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The Scott O. Thomas Blog

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas in the Call Center 2011

Thanks for visiting my site! Contact me or visit my company website to start a free trial of our hosted CDM software. CDM allows your customers to help coach and improve your employee's performance. Visit the Tamer Partners Corporation website at www.tamerpartners.com to find out how!

I can’t believe it’s December 2011 and as I post this, it’s only 10 days, 9 hours, and 55 minutes until Christmas! I thought I would share some holiday cheer in the form of a poem I wrote a few years back…


 

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the center

Not a creature was stirring, not even a printer;

The headsets were hung by the cubicles with care,

In hopes that not too many calls would be there.

 

Each manager was nestled all snug in their chair,

While visions of call volume made them each stare;

And I was alone, with a 10 page report,

With too many columns for my poor brain to sort!

 

When up on the reader board there displayed such a sight,

I sprang from my office with all of my might.

Away to the display I flew like a flash,

Tripped over a phone cord, and made a loud crash!

 

And that’s when I saw it, those numbers so high

I looked at that reader board and started to cry,

And finally I shouted, “What’s going on here?”

High call volume for Christmas could be something to fear!

 

Then I heard a strange noise that made me turn quick,

And there right before me was Jolly St. Nick!

He said, “Worry not! I brought help for these calls!

And still we’ll have time to deck all the halls!”

 

And he whistled, and shouted, and rolled up his sleeves

I was rubbing my eyes, I just could not believe

Then he opened his bag, which seemed rather full

And out ran a phone rep towards each cubicle.

 

“Now, Courtesy! Now, Patience! Show Sales Skills don’t wait!

Just some of the things that improve your close rate!

To the end of the aisle! To the top of the wall!

Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”

 

As each rep signed in, I saw the reader board frown,

And then the huge call volume finally went down,

I went back to my office, and looked at the screen,

At all of those calls blinking from red to green.

 

So that’s why the “Big Guy” had dropped by that eve,

It was just so amazing and hard to believe,

For the gifts he delivered had no whistles or bells

Improved margins per hour and margins per sale!

 

And this gift creates new gifts to give out each day

In the actions they take, and the things that they say

And our customer’s love them, it’s what brings them back

Wonderful reps keep sales and service on track!

 

And then Santa waved, and he gave us a wink,

As only green lights were left on to blink.

But I heard him exclaim, as he walked out of sight,

“MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!”

 

I wish you a very Merry Christmas and an amazing 2012! I’d love to hear what your call center Christmas list has on it! Or maybe your contact center New Year’s resolutions!



scott o. thomas
senior partner @ tamer partners corporation

http://www.tamerpartners.com

Visit the Tamer Partners Corporation website at www.tamerpartners.com

How Does Your Contact Center Garden Grow?

How Does Your Contact Center Garden Grow? Hopefully with an Employee Engagement Plan!

I have the opportunity to speak with one of my clients this week (Amas Tenumah – Teleflora, VP, Operations) at Call Center Demo & Conference is produced by ICMI. You can find more details here : Session details.

We wrote a brief article about our session and I thought I would share it with you here…

Close your eyes and think for a moment about the employees in your organization that speak to hundreds of customers each day. These frontline sales and service professionals will probably speak to more customers in a day than most executives will in a year. Are there some employees in this diverse workgroup that you hope speak to more customers than others? Maybe a few that you hope get the “easy” calls, while others you’d prefer having handle the more complex interactions? It’s been said that contact centers are like gardens, and your employees fall into three distinct categories of flowers. Roses are star employees, daisies are average performers, and weeds are hopefully improved (but sometimes removed) – and to ensure your garden grows, these employees require an employee engagement plan. Let’s take a moment to dive deeper into the characteristics of roses, daisies and weeds. Sometimes it its important to just stop and “smell” the service!

Roses are your star employees. These are the folks that when you think about implementing some sort of contest or recognition program in your center, you immediately imagine they will probably win it. We are fortunate they work for us, and they can really make the difference between success and failure. Like an actual rose, they require plenty of work and special handling.

Our second group of employees is our daisies. This is by far the largest group that we have in our organizations. We all know daisies. They are beautiful flowers, but in most gardens they don’t require a lot of upkeep or get a lot of attention. If you think about your average employees they aren’t much trouble. They show up and do their job. No hassles, no problems, they just simply do their jobs. Often the majority of employees throughout a company tend to fit into the daisy category. Our challenge as leaders is to avoid the tendency to ignore this group. In order to have an amazing garden, we must do something different with this group. Instead of ignoring them, we need to acknowledge and engage them.

That leaves us with the weeds. In most contact center gardens, only a small percentage of employees are weeds, yet often this is the group that leaders spend the most time with. You know who they are, and they know who they are. Unfortunately, this means an inordinate amount of leadership’s gardening time is spent with the people who bring the least value to your customers’ service experience. Now that we know what’s growing in our garden, we must create a strategy that allows are gardeners to let their roses bloom, empowers the daisies to transform, and encourages the weeds to diminish. Employee engagement is the key, and talented gardeners are part of the solution. The challenge is how many individual flowers are growing in your garden, and how much time a gardeners can spend with each of them.

So who are your gardeners? Team Leads? Supervisors? Managers and Trainers? Those are absolutely critical resources to improve employee engagement. How about your customers! Who better to encourage, critique, and motivate employees than the customers they interact with every day. You may have heard that award-winning gardeners admit to talking to their flowers. Our customers do that every day. A direct comment from a customer means infinitely more to an employee than direct criticism from a manager. Join our session  to learn more!

Session 201: It’s a Garden! Tried and True Tips for Growing an Engaged Team

Time: Wednesday, October 12, 2011 2:15 PM – 3:30 PM

The Four Steps to Changing Employee Behavior

One of the primary goals of any leader is to continually develop their staff. Improving employee performance typically requires some sort of sustainable change in behavior. If someone lacks empathy with their customers, they have to purposefully change their actions and statements to successfully close this performance gap. I’ve outlined four key steps to changing employee behavior.

Step 1: Individual Discovery
The first step is Individual Discovery. Every employee has a unique set of strengths, and areas that need improvement. When assessing a team of sales and service employees, quantifiable data is key to identifying individual performance gaps. Typically an assessment can be accomplished in 30 days through observation, or collaborative observations, to identify consistent patterns of employee behavior. This allows you to see the areas where an employee truly shines, their comfort zones, and also the gaps in performance. Time is one of the largest barriers to successfully completing this step. In most cases a manager lacks time to invest in Individual Discovery for one employee, let alone their entire team. One of the most underutilized resources to help in this area is the voice of the customer. Leveraging the thousands of customers that interact with each of your employees every week to help observe during this phase provides the manager with virtually unlimited resources that are not only qualified, but are possibly the most credible experts to participate in this process.

Step 2: “Buy In”
Once Individual Discovery is completed, an employee must “Buy In” to the assessment before any real change can occur. The voice of the customer increases “Buy In” and reduces the amount of time it would normally take to complete this step. When employees are assessed by their customers, they more readily accept the assessment, reducing subjectivity or perceptions that may arise in traditional observations or quality monitoring. The reality is that a customer has more credibility at assessing performance than any internal personal in an organization. Think about it. We pay employees to observe employees, and then we have them talk to each other about what the customer experienced. What’s missing from this process? The customer! So not only can the customers help save time and improve the efficiency of the Individual Discovery step, they are equally valuable at gaining “Buy In” from your staff.

Step 3: Targeted Observation
This step is critical in achieving long term behavior change and employee improvement. Now that an employee has “Buy In” and begins to make appropriate changes when interacting with customers, Targeted Observation must occur to watch for any indications of improvement, while identifying any old habits that might resurface. Once again (do you see a pattern here?) the voice of the customer can provide tremendous value. Customer driven organizations can leverage the voice of the customer in a very targeted manner, allowing customers to observe specific performance opportunities for the individual employees they interact with. This approach allows employee A’s customers to help by observing them as they work on their empathy, while employee B engages their customers to observe them on active listening, and so on for every specific performance area of every unique employee.

Step 4: Targeted Feedback
As an employee begins making changes towards improvement, Targeted Feedback is critical to having long-term results. Typically an employee makes positive changes, and in some cases their manager will notice it, especially if it occurs shortly after the “Buy In” step. The manager will affirm the behavior by encouraging and acknowledging the successful steps toward improvement. The employee might also slip into old habits, and a manger may step in to correct them and get them back on track. The challenge is that over time, or even within a few days, it becomes more challenging for a manager to catch someone doing something right. When the manager fails to notice anymore, an employee may slip a bit and slowly settle in to just being “good enough”. Without successful, ongoing Targeted Feedback, you run the risk of the employee just settling in where nobody notices them. Once again, a customer driven organization leverages the voice of the customer in this final and critical step of changing behavior. The customers show up every day (hopefully) and when permitted, can deliver amazing bits of Targeted Feedback in virtually real time to employees. This creates a momentum where employees are noticed and encouraged every day as they continue to improve over time. Once a performance gap is resolved, customer driven employees then leverage their customers to identify the next challenge they can work on together.

Are you customer driven? Do you leverage the voice of the customer in improving your employees? Are your customers working for you to reduce operational costs while improving employee performance?

Take the free Customer Driven challenge and put your customers to work today. Visit the Tamer Partners Corporation website at www.tamerpartners.com to find out how!

Scott O. Thomas
Senior Partner @ TPC
Customers @ Your Service!
twitter: http://twitter.com/scottothomas | linkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/scottothomas

Looking for 3 to 4 contact centers to participate in a hosted software study that will leverage the voice of the customer to improve employee performance.

You will get to test drive a hosted software application and provide feedback on some new employee improvement/development modules. This service will capture all key VOC measurements such as Customer Satisfaction, Net Promoter, Brand Awareness, etc. In addition, you will be testing modules where customers engage in the quality monitoring and coaching of your staff. We are looking for small to mid size centers that are interested in improving employee skills in one of these areas:
Empathy
Active Listening
Professionalism
Phone Etiquette
Soft Selling
Product Knowledge
Call Energy

This system will engage customers to help improve these areas.

There will be no cost to you. This is a hosted application requiring no software or hardware. If interested, send me a note.

One Step Beyond Listening to the Voice of the Customer (VOC)

Why should we understand our customer’s needs and wants? Because thats the most cost effective way to run an organization. The formula is simple:
Customers Needs & Wants
+
Company Actions & Strategies
=
Highest Level of Services at the Lowest Cost Possible

Determining what you should STOP doing for your customers is sometimes the most profitable decision you can make.

My company helps create customer collaboration, and as a result we are able to involve the customers in many aspects of service delivery. We help you put your customers to work coaching and quality monitoring your employees. Who better to provide a QM score than the actual customer the person interacted with?

Our clients using our hosted application have their customers participating in employee performance appraisals, quality monitoring, recognition programs – all while improving individual employee performance.

Employees “buy in” much quicker when the feedback comes from their customers.
Customer loyalty increases because they are involved in the success of service delivery.
Our clients are happy because the customer is an incredibly passionate, reliable and affordable resource.

If interested, send me a note and I’ll share a case study with you or let you tour one of our client’s on-line. You can even test drive the application with your most challenging team.
So start asking your customers what they think, and then put them to work!

Quality Monitoring – What’s Missing?

Call Centers typically implement Quality Monitoring to monitor the customer experience, improve employee performance, and ultimately improve the customer experience. Granted there are others reasons including compliance, security, etc.

Now, consider how this accomplished and tell me if something is missing.

We pay one group of employees, to listen to the employees that we pay to help our customers.

or

We pay an outsourcer, to listen to the employees that we pay to help our customers.

What’s missing? The Customer!

This creates a situation of subjectivity, debate, inconsistencies, etc.
Why not leverage the voice of the customer in your quality process? Engaging the customer in your QM process allows you to calibrate managers, employees and customers. Customers drive performance on all levels. They help to reduce cost, increase accuracy, increase experience measurement, increase encouragement and often increase their loyalty to your organization. Their time invested helps them to become more loyal to the very company they are helping. Everyone wins!

Here are some reasons why you should leverage your customers in QM.
Customers are Accurate
Who better to tell you what they think and feel about the services you are providing them? Who better to tell you the unique attributes about your employees? Who better to help you teach key skills to your employees? Customers have a front row seat to all of your transactions. They understand uniquely their intent and expectations. There is no more accurate resource to provide direction and feedback.

Customers are Passionate
One of the key components of finding partners to help you grow your business is their level of passion. Have you fielded a complaint from a customer lately? They are passionate about how you treat them, your accuracy, your professionalism, and better ways to serve them. All you have to do is ask.

Customers are Credible
Whom would you believe? A peer who listens to Quality Monitoring calls all day long day-in and day-out, or the actual customer? Customers provide instant credibility for feedback and direction on how to improve. Not everyone will be perfect. A very few will have an agenda. The vast majority will provide credible feedback.

Customers are Affordable
Customers provide us feedback at little or no cost. Yes, we must gather the data but we do not pay benefits, sick time or FMLA. Customer feedback and direction is eminently affordable and attainable in your center.

Customers are Reliable
Customer show up, every day, to make contact and touch your organization. Their absentee and turnover rates are often better than your employees are! If you build it, they will come.

Customers are Almost Infinite
There are millions of customer transactions, all the time. In our busy times, slow times, night times, new products, old products, test products, happy, sad, fair, and unfair, customers are there. We don’t have to use the same customers for feedback. Customers usually have a lower turnover rate than our own employees!

Are you Customer Driven? Are your customers working for you to reduce operational costs while improving employee performance?

Take the free Customer Driven challenge and put your customers to work today. Visit the Tamer Partners Corporation website at www.tamerpartners.com to find out how!

Scott O. Thomas
Senior Partner @ TPC
Customers @ Your Service!
twitter: http://twitter.com/scottothomas | linkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/scottothomas

Call Center Bingo & Other Games for Your Contact Center

Do you play games in your contact center? Handling customer contact can create stress so why not bring a little fun into your center that improves morale while increasing productivity?
What games do you play in your contact center? Sometimes a game of bingo can improve schedule adherence and attendance. Making mystery calls that randomly ask agents customer service trivia questions can improve skills or product knowledge. Playing games can create a team that works hard. I’ve had some people ask me for the details on adherence/attendance bingo, which is great to implement on Mondays or any other day prone to high absenteeism. Here are some tips for playing:

Print some bingo cards for your center. If you are feeling creative you can make them in PowerPoint or Word, or you can create your own custom bingo cards with customer service related words using this free on-line tool here.
It’s always fun to use call center and customer service words like:
ACD, IVR, Smile, Empathy, Greeting, Closing, Troubleshooting, CRM, Agent, CSR, and any other acronyms your company may have.

Once you have the cards made, distribute them and inform employees that you will be calling bingo words throughout the day, just like any other bingo game. The key is to randomly call words throughout the day utilizing screen pop messages, reader boards, phone displays, or any other place you can send a text message across your center. Email is also an option. Sometimes the company or department intranet page is great because it encourages people to use those tools.

And then play! People don’t want to miss the fun so they are more likely to show up. Also, mix it up from time to time. Play Monday one day and a Thursday some other time. Don’t forget 2nd and 3rd shifts either. What happens over time is that you develop a culture where people want to show up everyday just to see what might happen.

Prizes. Most any prize will do, but if you lack the budget for movie tickets or gift cards, don’t let that stop you. Here are some ideas for rewards that won’t take a bite out of your budget.

1. Reward people by having managers/supervisors wash the winners car.
2. Have a manager/supervisor take calls for that person, and give them an extra break that day.
3. Let them learn something. Cross-training is a great reward!
4. See if they can attend a meeting with someone from the executive team. Maybe they can even be a customer service ambassador, depending on the kinds of meetings your executives might be attending.
5. Potluck dessert rewards. Food is always welcome in most contact centers!
6. Model the service culture by letting winners serve on behalf of your company at a charity event, soup kitchen, habitat for humanity, etc.
7. If they are capable, allow them to teach or speak to a new hire class or help with training in some capacity.

I bet you have some suggestions. Do you? Let me know! I’d love to hear from you…

Are you Customer Driven? Are your customers working for you to reduce operational costs while improving employee performance?

Take the free Customer Driven challenge and put your customers to work today. Visit the Tamer Partners Corporation website at www.tamerpartners.com to find out how!

Scott O. Thomas
Senior Partner @ TPC
Customers @ Your Service!
twitter: http://twitter.com/scottothomas | linkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/scottothomas

Ten Ways to Cure Boredom in Your Contact Center

Working in a contact center can sometimes become a boring or tedious job. Often times I’m asked about ideas to make the job less monotonous while engaging employees. Here is an updated list of ideas from my book “Contact Center Ideas” which you can buy here. Enjoy!

10. Accurate Staffing and Forecasting.
Boredom in the call center may be a direct result of an inaccurate forecast and schedule. Over staffing can lead to high “available” time causing the agent to face very large “gaps” between calls. This may also have a negative effect on the agents who may be understaffed during other shifts, resulting in burnout or turnover. Workforce management tools can help you manage the “art” of effective forecasting and scheduling.

9. Continuous Training.
Typically an agent receives initial training at the beginning of their career, with an organization that prepares them for the “basics” of their job. Offering continuous training allows an employee to acquire additional sales, technical, and customer service skills. With the advent of web-based training, you can now deliver training to the agent’s desktop during slow times. You can also schedule on-line training as part of your normal scheduling process.

8. Cross-Training/Career Pathing.
Employees often think the grass is greener on the other side. And, sometimes it is! If you have multiple departments within your organization, organize a career pathing or cross-training program to allow your employees an opportunity to discover other jobs within the company. Let them rotate through sales, customer service, collections and technical support. Creating “manager in training” is also a great idea for reducing boredom, identifying future managers for your centers and improving employee retention.

7. Schedule and Conduct Regular Meetings.
Whether its impromptu or scheduled, individual or group, employee meetings are a necessity in the fast pace world of call centers. Consistent meetings will allow you to help the employees understand the company’s mission and vision. Scheduling time to discuss the agent’s needs, life events and career goals is also a “must do”!

6. Implement a Contest.
All work and no play make any environment a boring place to work. So, why not add a little excitement, plus an added boost in performance, by implementing a contest in your call center? Create goals for individuals or teams that are aligned with your business objectives. Survey your staff for ideas and create a theme for the contest (Olympics, sports, adventure…the sky, and your staff’s creativity, is the limit!) In most cases the increased productivity or sales that result in a contest will justify really cool prizes for the winners.

5. Do Something Silly!
Give out ice cream. Dress up like a clown. Run around with a video camera interviewing your agents. Do something silly with the dress code such as ugly sweatshirt day, ugly shoes day or silly hat day. Put on your creative cap and stamp out boredom!

4. Ask Your Agents
If you want to improve something for your employees, ask them for suggestions. Tell them you want to create a fun work environment and see what suggestions may arise. You may have some of the best boredom busters created during those brainstorming sessions. Consider creating a committee of employees that will focus on specific agent issues. Make sure the group is representative of your “good” agents and your “need to improve” agents.

3. Create an Internal Newsletter.
Being informed can also help eliminate boredom in a job. If people know “why?” – they are more willing to support the mission, vision, and values of their company. A newsletter can be a great way to accomplish this. Ask for volunteers to contribute to the writing of the newsletter. Combine work issues and concerns as well as silly commentary to just add laughter to the center. This can be a great source for training, management interviews, spotlights on other departments, and employee recognition.

2. Special Projects
Find ways to allow people to do other things to help the call center. It can be as simple as creating decorations for the call center during holidays or special occasions, or as complex as piloting a new customer service training class.

1. Interact with Staff
MBWA is not a new concept but –“Managing By Walking Around” is very effective! Take the opportunity to sit with your staff whenever possible. Do side by side observations and maybe even take a few calls yourself. If you aren’t interacting with your team, you may never know if the work environment is boring.

I’d love to hear your ideas. Send me a note!

Are you Customer Driven? Are your customers working for you to reduce operational costs while improving employee performance?

Take the free Customer Driven challenge and put your customers to work today. Visit the Tamer Partners Corporation website at www.tamerpartners.com to find out how!

Scott O. Thomas
Senior Partner @ TPC
Customers @ Your Service!

Maybe You Should Increase Your Talk Time

Maybe you should consider increasing your talk time…

If you work in a call center, that’s probably the last thing you want to hear… But if you have a team of people who report to you, that rely on you for coaching, that you evaluate and make salary recommendations for… Maybe you should increase your talk time.

According to a new study by Leadership IQ, 66% of employees say that they have too little interaction with their boss. Most managers spend more time reading emails, working on reports, or simply staying in “crisis mode” that they have little time left over for their employees.

More than 70 percent want (73.9%) their manager to listen, understand, and respond. If you find yourself rarely spending time with your employees, you might want to rework your “to do” list and consider increasing your talk time.

Three Easy Things to Start Immediately to Increase Your Talk Time

1. Be a great greeter. Walk the aisles and say hello to your folks daily. Ask if there’s anything you can help them with. See if there are barriers to success you can help remove. See if there are any resources or tools they are lacking. Hang out in their world for a bit.

2. Implement Huddles. Huddles are quick, regular informal meetings. Let your team give 2 minute updates as you go around the huddle from person to person. Let them share a success, or ask for help on a challenge. When it gets back to you, give some updates on the company, share any important news or company information, then give some call outs to recognize people on their daily successes. End with a little celebration and everyone will gain a little energy before returning to work.

3. Schedule One on Ones. If they aren’t on your calendar, they won’t happen. Trust me, the effort is well worth it. You’ll get more out of your team than you every thought possible by simply meeting and discussing performance and life on a regular basis. Don’t let these become simple or causal. Discuss the tough stuff and acknowledge the positive things too. Make sure your folks get some sort of value from the meetings.

Let me know what you think. I’d be happy to invest some of my talk time with you!

Are you Customer Driven? Are your customers working for you to reduce operational costs while improving employee performance?

Take the free Customer Driven challenge and put your customers to work today. Visit the Tamer Partners Corporation website at www.tamerpartners.com to find out how!

Scott O. Thomas
Senior Partner @ TPC
Customers @ Your Service!

Contact Center Management Interview Questions

Over the years I’ve conducted many contact center interviews to hire front-line agents, supervisors, managers, trainers, workforce managers, and directors. Contact centers are complex, and standard interview questions are not effective at identifying potential candidates. I thought I would share some of my favorite questions to ask.

Do you know our mission statement?
Great question to see if the candidate did any research about your organization. Most mission statements have a customer service element, so see if they took the time to find it. If not, show it to them and ask what they think. A great follow-up question is: How would you support our mission in this role?

What would you say to your manager if they are crazy about an idea but you think it stinks?
Allows insight to see how or if a person is capable of managing up. Are they going to say yes to anything, or will they tell you what they really think?

Tell me about the last time you were unable to satisfy a customer.
If you have worked in customer service for more than a week, you know there are customers that you simply can’t satisfy. It’s not that you aren’t trying, there’s just that small percentage of folks that have unrealistic expectations.

Tell me about a time you had to convince a group to make a change you felt necessary.
With the follow-up questions:
What was the change? How did you convince them?
Great question to see how they seek and obtain “buy-in” from a team… Or do they simply think people should respect their title and do anything they ask?

Tell me about your “To Do List”. What is always at the top, and what is always at the bottom?
See where their priorities are. Do they place a higher priority on their people? Technology? Process? Good to know based on what you’re hiring them for.

Tell me about procrastinating about a decision in the last 6 months. Why did you do it?
Will they tell you? Do they want to hide all the imperfections? None of us are perfect. See how transparent they are willing to be.

Tell me about your job search strategy. What actions have you taken?
How long have they been looking. Do they have a strategy? Are they experiencing some success? Is this an indicator of how they will manage your projects?

How do you use humor at work?
Let’s face it. A sense of humor is a must in any customer facing job. See what they say. Ask for an example. Make them be specific. Will your customers get a kick out of them?

What would you say if I told you this interview wasn’t going very well.
Ok. HR may shoot down this one, but it has always yielded interesting results. I can’t tell you how many times it has validated all the previous answers the candidate gave regarding conflict, active listening, negotiations, etc. I also could share many situations where the mask came off and they showed their true approach to dealing with conflict. Let me know what you think.

Also let me know if you have a great question. I’d love to hear from you!

Are you Customer Driven? Are your customers working for you to reduce operational costs while improving employee performance?

Take the free Customer Driven challenge and put your customers to work today. Visit the Tamer Partners Corporation website at www.tamerpartners.com to find out how!

Scott O. Thomas
Senior Partner @ TPC
Customers @ Your Service!