Manage incidents and emergencies in a contact centre
Overview
This standard is about managing incidents and emergencies in a contact centre. It covers handling incidents and emergencies while taking responsibility for deploying available resources and using appropriate communication systems. It involves following the processes and procedures within the contact centre to react and deal with unforeseen incidents and emergency contacts. It involves contacts in which the person expects or demands the contact centre to be immediately responsive. You will also provide guidance to colleagues on incident and emergency handling and management. It is for contact centre professionals who have some supervisory or managerial responsibility for managing incidents and emergencies in a contact centre.
Performance criteria
You must be able to:
Handle incidents and emergencies through a contact centre following organisational procedures
1. assess incoming incidents and emergencies to identify organisational procedures that address the contact needs
2. respond to incoming contacts in a professional manner, in accordance with organisational guidelines
3. assess and prioritise reported incidents and emergencies
4. record the contact in a log throughout management of the incident or emergency
5. gather and record information from the contact following organisational procedures
6. hand over the contact information to the members of staff responsible for incident actions
7. respond to requests for information or further incident management actions
8. follow organisational procedures when giving advice to incoming contacts
9. ensure that the legislation and organisational policies are followed to manage the incident reported in the contact centre
10. respond to changing circumstances in an incident and emergency by escalating the response within organisational procedures
Use communication systems to deploy resources in incident and emergency management
11. select resources that are immediately available to deal with an incident reported by a contact
12. select a method to communicate and deal with the incident and emergency
13. specify the response needed when communicating and dealing with an incident and emergency
14. follow organisational procedures when communicating with external organisations and agencies regarding an incident and emergency
15. follow agreed and accepted conventions of style and approach when using different communication media during incident management
16. use uniform wording and codes when communicating with those actioning incident management
17. monitor the management of the incident by deployed resources and provide any additional support needed
18. deal with queries or complaints regarding the handling incidents and emergencies
Provide guidance to colleagues on incident management
19. identify areas in which colleagues require support and guidance in incident management
20. agree with colleagues and carry out buddying and coaching activities that will provide them with support
21. review the support provided to colleagues handling contacts about incident management
22. use the review of incident management to take actions to improve team performance
23. follow current legal, regulatory and data protection requirements, codes of practice and organisational policies and procedures relating to handling personal information and use of technologies
Knowledge and Understanding
You need to know and understand:
- the incident and emergency management services offered by the contact centre
- the commands structure used by emergency services and utility companies
- the organisational requirements and external regulation or legislation that impact on incident and emergency management
- the methods of assessing and prioritising incoming contacts for incident and emergency management
- the organisational procedures for recording information in an incident log
- how to determine the nature of response to a contact and the appropriate allocation of resources to that response
- the relevant information for actioning incident and emergency management
- the range of external organisations and agencies that may be involved
- the organisational procedures and legislative requirements when giving advice to contacts during incident and emergency management
- the boundaries of a contact incident that justify actions being escalated to different levels of response
- how to assess the urgency and priority of an incident and emergency
- how to identify the resources required to deal with reported incidents
- the importance of clear communication through the most appropriate channel with members of staff handling the incident and emergency
- the uniform wording and codes used by the organisation when dealing with incident and emergency management
- how to maintain control of a conversation
- the nature and limits of instructions and advice that can be passed on to a contact reporting an incident
- how to monitor the actions of members of staff dealing with incident and emergency
- the procedures for dealing with queries and complaints within the limits of your responsibilities
- how to identify needs and provide support to colleagues to develop their ability to handle incidents and emergencies
- the importance of reviewing incident management results to improve performance
- the current legal, regulatory and data protection requirements, codes of practice and organisational policies and procedures relating to handling personal information and use of technologies