals when you’re communicating in the office. But those signals get lost when they’re working remotely, and you’re relying on instant messaging apps.

You can’t tell if a remote employee is having a bad day through their Slack status. That’s why you need to check on them regularly.

It doesn’t have to be a Zoom or Google Meet call. Halfway through the week, pop them a message via your instant messaging app to know how they’re doing and if they need help with any tasks.

Structured performance reviews are important, too.

Managers observe on-site employees’ work habits, productivity, and communication skills daily. However, they do not have the same level of visibility as remote workers, which affects how they assess and evaluate their work. 

For this reason, schedule regular performance check-ins with your team. You can start with a weekly reporting system where you provide feedback about the employee’s work. Then, set up monthly or quarterly calls to discuss feedback in detail, learn more about their career goals, and highlight any aspects of their work that need improvement.

6. Invite remote employees to in-office events

Hosting a quick game or pizza party after work? Ask remote employees if they’d like to attend. You’ll be surprised how many people will say yes. 

In-office events enable off-site employees to get to know their colleagues beyond job titles. When you work from home, most of your interactions with the rest of the team are work-related. You probably won’t ask a colleague what their favorite song or movie is on Slack, but you can do that over wine or pizza when you hang out in person. 

If you have a globally distributed team, consider building virtual team activities into your company hangouts. Your European team might not be able to attend a Friday evening barbeque, but you can send them a gift card or voucher so they don’t miss out on all the fun.

7) Minimize virtual meetings

It’s easy to fall into unproductive meeting cycles when you have a virtual team. 

You want to strengthen the connection between remote and in-office employees. Meetings should help, right? 

Actually, no. They might feel collaborative, but long, frequent, and unproductive meetings are the number one stressor and distraction for virtual teams.

Only schedule a meeting when you need direct and immediate engagement from participants. Communicate asynchronously for everything else: 

• Share task updates in your project management software.
• Send quick check-in messages in Slack or another instant messaging app.
• Share feedback via video.

8. Improve the effectiveness of your virtual meetings

You don’t want to hinder productivity with constant online meetings. You have to make each one matter. Here are seven practical tips for making every virtual meeting more productive.

• Share a clear agenda with all participants at least 24 hours before the meeting so they can prepare ahead of time. 
• Only invite people actively contributing to the project. You can always share important notes with the non-participants after the meeting. 
• Choose a reliable virtual meeting platform without downtime or privacy issues to ensure your meeting goes smoothly.
• Show new team members how the virtual meeting platform works. Teach them how to set up and schedule meetings, use in-app engagement features like polls, and moderate interactions to have more productive conversations. 
• Use your project management software to document and assign tasks, review upcoming deadlines, and track project progress. Don’t waste time on routine project updates during team meetings.
• Log notes and save them to your knowledge base software, like Notion and ClickUp, for people who didn’t attend the meeting. 
• Leave some extra time for virtual team-building activities and coffee chats to help remote team members connect with in-office colleagues. 

Is ‘Return to the Office’ Killing Virtual Communication?

Businesses want their employees back in the office. Amazon, Disney, and Zoom are some of the big names leading this change. They claim returning to the office will help employees collaborate better and improve workplace productivity and morale, although many workers, especially millennials, are pushing back. 

With employees returning to the office, virtual communication might take a backseat to in-person interactions. For example, if you share an update in the office, you might forget to repeat it later in the company’s Slack channel or email remote employees. 

Over time, this disconnects your remote, hybrid, and in-office employees. But this doesn’t have to be the case. 

Learning from remote communication during the pandemic can help you enjoy the best of both worlds. Although employees already understand how virtual communication works, setting new collaboration guidelines will help those returning to the office. 

Equip Your Team With the Right Tech

You’ve got the techniques you need to run a tight ship for your hybrid company. You know how to overcome common challenges and run productive meetings that don’t waste everyone’s time.

But a team is only as good as the tools they use. You must make it easy for your remote and in-office staff to stay connected.

Make connection more accessible with a small business phone system. It’ll keep your virtual team on the same page. It’s the best way to keep your business open for customers and get more work done.

Once you make the switch, you’ll forever bridge the gap between virtual and in-office teams.