10 Tips on Choosing Corded Headsets for your Contact Center Agents

Your business relies on clear, effective communications, and the headset is the most important link between your agents and your customers. Selecting headsets is an important decision for your business, affecting customer satisfaction, agent productivity and employee turnover.

Plantronics has more than 40 years of experience providing headsets for contact centers. We understand the entire process-from initial evaluation to purchase, inventory management, service and support. To assist you in the process, we've developed the following guidelines to consider when purchasing headsets.

1. What is the noise level?
   Determine your contact center's noise level so you can select the appropriate headsets. Investing in features that you may not need, or compromising on those you do, can leave you with headsets that aren’t suited to your particular contact center environment.

   Noise Level and/or Work Application over 75dB Agent needs both ears covered to concentrate on the customers voice and block-out surrounding environment	Suggested Model Binaural Receiver Noise-Canceling Microphone E.g. SupraPlus
   65 - 75dB Agent needs an open ear to be in tune with surrounding environment or to confer with a colleague	Monaural Receiver or Over-the-Ear Style E.g. SupraPlus, Tristar, DuoPro
   under 65dB	Monaural Receiver or Over-the-Ear Style Noise-Canceling or Voice Tube Microphone E.g. SupraPlus, Tristar, DuoPro

2. Know your vendor.
   Treat your headset vendor as you would any other critical business partner. Consider the vendor’s experience, understanding of contact centers, support offerings and financial stability. Since 1969, when a Plantronics headset carried the historic first words from the moon: "That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," Plantronics has become the headset of choice for mission-critical applications such as air traffic control, 911 dispatch, and the New York Stock Exchange. Today, this history of Sound Innovation™ is the basis for every product built for the contact center.

3. Product range.
   Determine whether your vendor offers a full range of products. Comfortable agents are productive, and there are many headset styles to meet individual needs. It's never a "one size fits all" situation. Consider wireless options, such as the Plantronics SupraPlus Wireless, for coaches and supervisors to allow them to move freely from agent to agent training or to handle "escalation calls" from customers. Plantronics offers a full range of both corded and wireless headsets, including over-the-head binaural (covering both ears) and monaural (covering one ear), over-the-ear, and convertible models, as well as those with noise-canceling microphones and those with voice tubes, all at various price points.

4. Standardize.
   Purchase all your headsets from a single manufacturer. This will enable you to get the lowest cost on equipment as well as help facilitate all service and support transactions. Plantronics promises hassle-free, worry-free service. If any product fails to perform to the highest standard, Plantronics replaces it within 48 hours - guaranteed.

5. Inventory management.
   Order and store only enough replacement headsets required for regular wear and tear from your agents. Choose a vendor that responds quickly to repair and replacement issues, and provides a robust warranty. Also consider a vendor that provides headset inventory tracking process. In addition to a 48 hour replacement service, Plantronics provides high volume contact centers with an on-site, secure Headset Service Station - a central location for handling inventory control and support.

6. Process management.
   Who will manage your headsets? Assign a specialist or administrator who can own the process and start to implement procedures. Having proper headset procedures and systems in place will save you money, by allowing you to run your center using fewer headsets. Again, the secure Plantronics Headset Station streamlines and simplifies the management of headsets.

7. Sales and support.
   Identify a headset supply chain that will provide you 24-hour multi-language support (via voice, email or webchat) to make sure that your headsets work around the clock. Plantronics makes it easy to find support for your Plantronics product day or night, from your computer or by telephone. Plantronics Technical Assistance Center offers live chat, email, instant live talk, quick web service, and a detailed Knowledge Base to assist you. In addition, Plantronics has more Sales and Support representatives (both Inside and Outside) than all other headset manufacturers combined.

8. Agent training.
   Make headset use, care and maintenance a part of your regular new agent orientation or training to maximize your headset investment. Some vendors provide onsite training, computer-based training, training videos and interactive tutorials. Plantronics offers all of these, and more!

9. Total cost of ownership.
   Analyze your headset expenses over a two-to-four year period, not just the up-front purchase price. The purchase price accounts for only half of the costs over time-repairs, spare parts, shrinkage, and mismanaged inventories comprise the remainder of the expenses. Identify all costs up front so you have a complete picture of your financial investment. With reliability built-in, Plantronics headsets break less, and even when they do need repairing, they are replaced faster - so you can run your contact center with fewer headsets, saving you money.

10. The sound of the future.
    Make sure that your headset vendor will continue to invest in the best solutions for today and tomorrow. Your contact center can take advantage of the latest technology to improve communications with your customers. From breakthrough wireless and VoIP technologies to patented sound innovations, Plantronics is on the cutting edge so your agents get the crystal-clear sound they need to speed resolutions and improve your center’s metrics.

Above all, contact centers require headsets with superior comfort, sound innovation and reliability to ensure their customer’s satisfaction, higher agent productivity and less employee turnover. You can rely on Plantronics to meet your contact center needs with a variety of high-performance styles that have stood the test of time.

Purchasing a cheap headset can be very expensive...