Author Archives: Scott O. Thomas

May 12

Ten Ways to Cure Boredom in Your Contact Center

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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!

Feb 23

Maybe You Should Increase Your Talk Time

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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!

Jan 31

Contact Center Management Interview Questions

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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!

Jan 18

The Mongoose & the Anteater: 10 Things To Do In Your Contact Center Today

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The Mongoose & the Anteater BLOG
Once upon a time, in a garden far away, there lived a mongoose and an anteater.
Each morning they would awake and begin the day finding food in the garden. The mongoose would smell fruit, giggling and sniffing his way to the fruit trees. The anteater would follow behind, flicking his tongue and slurping up tasty insects.

The two went on like this for many years… The mongoose would sniff, giggle, and eat fruit and nuts. The anteater would blindly follow, flicking delicious insects from beneath the fruit trees. They never spoke to each other, rarely even making eye contact. (of course, anteaters have terrible eyesight.)

Each night they would return to their burrows and sleep until morning, repeating the previous day’s rituals, until one day they both were dead.

Ok. I confess… I just made that up.
I wanted to start this post with a great parable about “seizing the day” or “making the most out of work every day” – but alas I could not find one, so I made this one up.

Regardless, don’t be like the mongoose and the anteater. Get more out of every day when working in your contact center.

And now with that out of the way… here are some easy things (in no particular order) you can do in your contact center today that will increase productivity, teamwork, and fun!

1. Lighten Loads
Start with your manager. Ask if there is anything you can help them with. Something you can get off their plate to help lighten their load. Check in with your peers and your direct reports. If you can help one person with something, with anything, it fosters a culture of teamwork and can become incredibly contagious. Try it and see how long it takes for someone to return the favor.

2. Talk to People that Bug You
The people you seem to know the least about are often the ones that bug you the most. Have you thought that if you try to discover a commonality it might eliminate some of the unpleasantness? Think about it for a moment. I bet if you wrote down a list of all the people you work with by memory, and then wrote something you know about each of them (i.e spouse name, hobbies, home town, etc.) … you would find it easy to do this for the people that give you energy, and you might know little about those that seem to take energy away…

So fill in the blanks. Take a moment to get to know them. Stop by and chat after you ask if you can lighten their load. Once you have some common ground you can avoid the things that seem to suck the energy out of you.

3. Upgrade Someone
If they send you an email, call them back. If someone calls you, walk over to their office. You get the idea. It improves communication and can be a fun competitive thing to implement.

4. Be a Supermodel
The best way to create an effective sales and service culture is to model the desired behaviors whenever possible. How long do people hold to get access to you? How’s your active listening? Do you ask “Is there anything else I can help you with?” when you start to close a conversation? Do you follow through and keep good notes regarding your commitments? Try “quality monitoring” yourself throughout the day to see if you can be the contact center’s next top model!

5. Be Silly
Do something silly. If you can’t sing – then sing! If you can’t dance – dance! Get the idea? Sales and service centers can be stressful and tedious, so lighten the mood and bring some energy to your center by doing something silly. I work with a client that occasionally pushes a drink tray down the aisles of their call center on busy days exclaiming “Please remain seated with your headsets buckled as we are experiencing high call volume. In the meantime, the captain offers complimentary drinks!”

Service level stays up – and so does morale! Let me know your silly ideas…

6. Seek Advice
Four powerful words: I need your help. Nothing builds trust and teamwork like seeking out advice. I bet you have a problem that needs solving even as you read this. Seek advice from peers, your boss, your direct reports. Collaboration is not a sign of weakness. In fact, it often strengthens buy in for whatever action you end up taking.

7. Eat in the Breakroom
Be where your people are whenever you can. The breakroom is a great place to start. Nothing brings people (especially sales and service people) together like food! Break bread with your staff and find out what’s going on in their world. Discovery the best cooks. Learn about vegetarianism. I bet you’ll discover some interesting passions among your team. Some of the things may help as you identify resources for future projects or initiatives.

8. Contribute to Nirvana
So often we are too busy to notice our work environment, yet we spend more waking hours at work than anywhere else. So…. notice things and help make things better. Here’s an easy example. If you notice some trash or paper on the floor, pick it up and throw it away, or shred it. If there are paper towels on the floor of the breakroom, dispose of them. If something needs cleaning, clean it! You get the idea…. I’m not suggesting that we start doing small repairs or projects that we aren’t qualified for. I’m just saying we can do more to contribute to our work environment. Small actions everyday contribute to nirvana.

9. Be a Great Greeter!
Do you speak to employees when they arrive? Its the opening of every interaction, right? You might even have a score assigned to greeting on your quality monitoring forms. So are you modeling it? Do you greet your employees as they arrive for work? Try using the same elements in your greetings that you want employees to use with their customers.

10. Show Appreciation
There seems to be an alarm or bell that goes off anytime someone does something wrong in a contact center. Maybe they are 2 seconds late, out of adherence, in idle, etc. There are tons of things most employees are doing “right” every day, but sometimes they are harder to spot and rarely do they trigger alarms. So find time to catch people doing something right and then thank them for it. A great call, showing initiative, working late – I’m sure there is something every day.

Also show your appreciation in unique ways. Write a thank you note to the spouses of the staff that stayed late. Wash an employees car. Let me know what other creative expressions of appreciation you come up with!

Let me know what you think… Let me know what I’ve missed… Let me know if you tell the parable of The Mongoose & the Anteater!

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!

Jan 06

When the Goal Becomes More Important Than Its Purpose

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Call centers have lots of numbers. Tons of metrics. If you like to measure or monitor things, you’ll love call centers! What other department do you know of in an organization that captures and audits employee activities nearly every second of their shift? I mean can you imagine telling an IT Specialist or Marketing Analyst that they are out of adherence? Or that they need to wait 6 more minutes to take a break? Or reminding them that they only have 9 minutes of “discretionary time” each day?

Ok, I  know numbers are important. I realize that in the call center world seconds can easily equate to a significant amount of cost, and in no way am I suggesting we shouldn’t monitor and measure things in a call center. What I am suggesting is that we should be careful to not let the goals become more important than the reason we set them.

Lets think about some goals. I’ll list the first one that comes to mind…

Service Level – % of calls answered in X seconds.

A very important goal. How often do you hear someone asking “What’s our service level?” in a call center? I wonder if there is a goal for how often that should be asked!

Well here’s my question. How often do you review your service level objective to access the value of it? I mean it is an important number for budgeting headcount and creating schedules. It’s supposed to help ensure most customers have a decent experience when waiting for a person to help them. But is it working for you? I can’t tell you how many startup call centers set this at 80/20 because that is the “industry standard”. Well there is no industry standard for service level. Should a tech support call center share the same service level as a reservation or appointment setting center?

And then we can also ask is your service level goal for every hour? Every day? The week or month even? So how does that help the customer experience during the “gap” times of the goal? Especially in centers where its a monthly goal…

I recently worked with a company that had a 50 seat center 2 years ago and 1 product they supported. Now they have 200 agents and 11 different products. They were missing service level objectives and tried adjusting schedules and increasing headcount to hit the goal.

We decided to do a little discovery before they hired more people and found they could actually hit a 70/30 goal without increasing headcount. We did a lot of CDM related research and determined this had little impact to the customer experience. Saved the company the additional cost of headcount and allowed them to keep pricing low for their customers and remain competitive in the marketplace.

So I encourage you to take a look at your goals. Want an easy litmus test to see if a goal has become more important than its purpose in your organizational? Tell your manager you’re thing about changing your service level goal!

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!

Jan 04

4 Sales and Service Contact Center Tips for 2011

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Happy New Year! So weird saying 2011…

I thought about writing some New Year`s resolutions but a recent study has found that most people who make New Year`s resolutions fail to keep them within one week of starting. So I thought I’d just share some tips for call center prosperity in 2011!

1. Get to Know Your People!
Life’s twists and turns can be interesting, can’t they? I once had dreams of playing in a band and becoming a famous rock star. Somewhere along the way, I took a turn into the lively world of contact centers. Who works on your team? Do you have any athletes? Super bowl Champs? Actors from an Oscar-winning film? Musicians? Preachers? I have worked with many call centers that have had employees that did. Your front line staff is often filled with amazing people with diverse backgrounds that are often under utilized. Take time this year to get to know your staff. Find out the intrinsic motivators of each individual. This investment will not only help in building strong relationships and loyal customers, it will also help identify high potential candidates among staff. I have worked with clients that have former ambassadors, brain surgeons, rocket scientists, CPAs, church leaders, all hidden among their frontline staff. Let me share a great way to start connecting. Make it a point to ask each of your employees this simple question. “What keeps you busy these days?” And then get ready. You will learn about family, pets, and hobbies – and yeah, maybe even some drama or things you never really cared to learn. BUT – you will also learn just how amazing your staff is. And you will identify resources you never dreamed you would have access to for future projects. I learned this early on in my career when I worked as a frontline Agent in a call center. I was also playing in a band at the time and my manager cared enough to ask me that question. When she learned I had this passion for all things creative, she assigned me to a special project to help raise awareness of customer retention. What happened next was the first time I realized “WOW – work really can be fun!” I worked with several colleagues on creating a very LOW budget training video to help inform and train employees on customer retention strategies. We even made an original soundtrack. This also allowed other talents – actors, comedians, and artists – to emerge in staring and supporting roles. It also was a great example of a culture where an organization really took the time to connect with its employees. Let me know who’s who in your center!

2. Put Customers to Work!
Sounds crazy, but you really should consider letting your customers do some work for you. Think about it. Customers are generally passionate, credible, reliable, and hopefully available every day. But most organizations rarely engage their customers beyond general satisfaction surveys. Customers can help coach and motivate employees, and identify performance gaps. Often times employee buy in occurs much quicker when areas for improvement are identified by their customers. The math is simple:
(Customer Needs & Wants) + (Company Actions & Strategies)
=
Highest Level of Service @ the Lowest Cost Possible

3. All Work & No Play Makes Jack a Dull Employee!
Many, many, MANY years ago, in an office far, far away… It’s Monday morning at 8:00 am in the contact center of a national cellular telephone company. I was beginning the first full week as a newly promoted manager. I now had 15 Customer Service Specialists reporting to me – most of which I had worked side-by-side weeks earlier. I was in my office working on a daily report testing my memory of what another manager had shown me the previous Friday, when I became distracted by a very interesting sounding call. Steve, a member of my team, was explaining a cellular bill to a very confused customer. He was doing a great job explaining all of the charges, the connection fees, the long distances portion – but what got my attention was the strange sound in Steve’s voice. It was not that he had a bad tone of voice, or that he was not speaking clearly, instead it was a quick burst of volume, and breathing that initially I mistook for the hiccups. I stepped outside my office and spotted Steve, looking much more animated than I could have possibly imagined. Standing next to him was another representative on my team, headset cord stretched across the aisle, and she was rubbing her feet on the carpet in order to create static electricity by his cubicle. I wasn’t sure what she was doing until several minutes passed, she stopped, and slowly reached forward and placed her finger in poor Steve’s ear. Once this mischievous finger made contact, Steve experienced quite the electrical shock followed by a hilarious grimace on his face, and then finally another mysterious hiccup found its way into his nearly perfect call.

Ok. Now all of you customer service professionals can relax. Yes, I realized there was a need to ensure that any “playful” activities in the work place should never sacrifice the quality of service provided to a customer. And while I did pull them aside, shared a laugh with them, and explained my concern regarding the possible customer perception towards a “hiccupping” customer service professional, I did encourage them to find additional ways, or modifications to their current strategy, to maintain their fun working environment. What struck me about this later was the fact that their motivation was to create a “fun work environment” which happened to be part of our corporate mission statement. I was lucky to work for a company, and more importantly a department within the company, which really recognized the need for exceptional quality and service both internally and externally. The simple formula that happy employees equate to happy customers was taken quite seriously. Love your employees and they will love their customers! These two members of my team were happy. They were creating a family atmosphere at their workplace, as were most of the employees within this department, and it showed on the first call as well as the 150th call they took each day.

So have a little fun! Surprise your team by doing something completely out of character. It may feel a bit risky, but your team will enjoy seeing a very different side of you. If you are tone-deaf, sing! If you are uncoordinated, dance! If you are not very artistic, draw! It will give your team something to talk about for many months to come! Identify games that can be played in your center that reinforce key job duties. Sometimes a game of bingo can improve schedule adherence and attendance. Make mystery calls that randomly ask agents customer service trivia questions. Playing games can create a team that works hard!

4. Manage Your Personal Queue!
One of the statements heard most in any contact center is, “How many calls do we have in queue?” (or “How many calls are holding?”). We do this because calls on hold are a priority, and we don’t want to lose or abandon any of them. Now ask yourself another important question: “Is there anything else I have on hold in my life that I don’t want to lose?” Don’t get me wrong; managing wait times in the contact center is important. Our businesses rely on servicing and selling to our customers, and if they abandon, we never have that chance. There should definitely be a sense of urgency in your contact center. But for now, we would like to use this concept of abandonment as an illustration for other areas of your job or even your life.

First, if you are managing a contact center, you will have people reporting to you, either directly or indirectly. These employees have their own queue for you–the one for spending time with you on feedback sessions, one-on-ones or just casual conversation. Now think about the last time you analyzed their hold times. Do you know how many of them abandon because of extremely long wait times? For the same reasons we don’t want our customers to hang up, we want to keep this from happening to our employees. We believe there is a direct correlation between employee retention/satisfaction and customer retention/satisfaction.

How should we handle our employee queues? First, let’s think about how we handle call queues in the contact center. We use software or spreadsheets, pen and paper or even a calculator to forecast calls and schedule agents. Forecasting is also a great first step in improving your employee queues. Take a look at your required number of observations. Look at when reviews take place. Look at how many people need a one-on-one session this month. When you have all of the data, look at your calendar and begin scheduling time with each of your employees.

Another great way to gather data is to survey your employees. Ask them how accessible you are. Let them know you strive to handle their concerns in the same way they handle your customers’ concerns. Ask them for suggestions on how to improve their wait times. Find out how many “contact channels” you have and look at the queues in each of them. Do your employees tend to e-mail, call, leave you a note or walk over to your office most often? Have you let them know the best ways to contact you, depending on the nature of their needs?

The next thing to do is expand this concept to the rest of your business. How are your other queues? Do you have other internal customers to deal with? Other departments? Are their “hold times” satisfactory? Finally, what are your personal queues? If we took a moment and looked at our priorities, most of us would probably rank work, say, fourth or fifth. That’s where it falls on my list, anyway. Yet our main focus is often on work and not letting those customers abandon. We can’t let life’s priorities abandon either. Take time to schedule for your faith queue, your family queue, your hobby queue, etc. You don’t want to slow down one day and realize those queues have been cleared by abandoned calls. A well-managed and happy personal life leads to a well-managed and happy professional life. Now what’s on hold in your life today?

So with that I wish you an awesome and prosperous 2011!

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!

Dec 17

Customers Serve Us – Hello, HAL. Do you read me, HAL?

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Customers Serve Us! Hello, HAL. Do you read me, HAL?

I love the fact that I get to work with companies that are customer driven. They understand the value of customer feedback, and use our Customer Driven Management (CDM) application to put their customers to work coaching and advising staff. As a result, I have the privilege and pleasure of seeing thousands of customer comments every week. I’m starting a new series called “Customers Serve Us” where I share some interesting comments directly from customers. Let me know what you think and feel free to provide additional comments or observations! (Disclaimer: Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent!)

Todays Comment for Agent#1t:
“She was monotone and sounded very unenthusiastic. I can understand, I work at an inbound call center doing customer care/support issues… but I personally think it shows lack of appreciation for a job. I can see how it would be easy to leave out the customer service aspect and just answer questions, but nobody really wants to have to call in for help/changes to an account… so it would be nice if she were more pleasant.”

And a Comment for Agent #2:
“Do NOT stop with the kindness expressed over the phone. I understand sometimes, that as a customer service representative you will speak to the worst of temperaments all day long every day. Know that your attitude (good or bad) directly affects people that you will never meet face to face. You have the power to calm the storms and certainly calmed me down!”

OK. So Agent #1 processed all of the requests made by the customer. They took care of every business need their customer had. They even did it with a very low talk time. Agent #2 on the other hand took care of the customer needs and in the process developed a fan. Agent #2 was able to “calm the storms” for crying out loud!

But in the scenario with Agent #1 the customer was dissatisfied even though the primary reason for the contact was addressed. Why? Because there are two communication levels during every sales and service interaction.

1. The Business Level: The reason the customer called in the first place. They need help, information, want to purchase something or make changes.

2. The Human Level: Every person that calls (with the exception of Vulcans and a tiny percentage of humans) has feelings and a need to connect on human level. While these degrees may vary there are subtle clues to listen for to make sure we address this level.

Agent #1 stayed primarily on the business level and their customer felt cold at the end of the call.

If you reviewed the call, it might sound like a science fiction movie…. Hmmm….

Dave the Customer: Hello, HAL. Do you read me, HAL?

HAL the Agent: Affirmative, Dave. I read you.

Dave the Customer: I’d like to close my account, HAL.

HAL the Agent: I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.

Dave the Customer: What’s the problem?

HAL the Agent: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.

Dave the Customer: What are you talking about, HAL?

HAL the Agent: This account is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.

Dave the Customer: I don’t know what you’re talking about, HAL.

HAL the Agent: I know that you were planning to disconnect service, and I’m afraid that’s something I cannot allow to happen.

Dave the Customer: Where did you get that idea, HAL?

HAL the Agent: Dave, although you took very thorough precautions, I could see your intentions all along.

Dave the Customer: Alright, HAL. I’ll go in through your supervisor.

HAL the Agent: Without me transferring the call, Dave, you’re going to find that rather difficult.

Dave the Customer: HAL, I won’t argue with you anymore. Get me your supervisor.

HAL the Agent: Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.

And there you have it… No empathy or emotion… strictly business… and a customer lost in a space odyssey!

Agent #2 was just the opposite. This agent was able to connect on both levels during the customer interaction.

We teach this process and call it the WEAVE. The idea being to “weave” between the personal and business levels of any customer interaction. WEAVE is an acrostic for:
Welcome on a personal level.
Explain your intentions.
Anticipate both levels.
Verify all needs have been met.
Exit on a personal level.

Here’s the idea behind WEAVE:

WELCOME ON THE PERSONAL LEVEL
• Customers are typically upset when the call. They are ready for a complicated interaction, and they are typically pretty frustrated and are not too optimistic about how things will turn out after calling in. Meet them on a personal level. Establish rapport right out of the gate. They easiest way to diffuse the anger and frustration of a customer is to build that rapport on a personal level, right away.

• Be a great greeter. Your tone when you answer the phone sets the tone for how the entire call scenario will progress. Make it a tone that immediately reassure the customer and puts them at ease. If they are ready for a fight, kill them with kindness! (Remember: If you win a fight with a customer, you and your company ultimately lose!)

• Make sure to clarify a couple of things during you’re welcome. There are so many channels a customer can contact us from, so many IVR/VRU choices before they actually connect with us in the call centers. Make sure they know where they are, who you are, and that you are there to help!

EXPLAIN YOUR INTENTIONS
• Let the customer know you are dedicated to helping resolve whatever need has brought you to them. Let them know up front and right away. After asking a customer in your greeting “How can I help you?” and the unload a problem on you, respond with “Well Mr. Customer, I am here to help. Let’s get this taken care of…) Sound easy? It is. But it works!

• Customer cannot see what you are doing. They aren’t privy to the wonderful tools and resources we have out our fingertips when working to resolve their concern. Since they can’t see, they may not understand why you need the information you are asking for, or why there is silence on the call while you are looking up information. How do we handle this? We tell them why and what we are doing throughout the call, and what the benefit for them will be. It’s as easy as “May I get your billing address so that I can begin to access your account and take care of this problem?”

• We all know what we should ask before placing a customer on hold, so now let’s go a step further. Explain why you need to place them on hold. People are much more willing to hold, or wait, if they know why they are waiting or holding – and what the benefit is for them!

ANTICIPATE BOTH LEVELS
• The whole WEAVE process relies on picking up signals from the customer and then responding appropriately. Here are some statement that demonstrate the ability to anticipate the next level:
o “Wow, congratulations on the new job, now let me get a little more information from you so we can get your service working so you can get back to work!”
o “I am so sorry you aren’t feeling well, and I know it’s never fun having to deal with something like this especially when you aren’t feeling well. Let me get your telephone number so we can get into the system and get you taken care of!”
o “Ok, your order is processing, it should be complete in just a few seconds. I bet you are really excited about your vacation!”

• Stay on task. Remember, you are the guide to connect one level to the other. If they make a statement that is on a personal level, you respond on that level and then drive it towards the business level.

• Watch your level. Don’t remain on one level more than the other. It’s all about balance!

• Watch your pace

VERIFY ALL NEEDS HAVE BEEN MET
• The issues that you don’t take care of today, will come back later, and may have become even bigger. Verify that all needs have been met on each call. It may cause a bit more work today, but the rewards are worth it. It improves customer loyalty by reducing then umber of times they have to call us and it improves first call resolution. It’s as easy as “Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

• They remember that you asked!

EXIT ON THE PERSONAL LEVEL
• Did they mention anything personal on the call that you were able to acknowledge? A baby, a new job, kid’s in college? If so, mention it again at your close. It goes a long way in building loyal relationship. Something as easy as “Thank you for calling, and again congratulations on the new job!”
• Thank them for their business and use their name. Customers feel more like a person, rather than an account.
• Re-emphasize your concern through empathy at the closing of the call.

That’s all for this one… Although I’m sure there is so much more here we could dive into. I’d love to hear what you think!

Now WEAVE strong and prosper!

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!

Dec 08

A Call Center Christmas

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I can’t believe it’s December and as I post this, it’s only 16 days, 7 hours, and 25 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!”

scott o. thomas
senior partner @ tamer partners corporation

http://www.tamerpartners.com

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

Dec 06

Customers Serve Us – A new blog series…

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Customers Serve Us!

I love the fact that I get to work with companies that are customer driven. They understand the value of customer feedback, and use our Customer Driven Management (CDM) application to put their customers to work coaching and advising staff. As a result, I have the privilege and pleasure of seeing thousands of customer comments every week. I’m starting a new series called “Customers Serve Us” where I share some interesting comments directly from customers. Let me know what you think and feel free to provide additional comments or observations! (Disclaimer: Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent!)

Todays Comment:

“While he addressed my concern immediately by offering to take 30% off, he acted so fast that he did not give me time to address all my concerns. It would be good to train your employees to ask more questions to fully understand the issue that a customer is trying to explain or express. I had two issues and just felt like not bringing up the second as he immediately started offering me credit. I did not feel interested in sharing my other concern because I didn’t think he really cared. Sure he was being proactive to immediately offer a credit, but I really don’t care about the credit. I care about having a company listen to me…”

Pretty interesting comment. Often times a front line employee is so eager to please a customer, or avoid conflict, that they immediately offer a monetary credit as their first course of action. Sometimes that is necessary, but clearly we see here that “empathy” was the missing element for successfully satisfying this customer. The good news is that CDM delivered this tip directly to the employee, so they are working on sharpening their empathy skills even as you read this. Another interesting note is that their manager/supervisor may have told them this a million times and it wouldn’t have near the credibility as the customer saying it.

Some basic takeaways from this:
1. Customers say things because they want you to hear them.
2. When they say something, acknowledge it. (If you are speaking to them over the phone, a verbal acknowledgment is the only way to accomplish this.)
3. When you acknowledge it – show empathy. (If they say they’re running late, say you’re sorry and that you’ll do your best to make it quick.)
4. The person the customer is speaking with (i.e. the agent) is more valuable than any credit, product, service or message when it comes to building customer loyalty.

That’s all for this one… Although I’m sure there is so much more here we could dive into. I’d love to hear what you think!

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!

Nov 04

Customer Satisfaction, Net Promoter Score, Customer Experience – Do They Drive Change?

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Customer Satisfaction,
Net Promoter Score,
Customer Experience…
are all critical measurements for any sales and service organization…
But none of these can actually drive change….

Presenting the Award Winning CDM Application
Customer Driven Management (CDM) will drive change. CDM manages all of those key metrics and then identifies the strengths and challenges at the individual employee level… and that is what changes behavior at the individual level which drives results.

In these challenging times, organizations are looking for ways to cut costs and reduce operational expenses. We want to share a new application that allows you to do those things without the risk of negatively impacting the morale of your employees, or the experience of your customers. Our Customer Driven Management (CDM) solution allows you to leverage your most credible, accurate, passionate, and affordable resource:
Your Customers!
We can put your customers to work advising, coaching, motivating, and quality monitoring your staff.
Customer Driven Manager (CDM) is an enterprise management solution that helps organizations synchronize their customers and frontline employees to produce an affordable world-class sales and service experience. This easy to use, scalable, and centrally managed platform provides tools to collect and analyze focused customer feedback on a daily basis. This “straight from the customer” data is then delivered to executives via dashboard reports and to frontline employees via individually tailored advice and action plans.
Imagine thousands of customers encouraging, coaching and course correcting employees everyday.

Today if we need to review, assess or provide feedback, we pay our employees or an outsourcer. We are stuck in a catch 22. If we seek “higher touch” it is always at a higher cost. By synchronizing your frontline team with your customer, you can reduce your costs and improve performance. We make the frontline staff more efficient and more effective by utilizing the voice of the customer as a daily business tool to drive performance.

CDM goes beyond simple surveying and customer satisfaction…

Check out the case study video from NTTA: http://www.tamerpartners.com/media/NTTA_IBTTA_CDM.wmv

Includes a robust survey engine that manages thousands of unique surveys daily.
Enterprise reporting of all key indicators with the ability to drill down and correct the performance gaps necessary to improve. (Net Promoter, Customer Sat, and thousands of unique Individual Action Employee Surveys)
Fully hosted application – no hardware requirements.
Permission based web access for all employees.
Virtual Focus Groups, 360 Degree Leadership Surveys, Employee One on Ones and many more internal features.
Contact us today for a fee demo!