Dustin K MacDonald

Menu
  • Home
  • About
  • Economic and Community Development
  • Nonprofit Management
    • Counselling and Service Delivery
    • Suicide Prevention / Crisis Intervention
  • Politics and Governance
  • Math and Statistics
  • Salesforce
Menu

Keeping Your Helpline Workers On Task

Posted on February 3, 2015November 25, 2018 by Dustin

There are a number of tools that can be used to monitor workers on your helpline. While we all want to believe that workers will do everything they are supposed to do, sometimes people can find themselves falling below the standard you’ve set.

Whether workers are using computers to access websites unrelated to the business at hand, failing to record the information they are supposed to, refusing to talk to certain callers or not picking up the phone enough, some simple tools can be used to monitor their behaviour to ensure that everyone has your helpline’s goals in mind.

It’s important to keep in mind the legal implications of these tools; they should be used only with the knowledge of your workers and with clearly defined protocols for their implementation and execution.

Monitoring Computer Usage

For web browsing, a simple tool aptly called BrowsingHistoryView will help you see what workers are doing on your computers.

From their website: “BrowsingHistoryView is a utility that reads the history data of 4 different Web browsers (Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Safari) and displays the browsing history of all these Web browsers in one table. The browsing history table includes the following information: Visited URL, Title, Visit Time, Visit Count, Web browser and User Profile. BrowsingHistoryView allows you to watch the browsing history of all user profiles in a running system, as well as to get the browsing history from external hard drive.”

This software can be used to see the browsing history of workers in Centres where open access to the internet is permitted, and can also be used to see when workers started or stopped using their workstations if they are limited to browsing a helpline caller management system such as iCarol.

While you can use the history tools attached to each browser normally, BrowsingHistoryView simplifies the task by bringing all the data together in one dashboard view.

BrowsingHistoryView can show only a limited period of time or the entire browsing history chronologically.

Monitoring Telephone Usage

Installing a system like Chronicall can help you monitor when your telephone is in use. Essentially Chronicall is a server that monitors every call that comes into your Centre. Using their “Cradle to Grave” interface and the reporting options, you can see when workers stopped picking up calls, when they ignore calls from certain callers and whether they are fabricating any information about the calls they’re taking (such as taking calls from callers who are blocked from using your service.)

From the Chronicall website: ”As soon as Chronicall is installed, it begins recording detailed information about every call that enters or leaves your phone network. Cradle to Grave is an intuitive and simple way to view this information. It shows you exactly what happened to any call on your system from beginning to end.”

Monitoring Off-Site Usage

If your workers frequently take calls at an off-site location such as their home or an office not owned by you, tools such as Chronicall may be ineffective. In this situation, you can take advantage of additional call-forwarding technology.

For a small fee (the service I trialed for an unrelated usage was approximately $10 per month, plus the cost of calls), you can purchase a toll-free phone number (of the 1-800 or 1-855 variety.)

Traditionally when calls are taken at an off-site location, a dial code such as *73 (Star-Seven-Three) is used to forward the calls from your local number (say, 416-555-1234), to the offsite location (say, 416-555-6789).

Instead, use your Star-73 to forward to your recently purchased toll-free line, 1-800-555-1234. Then, the toll-free number is set to forward to the off-site location, 416-555-6789.

The result of this is that phone calls are received and recorded at the 1-800 number before being forwarded to the offsite location. Using the data provided by the 800 company, you can see the phone number and duration of the calls, allowing you to cross-reference them with the information provided by your worker.

The downside of this, for organizations who frequently engage in calltaking at off-site locations or who take long calls is that if local calls were previously not paid for by your organization, they now would be; this can add up to a significant expense. Your individual requirements will determine whether this is a problem or not.



Cite this article as: MacDonald, D.K., (2015), "Keeping Your Helpline Workers On Task," retrieved on December 7, 2023 from https://dustinkmacdonald.com/keeping-your-helpline-workers-on-task/.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Privacy Policy

See here for our privacy policy. This site uses affiliate links and Adsense ads to provide targeted advertising.

Tags

analytical technique assessment communication community development counselling crisis chat crisis intervention data science eastern university economic development education empathy evaluation forecasting fundraising governance information technology intelligence intelligence analysis keokuk county language learning legal management peer support personal development phd politics professional development protective factors psychosocial risk factors safety planning salesforce sigourney social media statistics suicide suicide assessment suicide risk assessment technology terrorism training university of the cumberlands violence risk assessment youth

Recommended Posts

  • Conducting Psychosocial Assessments
  • DCIB Model of Suicide Risk Assessment
  • ABC Model of Crisis Intervention
  • My Friend is Suicidal - What do I do?

Recent Posts

  • ITS833 Information Governance
  • Enhanced Care Management (ECM) with Salesforce
  • ITS835 Enterprise Risk Management
  • Glorifind Christian Search Engine
  • Sigourney Iowa Election Results, 2023

Archives

  • November 2023 (6)
  • October 2023 (1)
  • September 2023 (3)
  • August 2023 (1)
  • July 2023 (1)
  • May 2023 (1)
  • March 2023 (1)
  • February 2023 (2)
  • January 2023 (4)
  • December 2022 (2)
  • May 2022 (1)
  • April 2022 (2)
  • March 2022 (1)
  • February 2022 (1)
  • December 2021 (1)
  • October 2021 (1)
  • August 2021 (2)
  • May 2021 (3)
  • December 2020 (1)
  • November 2020 (4)
  • July 2020 (1)
  • June 2020 (1)
  • April 2020 (1)
  • March 2020 (4)
  • February 2020 (7)
  • January 2020 (1)
  • November 2019 (1)
  • October 2019 (2)
  • September 2019 (4)
  • August 2019 (2)
  • March 2019 (1)
  • February 2019 (1)
  • January 2019 (1)
  • December 2018 (4)
  • November 2018 (3)
  • October 2018 (3)
  • September 2018 (19)
  • October 2017 (2)
  • September 2017 (2)
  • August 2017 (1)
  • July 2017 (39)
  • May 2017 (3)
  • April 2017 (4)
  • March 2017 (4)
  • February 2017 (4)
  • January 2017 (5)
  • December 2016 (4)
  • November 2016 (4)
  • October 2016 (5)
  • September 2016 (4)
  • August 2016 (5)
  • July 2016 (5)
  • June 2016 (5)
  • May 2016 (3)
  • April 2016 (2)
  • March 2016 (2)
  • February 2016 (2)
  • January 2016 (4)
  • December 2015 (2)
  • November 2015 (2)
  • October 2015 (2)
  • September 2015 (2)
  • August 2015 (1)
  • June 2015 (2)
  • May 2015 (5)
  • April 2015 (3)
  • March 2015 (8)
  • February 2015 (12)
  • January 2015 (28)

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Recent Comments

  • Dustin on Starting a Crisis Line or Hotline
  • HAPPINESSHEALTHCOURAGE, LLC on Starting a Crisis Line or Hotline
  • ITS833 Information Governance - Dustin K MacDonald on University of the Cumberlands PhD in Information Technology
  • Elected Officials in Sigourney, Iowa - Dustin K MacDonald on Sigourney Iowa Election Results, 2023
  • ITS 835 Enterprise Risk Management - Dustin K MacDonald on University of the Cumberlands PhD in Information Technology

Tags

analytical technique assessment communication community development counselling crisis chat crisis intervention data science eastern university economic development education empathy evaluation forecasting fundraising governance information technology intelligence intelligence analysis keokuk county language learning legal management peer support personal development phd politics professional development protective factors psychosocial risk factors safety planning salesforce sigourney social media statistics suicide suicide assessment suicide risk assessment technology terrorism training university of the cumberlands violence risk assessment youth
© 2023 Dustin K MacDonald | Powered by Minimalist Blog WordPress Theme