World Class Call Center Trends

I recently did a seminar on call center trends and where we see the industry moving in the next few years.   The biggest change we’re seeing isn’t in process and technology – it’s in the way companies are viewing the contribution of the call center.  More executives are starting to see that the call center can create a competitive advantage and in most cases provide a positive ROI.   Because of this new focus we’re starting to see more investments in helping the leadership teams in call centers better understand the “why” and “how” of call centers.    Our 2 day customized program is focused on helping contact centers move the bar and we’ve delivered programs to great companies, such as  USAA, DELL, Farmers Insurance, Sykes,Cash America, Isagenix, ADP, SWBC, Allstate, Prudential,  Kodak and many more.  More information on our customized training program can be found by clicking the link below:

http://servicelevelgroup.com/files/Onsite%20Contact%20Center%20Leadership%20Workshop%20Outline.pdf

Some great insight into what world-class call centers do can be found in the new issue of Business Week and its coverage of USAA’s service delivery program

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_09/b4168040782858.htm?chan=magazine+channel_special+report

Speaking of USAA, I’ve been fortunate to work with some really great companies and people – I take every opportunity to discuss the “how to” with leaders of  world class organizations.   I recently had a conversation with the former COO of USAA, Tim Handren.   I asked him the “how to” question and he started down the path of “diet and exercise”.    Like most people that hear the story, I wasn’t sure where this was going to go, but it all comes together in a way that easily reminds everyone that they have to focus on the basics every single day to obtain and maintain world class call center service. This conversation turned into the article below:

http://servicelevelgroup.com/files/LTjul09_CustLoyalty.pdf

More articles and free downloads can be found at http://www.servicelevelgroup.com

Thoughts on creating a great call center culture

There are a lot of “great places to work” lists – national, regional, industry specific, etc…   Good news is several companies with big call centers have made these lists.   These companies treat the call center as a value vs. a cost and the agents that work in these centers are totally engaged – and, the customers feel it.   Getting to this point in a call center is no easy task and many find it easier to focus on the “necessary evil” of providing service via a centralized group.   Raising the contact center bar starts with some self reflection on the reality of the culture – and then starting to undo many of the self-inflicted barriers.  This doesn’t have to (and shouldn’t) be a top down exercise – great cultures have an openness that allows everyone to share new ideas and challenge conventional wisdom.

In a recent weekly email from Gazelles (worth signing up for at http://www.gazelles.com/index.html), they highlighted the Netflix approach to culture development and policies.    The presentation below is 128 pages of great ideas on addressing real issues head-on and creating a culture where employees can grow and customers will benefit.    I’ve been through the presentation at least 10 times and each time, I get a new call center culture “action item”.   No matter what level you are in your company, there are several ideas here for you to bring to the attention of others to help make the environment better for your employees…and, customers.

Culture

View more presentations from Reed Hastings.

Good luck  –  more articles and free downloads can be found at www.servicelevelgroup.com

Getting Senior Management Onboard – Part 1

“Senior management just doesn’t get it.” That’s a comment I’ve heard time and again from call center managers who are struggling with issues such as staffing, getting support for new technology or obtaining respect for their department. My reply is always the same: It’s our job as call center leaders to get them to understand, and we can’t stop until everyone appreciates the value and dynamics of our real-time inbound environment.

Now, you might be thinking (and I’ve heard it time and again) that it’s easy to say if you don’t have to live it every day. Fair enough, but as a consultant involved in transforming senior management’s opinions on the call center on several occasions, I know it can be done. The key is making it happen in targeted, digestible chunks. I’ve worked with many very smart people who, for one reason or another, have adopted a “keeping your head above water” approach to call center management approach.

The truth is that many senior executives with call center responsibilities have never run a call center. In many cases, they’re focused other organizational issues that pull them away from gaining a true understanding of our challenges. But that’s not a bad thing – it actually makes it a lot easier to transform their opinions.

OK, so where should you start and what should you be doing? First and foremost, you need to be on top of your game. Make sure that you have a solid understanding of how to intelligently describe the tactical stuff, and make the connection between the call center and the value it brings to the company. Yes, to get buy-in from others, you have to become a student of call centers and continually look for ways to sharpen your own skills.

My advice for staying on top of your game is don’t try to reinvent the wheel – chances are, if you’re reading this, you’re looking for new ideas, which is a great first step. Make sure that your knowledge of call centers is not only accurate, but the way things are still being done. Attend conferences, seminars and training courses that focus on the basics of call center management or more advanced courses on strategy and technology. (There are several organizations that offer these types of programs. You can find more information on the Industry Links page at the Service Level Group’s Web site.  Another way to keep abreast of the latest trends is to subscribe to – and READ – as many industry publication as you can. There are lots of free call center-focused publications available and most provide weekly email updates.

While you’re getting yourself up to speed, try to get a feel for what your senior management is reading. Many times, their ideas and strategies are derived from popular business books and non-call center periodicals. The next time you’re in a senior manager’s office, take a look around to see what newspapers, magazines and books are laying around – and then get a copy for yourself. You’d be surprised at how many ideas and theories from mainstream articles and books can be applied to the call center environment. The best part is, you can use it as point of reference the next time you have an opportunity to “talk call centers” with the boss.

Get more, including Free web seminars and articles at http://www.servicelevelgroup.com/

Opportunity #5 – Move the training department to the frontline — and let them drive.

Bring trainers into the loop early, and constantly communicate with the frontline. Training is often viewed as a separate group with a different mission, and often reports to a different part of the organization. In some cases, the contact center has to coordinate and schedule time with the training department several weeks or months in advance.  This not only creates another silo, but in many cases, by the time training is complete, the company and customers have already repositioned themselves several times.  First step is to move your trainers from the classroom to the frontline. Give them responsibility for dissecting the daily feedback you get from your agents and customers. Once moved to the frontline, their job is to learn from it and apply their expertise in training to determine the best way to provide appropriate information to agents.  Your goal is to stop focusing on “perfect” training classes, and to instead develop a flexible approach that is focused more on real-time customer service.  Even without an automated e-learning solution, you can leverage your existing intranet and recording technologies in new ways to get this started.

That doesn’t mean you can get away from formal classroom training; you’ll need such traditional training for new hires as well as for topics/modules that the trainers feel  require a formal, offline  approach. One approach is to focus the classroom training on the fundamental customer-centric skills agents need – things that won’t likely change with new products and changing customer expectations, like compassion, listening, setting expectations, capturing business intelligence, etc. Focusing on these skill sets will ensure that your agents are customer-centric and have what it takes to provide excellent service. As a result, they’ll be much happier in their role…and this satisfaction is transferred directly to customers – they can “feel” it.

Impact:   Making training an active part of your real-time solution helps to create a culture focused on continual development and improvement.   Not only will agents see their daily struggles being addressed immediately, they’ll also be provided with new tools and information to provide an enhanced customer experience.   And, it’s a new way to show agents you care about them and their quality of work life.

Get more, including Free web seminars and articles at http://www.servicelevelgroup.com/

Convert Agents into Customer Experience Engineers

To truly engage agents and empower them to continually improve their and the center’s performance, you have to get them to see their job differently.  Agents have to see themselves as customer experience engineers — where every time they listen to a problem, they instinctively think about how can they solve the problem and, more importantly, improve things in the future for the customer, and the organization. 

To inspire agents to become true customer experience engineers, you have to create a strong level of buy-in; and to do that you have to spend a lot of time gathering agent feedback, asking them what you can do to help them provide stellar customer service..   This goes beyond merely asking staff, “What do you think about this before  implementing a new process or program – that’s   only “half feedback.”   It merely elicits reaction from agents, rather than action. The best centers ask agents for their ideas before implementing a new process or program, and empower them to help create, implement and manage these processes/programs.    

Now THAT’S how to turn your agents into customer experience engineers.

Get more, including Free web seminars and articles at http://www.servicelevelgroup.com/

Connecting with Call Center Agents Starts with Helping Them Understand the Environment

Some clients have asked me to not use the term “call center” while interacting with their agents or talking to their leadership team.   They feel the words foster a negative perception of the environment and drive down morale…  I could argue that if you have incoming contacts that are pooled, queued and distributed to available agents, it doesn’t matter what you call it, you have a call center…and I do this quite often.   The reality is, no matter what you call your environment, if you don’t teach your leadership team how to connect with agents, employee morale will always be a challenge.

Getting leaders to connect with agents starts with helping agents understand the real difference between call centers and just about every other type of work environment.   Agents need to understand that call center leaders live in a real-time world where things have to be addressed in seconds, and if the seconds become minutes, customers get frustrated and begin to think about alternatives.   By the same token, leaders must remember that real-time pressure finds its way up and down the organization, and in many cases lands solely on the shoulders of agents.   Managers who don’t fully understand the dynamic nature of call center and/or its impact on agents – the organization’s most valuable asset –   will spend a lot of time putting out fires and conducting exit interviews.  

To avoid such problems, consider implementing   a comprehensive call center awareness program for agents.    Doing so provides an immediate and effective return on investment, as  agents become customer advocates who are more likely not only to stick around, but to be strive to provide stellar service.