Okay, everyone managing a busy call center and busy agents - raise your right hand. Hmm, I thought so. Most every call center professional I know falls into that category. So what does this mean and what can we do?

I believe a call center environment can be busy without being chaotic. I believe an agent can be busy without being negative. I believe that most of this purposeful busyness is a result of good management.

Consider two different agents working in two different call centers. Both are extremely busy - looking at a customer queue of more than 50 calls. The first agent has been taught that their responsibility is to develop the customer relationship and, if necessary, invest in customer retention activity. There are no blinking red lights on her phone, no supervisors running around telling people about the queue emergency, and no reason for the agent to do anything but ensure a quality, cost-effective interaction with her current customer.

The second agent is bombarded by red and yellow sirens warning of impending doom. He has a supervisor leaning over his shoulder questioning why the call is taking so long. "Sure," the supervisor says, "we're supposed to satisfy the customer but we are in an unusual situation right now. We have to make some adjustments to our standard procedure or else our statistics will not reflect what we want them to."

Which agent is more likely to communicate positively to the customer?

There's no magic. It's all about good management. Not one of us can eradicate the busyness but we can help control the chaos by communicating clear expectations to our agents and managing to those expectations. When an agent works in a well-managed busy environment he or she will be more likely to communicate positively to the customer.