Dec 03

‘Twas the night before Christmas in the Call Center 2012

Posted on by
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 2012! Once again, 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 2013! 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

May 18

Rewarding Contact Center Employees When the Budget is Tight

Posted on by

Sometimes reward and recognition programs take a hit in a downturn economy. We make the assumption that movie tickets or other chachkies are the only viable options for rewarding our employees.

Here are 5 employee reward and recognition ideas that are budget friendly!

1. Serve in the Community – What better way to promote a service driven culture than to allow your employees to serve in the community and represent your organization. Your organization may already have existing relationships with charities in your area. Allowing an employee to build a house with Habitat for Humanity, or serve in a hospital or food pantry organization, are amazing ways to recognize an employee while supporting your local communities.

2. Cross Training – Allowing an employee to learn a new skill while meeting new coworkers in other departments, is a great reward and recognition option. This career development  idea is not only easy on the budget, but also helps improve employee morale – preventing burnout or potential turnover.

3. Solve a Problem – Employees that are due recognition are typically great employees. They are talented and have a drive that can’t be overlooked. A great way to reward a great employee, is allowing them to solve a problem. Look at your to “do list” for ideas, or maybe the departmental goals for the quarter. Move something off of your plate by turning into a reward for one of your employees.

4. Manage a Project – Similar to the 3rd idea above, allowing an employee to manage a project or serve on a business committee is another great recognition tool. (And it helps get great things done for your organization!)

5. Service Ambassadors  – Are there opportunities for employees to attend a meeting or event with an executive from your organization? Maybe a charity event or a new store opening? Enabling employees to represent the contact center organization by serving as a “Service Ambassador” is a great recognition tool – and promotes the importance of service delivery throughout your organization!

Hopefully these help. I’d love to know what reward and recognition ideas you’ve adopted. Send me a note!

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

May 04

Voice of the Customer as a Leadership Resource

Posted on by

Do you currently have a VOC (Voice of the Customer) program in your organization? Are you or your marketing department conducting surveys on a regular basis? If you are, what kind of data are you receiving? Customer Satisfaction Scores? Net Promoter? Brand Awareness? Product Satisfaction?

All great data, but too often contact center leaders overlook the value a VOC program can bring to leaders. In fact, it can be one of the most powerful tools to help improve employee performance, improve morale, improve turnover, and increase manager efficiencies.

First lets review the 3 basic employee segments you have in your organization.

1. Top Performers. Your rockstar agents!
2. Average Performers. They do good work everyday.
3. Poor Performers: These are the people you wish you could give back to the community!

Here is a typical snapshot of how these employees are allocated across a team or organization.

 

Now lets review how a front-line manager spends their time with employees.

So you see the problem. Leaders often spend 80% of their time with a small percentage of employees – not to mention it’s their worst performers!

And here is the rub… Your top performers are more than likely wired that way. They are motivated to excel, regardless of how much time you spend with them. Don’t misunderstand, top performers need a coach to challenge them or they get burnt out.  A great way to reward top performers is to give them a problem to solve or teach them new things.

The real challenge is that the largest employee segment, average employees, is your largest segment and often most ignored… and  yet they do require attention to improve. They rely on encouragement and acknowledgment, yet simply go unnoticed.

And then we have the problem employees. The folks that have us wrapped up in paperwork and action plans until we start to go insane.

So here is how customer surveying can help. Customers spend time with all of your employees every day. So if you start surveying customers, they can help you encourage and motivate you staff. Especially the average employee segment. The key is to ask questions about the agent they interacted with and then share the data with your employees. The closer you can get to real-time feedback delivery to agents, the more powerful the results.  Ask how the agent did. How was their energy level? Did they seem to care? Did they take initiative? Certainly use some quantitative questions, but don’t lose sight of the fact that employees respond to “words” much better than any number. Don’t be afraid of text response questions simply because they are difficult to quantify.

Think about this: Which would be more meaningful to an agent?

Category: Empathy
Score: 3.87

Or this?

“Julie did help me process the order, but I was so upset about our car being stolen I couldn’t keep from crying. Julie didn’t seem to notice. It made me feel awkward…”

Which will impact Julie more? Which helps Julie “buy in” to the fact that should could be more empathetic?

So if your budget is tight, and your plate is full, consider putting customers to work coaching, motivating and improving your employees. After all, customers show up every day…hopefully…

That’s all for now. I’d love to hear your thoughts about numbers!

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

Apr 10

4 8 15 16 23 42 – Are You LOST in your contact center?

Posted on by

I will admit it. I watched ABC’s hit series Lost. It had some great moments, especially in the first 3 or 4 seasons, but once it was all said and done, I still felt lost with Lost!

Because I have spent a lot of time in contact centers, I was most intrigued by the numbers that kept popping up and taunting various characters in the show. Contact centers love numbers!

The numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42 frequently recurred in Lost. If you missed the show, I won’t bore you with the details of the various things the numbers represented… Like how each corresponded with a character that was identified as a candidate to replace Jacob as protector of the Island, or that the numbers also formed the coefficients in an equation that predicted mankind’s extinction. Instead I’ll share my favorite role the numbers played in the show and how it translates to what happens in many contact centers today.

During the second season of Lost, the survivors discovered a computer inside the Swan station which required the Numbers to be entered into it every 108 minutes. A timer set into the wall provided a continual countdown – and an alarm would sound as the timer neared zero. Entering the Numbers sequentially and pressing Execute (a.k.a. pushing the button) on the keyboard would cause the timer to reset to 108 minutes and begin the countdown anew. It was initially unclear what would happen if the button was not pushed.

Can you relate? Do you find yourself chasing numbers with a sense of urgency even though you may not really know what they mean or how to change them? Too often we are haunted by NPS, AHT, FCR, QM, Service Level, and C-SAT numbers. Many contact center managers and supervisors find themselves trapped in their “hatch” pushing buttons and watching numbers.

Don’t get me wrong, numbers are important. The challenge is that too often the numbers become more important, or more of a focus, than what the numbers actually represent or truly mean. So here are 3 simple truths about numbers in the contact center.

TRUTH #3: Numbers Are Not Absolute Truths
Many times I have had someone ask what the industry standard for talk time is. Truth be told, there is no industry standard for talk time. Instead, I would suggest asking: “How long does it take us to serve our customers when they have questions or concerns, in the most effective, efficient, polite, professional, friendly, and accurate manner?”
You can find this by observing the folks in your center that do this on a daily basis. Once you find your Rockstars, learn what they are doing and share that with your team. That is a start at understanding what your talk time averages may be, but these may change when you add new products and services that might change the call flow. Keep in mind, talk time is most beneficial to accurate scheduling, staffing and budgeting. I would recommend that you NEVER CREATE A TALK TIME GOAL FOR YOUR EMPLOYEES. Instead, help the individuals that are a bit too high or a bit too low by addressing their specific performance gaps related to their contacts, and stay away from setting a specific number as a goal.

TRUTH #2. Unintended Consequences of Numbers
Contact Centers are filled with Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). These are critical to track success and identify performance gaps. The risk happens when people only understand and speak to specific KPI numbers, instead of talking about the actual issues that are impacting the KPI.

Some examples…

Service Level Communication:
“We must answer 80% of our calls in 20 seconds!!!!!”
Unintended Consequences:
“We must rush customers when call volume is high!!!!!”

Average Talk Time Communication:
“We must handle calls in 240 seconds!!!!!”
Unintended Consequences:
“We must ask customers to call us back at the 239 second mark!!!!!”

Service Level Communication:
“We must handle any wrap up time related to a call in 30 seconds or less!!!!!”
Unintended Consequences:
“We must keep customers on the call while we finish notating their account, even though the call is basically complete from their perspective!!!!!”

TRUTH #1. Words, Not Numbers, Matter Most to Frontline Employees
Numbers are incredibly important to managers and executives, and words are incredibly important to frontline staff. The problem is that too often managers try to use numbers when coaching/motivating/training employees. It just doesn’t work. Too often coaching sessions occur like this:

Manager: “You are a 3.37 on your quality monitoring scores. You really need to be at least a 4!”

That never works. What does the number mean? Why is a 4 important? How do they get to a 4? Lets say in this example the employee needs to be more empathetic with customers. The conversation would be much more successful like this:

Manager: “Hey Joe, when we listen to your calls I notice a couple of opportunities where the customer mentions that they are home sick. I think that is a great opportunity to tell them you are sad to hear they are feeling bad, and maybe wish them a speedy recovery when you end the call. That could really improve your quality monitoring scores and help improve your annual review!

That’s all for now. I’d love to hear your thoughts about numbers!

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

Dec 14

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas in the Call Center 2011

Posted on by

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

Oct 10

How Does Your Contact Center Garden Grow?

Posted on by

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

Aug 24

The Four Steps to Changing Employee Behavior

Posted on by

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

Jul 28

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.

Posted on by

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.

Jul 15

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

Posted on by

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!

Jul 12

Quality Monitoring – What’s Missing?

Posted on by

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