Driving Employees from Engaged to Embalmed

Will someone please save these Agents?

Most companies are focused on employee engagement and understand the benefits for retention, customer experience and the bottom line.

Some just “talk the talk and don’t walk the walk”.

A few don’t even crawl.

The latter would apply to the senior management responsible for an insurance contact center team I’m writing about today.  Incidentally, this is not one of my clients but maybe they should be.

A little background on the employees:  They are a small satellite center a few hours away from the headquarters where a large 100 seat center is located.  The contact center agents handle customer service calls and walk-ins needing help.  They appeared to have a good system of shared work loads and they worked well together. They even spent a few months “self-managing” since their local Supervisor retired and was not immediately replaced.

Senior management finally posted the open Supervisor position.  Two of the eight employees at the small center were interested in the promotion and so interviewed and tested.  One candidate handled a lot of special projects for the center; the other was always asked to participate in new technology development and testing of systems and procedures. Both had excellent work histories and quality of service.  Both had letters of praise from customers.

Both were offered the Supervisor’s job and declined.

Why would these long time, loyal employees turn down this great opportunity to become leaders with the company?  Unbelievable as it may seem, they were offered lower salaries for this promotion than what they were earning as Agents.  When each questioned the amount, Human Resources said that the VP had said that was all to be offered. They decided to remain as Agents instead of taking on more responsibility for considerably less money.

Then, the supervisor replacement took an interesting and insulting twist.  They hired someone from the outside with no customer service or contact center experience.  He had never processed an insurance claim or worked with the industry either.  And more fun…those two agents were asked to train him.

There are some more great moments in Employee Engagement with this same team:

Communication:

• An Agent relocated from headquarters to join the satellite team.  The first day, the other Agents saw her leave at 4pm. She told them “We always leave at 4pm at headquarters”.  The satellite team always worked until 4:30pm and never knew that the other contact center agents in the large 100 seat center left that early. No explanation was given.

Knowledge base errors:

• Agents are receiving “errors” from quality control despite showing the quality people (in writing) that the knowledge base has two differing answers for the same procedure. Management ignores and the errors continue on their performance reports.

Performance feedback (NOT coaching!):

• 98.8 accuracy performance stats (99% accuracy is goal) are emailed to an agent by headquarters manager who asks, “Why are you making all these mistakes?”  (note to manager: SEE KNOWLEDGE BASE ERRORS ABOVE FOR ANSWER.)

Rewards and recognition:

• Agents receive letters from customers with compliments for service but management never acknowledges or rewards.
• Agent sent to internal conference with supervisors from other national locations.  He is the only agent attending because his former supervisor was afraid of technology and didn’t like to travel. His suggestions end up saving company time and increase effectiveness.  He never is told thank you or given an incentive for his cost saving and efficiency suggestions that worked.

Recently, the president of this same company  sent out an eloquently written letter to all employees saying how they must all “focus on the customer”.

I heard the satellite team laughed when they read it.  They said he never mentioned any appreciation for what they or the other agents were already doing for customers.  The two who rejected the poorly offered promotion have expressed an interest in looking for new jobs.  I hope they find something worthy of their great skills and work ethic.

Employees don’t need the president to tell them to focus on customers.  What they need is for the president to say, “We are focused on YOU, so in turn, you can provide the best customer experience”.  And then he needs to take action and do what he says.

Not holding my breath on that one…are you?

Are your Employee Engagement Efforts Driving Service Quality Too?

Somewhere along the long and winding road to find the temple of Employee Engagement, some Contact Centers are finding a disconnect between their goals for Customer Service quality and Employee Engagement.

When Employee Engagement is successful it should also be driving Customer Engagement.

Thousands of books and articles have been written about Employee Engagement. Two of the more common ways that managers try to engage employees in Contact Centers and in other customer service settings are by implementing an employee award or incentive program, and by having team parties or theme events. I’m not saying that either of these is totally without merit for motivating and leading the way to engagement. What I am saying is that we cannot make these the end all, be all for engagement.

Some managers are focused on making the employees “feel good” using awards and parties, without finding out what really makes each Agent feel engaged and motivated.

We need to ask ourselves if our employee award program is inspiring every employee to provide great service?

A new Kohl’s store opened up recently in the area I live in. I had watched the construction for months and looked forward to some Grand Opening bargains. I went shopping there shortly after it opened.

When I first arrived, I noticed the first two parking spots closest to the door were labeled. One said it was for “Employees Who Carpool”. That was a first for me here in Charleston, S.C. where I live since the area seems to be more of a drive your own car everywhere kind of town and not a big carpool mecca.

The other parking sign said it was reserved for the “Star Employee”. That sounded nice. I didn’t see an explanation of what this meant near the sign or later anywhere in the store.

When I entered the store, I didn’t see a single employee to ask where I might find a certain item I was seeking. As I walked through the store, I finally saw an employee who quickly left the area when she saw me approaching. Did I look that scary?

I saw another employee around the next corner and asked my question, which was a relatively easy one: “Do you carry X brand coats for men?”

She kept folding sweaters, made no eye contact and finally said, “I’m new here. You’ll have to ask a Customer Service” and waved her hand in the general direction of the front of the store.

Apparently part of her job description did not include Customer Service but simply folding sweaters because that was clearly her focus. She made no attempt to engage my interest as a Customer.

I thought again about the Star Employee and wondered when they worked and if I would encounter them. I wondered if I could suggest a parking space for “Star Customers” who planned to spend a certain amount of money that day because having that special parking space was doing nothing for the first employee I encountered.

Perhaps the criterion for winning Kohl’s Star award was well thought out, but it was doing nothing to inspire this employee to provide a wonderful Customer Experience for me. Sadder still was the fact that she was new, fresh out of training and yet showed no enthusiasm for her opportunity for a career with Kohl’s. Was she just a bad hire? Why was she not more engaged?

When we create a reward program in our Contact Center, we need to insure that we are rewarding the right behaviors.

Are we rewarding the same people over and over again? Are we rewarding progress made, i.e. achievements or only 100% success? How do our programs translate to engaged employees and great service?

WHY DO FOOD OR THEME PARTIES BECOME AN EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT PRIORITY FOR SOME?

A favorite motivational tool for most contact center management is food. Every Contact Center I visit seems to have a variety of reasons to have food available all hours of operation: birthdays, holidays, theme parties, and the popular “make up any reason to eat” day.

Food is an easy out for many managers who want to appear to be engaging employees. It’s easy to have a “fun” committee volunteer step up or be appointed and they do most of the work. It also looks great when the Vice President stops by and sees all the balloons and photos of merriment posted on the walls.

Unfortunately, the food party sugar high passes quickly and then our Agents are back to service normal mode, which may not translate to great Customer Experience mode. Shocking as it may sound, some of the “happiest” (and well-fed employees!) I’ve worked with in Contact Centers have not always provided the Customers with stellar service or had high levels of engagement.

In the same vein, a Contact Center Manager friend recently shared with me a story about his introduction to the new corporate regional Employee Engagement Director at their company. The new director had no experience with contact centers and had worked previously only in an academic setting.

When she came for an initial meeting onsite at the center, the Director didn’t ask any employees or managers what would make them feel more engaged. She didn’t refer to recent employee surveys, which showed concerns about training, opportunities for advancement, coaching and motivation from Supervisors.

Instead, the Employee Engagement Director began the meeting by telling the manager exactly what he and his team would be doing to “make employees feel engaged”. She announced that starting the next month, every Thursday would be popcorn day.

Free popcorn for everyone!

Needless to say, the Manager was speechless. I can only hope that after a few months on the job, the Director is now more “engaged” with what the agents are saying which clearly wasn’t about the need for free food.

Are you using your parties and theme days as ways to engage employees and drive better service? Some Agents have told me they aren’t interested in these and don’t want to participate but feel that they must. How does that affect their engagement level?

JOB SATISFACTION PLUS JOB CONTRIBUTION = ENGAGEMENT

In the “BlessingWhite 2011 Employee Engagement Report”  they state, “Full engagement represents an alignment of maximum job satisfaction (“I like my work and do it well”) with maximum job contribution (“I help achieve the goals of my organization”).
In their survey with over 10,000 employees worldwide, BlessingWhite found that only 31% of employees worldwide are engaged, and as expected, the engagement levels varied based on age, role, and tenure.

One of their most striking survey findings was that Employees view “opportunities to apply their talents, career development and training as top drivers of job satisfaction”. This reaffirms for me the importance of coaching and communications with agents in our Contact Centers, which unfortunately some Supervisors and Managers do not fully commit to.

As I coach with agents, I often have a chance for some private talk time and it’s always interesting to hear their take on what they’d like to have versus what management is doing to engage them.

Some tell me that their Supervisor only has a conversation with them when they have done something wrong. Others said they wished they knew how they were doing but the Supervisor was always in meetings or otherwise busy. Many say that their Supervisor never asks what they think they do well, where they want to be two years from now, or anything related to career development or training. Some are perfectly content being an agent and don’t want to move up in the company but just want someone to notice what they are doing.

When we offer our Agents opportunities for development and input related to their work and customer interactions, we have made them feel valued.

As we get to know each agent’s skills, goals (both personal and work), and how they view the Customers and our company mission, we will understand what drives their desire to work at our center and how to help them to become more engaged. In turn, those factors can be channeled into helping them provide great service. They will want to make that “maximum contribution” to the success of your organization.

Through your coaching and one to one “roll up your sleeves” training time with an agent, you will help them to enjoy their work, warts and all, and also feel a part of the organization’s goals for customer engagement. It is our job as leaders to make them feel that what they do in their front line jobs with customers is crucial to the success of our business. If they like their job, feel that they are doing it well (and you do too!) they will be more likely to help your center achieve its goals for Customer service quality and Customer Engagement.

If they still aren’t fully engaged, we need to find out what is preventing it and how we can help them. If fully disengaged, they will negatively impact those working with them in your center and your Customers as well.

A Special Thank you to Susan Hash and Linda Harden for publishing this article in the February 2012 issue of Contact Center Pipeline

Helping Burned Out Agents Improve or Move

It’s easy to Coach and work with our top Agents who are interested in improving, being the best and love opportunities to learn new skills and new information to make them the best.  It’s certainly challenging to work with Agents who are at the “bottom” in terms of performance metrics and quality and it’s clear what we need to do if improvement isn’t made.

The most challenging of all are the Agents suffering from job “burn out”.

We’ve all met them or worked with them. The Agent who shows up for work as scheduled, logs in on time and leaves at the end of their shift.  They aren’t rude or overbearing with customers.  They don’t cause problems.  They show minimal empathy with customers. Their tone is polite but flat and they miss opportunities to provide the Customer with above and beyond Moments of Truth. They have been on your team for several years and have tremendous knowledge about your products and processes.  You don’t want to lose them but it’s becoming obvious that they no longer enjoy their job.

These Agents are often seen by upper management as the experts, the valued employees with the technical knowledge needed. Unfortunately, they sound like robots…going through the motions of Customer Service without any feeling.

We need to answer some tough questions:

How do I justify letting them be flat with customers while my Quality expectation is for them to create a wonderful Customer Experience?

Am I using them to mentor with New Hires?  How are they demonstrating what you need to happen with Customers?

Have I discussed the possibility of “burn-out” with them or just buried my head in the sand?

What have I offered to do to help them regain their enthusiasm for the Customers and their job?

When I discussed this with them, what are they willing and able to do to improve?

How much time will I devote to Coaching them on this and how long will I wait for improvement?

Instead of making excuses for the Agent, this is the time to do see if you are able to turn them around or perhaps help them realize that they need to move on to a different role where they will be happy and productive.  Unfortunately this may mean a role outside of your Center or even outside of your company.  But, sometimes, turnover can be a good thing for everyone involved.

If We Could Turn Back Time: 360 Recruiting>Training>Successful Agent

Image via Wikipedia

Our Contact Centers need many things to be successful but at the top of the list is the need to have a great team of productive and Customer focused Agents. The challenge comes when we have a candidate who looks so great on paper, tested well with the tools we are using, seemed to have all the answers to our questions and then six months later, we find ourselves looking for a replacement for them due to their quitting or helping them find the exit.  While I don’t believe we can be 100% certain of all candidates, we can definitely learn how to improve our odds.

If we could turn back time, we might do things differently or at least be more prepared for what might happen.

One way to visit the past is to track data and our observations along these TouchPoints -  from Recruiting to Training to On the Job Performance.  We can think of this as an Employee Journey Map. It doesn’t come quickly as you are gathering data over months but it will pay off in the long run as you analyze your findings.

WHAT SHOULD WE TRACK?

We need to track every point we can along their journey to become a successful (or unsuccessful) Agent.  With data compiled over time, we can look back in a year or more to study what worked in our recruiting and training and what was a miss.  To do this, we need to create an Excel or other tracking form that has the candidate’s initial information documented during recruiting, what happened during training, and what they are doing now as an Agent. This data will give you a good overview.

Here are a few examples of what you might track:

Recruiting

• Sources of response:  Don’t be anecdotal about where your best Agents come from, have facts.
• Education/ type of degree if college grad
• Years of contact center/customer service experience
• Candidate testing:  (Hint: Did the top scoring candidates become our top Agents? If not, why not?)
• Interview rating:  Ask each person on your team who does interviews to rate the candidates based on whether they think they will be Top Agent (1), Average but Good Agent (2), Have some concerns but would consider hiring since customer service attitude is good (3).

Training

• Attendance and Tardiness:  Were there some issues during training?
• Class Participation – Interested, Eager, Bored, Not getting the information? Let your trainer comment on what they are observing and document it.
• Knowledge, testing, picking up on things quickly or needs extra time with trainer?
• Trainer comments and observations:  Ask each trainer to rate each trainee as to what they think will happen once they are working in the Center: Top Agent (1), Average but Good Agent (2), Will have some struggles with the job(3)
• Take a look at what your trainers are saying about each employee.  How do their observations and data compare with the recruiting information?

On The Job

Using the same tracking form, continue to record how the new hires are doing during the first 90 days in terms of skills, attitude, team work, work habits and other things you measure for productivity and quality. Go beyond the first 90 days as you feel would benefit your assessment.

Where does all of this lead us?

Did the Agent’s ratings as one, two or three prove accurate when compared to on the job performance or were they off?

Did college grads do better than those with no college but good customer service background? 

Are there are positive or negative trends we’re seeing as we compare before and after?

We are able to “turn back time” in terms of comparing what we saw initially and what is happening now that they are an Agent.  Having a clear-cut process for tracking and mapping the candidate to Agent journey will help us determine where the gaps are, provide feedback to those helping with recruiting and training, and better evaluate the tools and processes we use to support our efforts to hire and retain the best possible Agents.

My Guest Blogger, Lee Silverstein shares: 5 Signs Your Frontline Manager Is Drowning

I enjoy posts written by my consulting friends and plan to share some of them with my readers from time to time.  Today’s post is about some warning signs that may indicate you may have the wrong person for your leadership role.  The author is Lee Silverstein, Founder and Executive Job Coach at Tampa Bay Job Coach.

Lee Silverstein has 29 years experience in leadership and organizational development, training, interviewing and hiring.  He coaches clients on how to leverage the vast array of social media platforms to help them be discovered by recruiters and hiring managers.  Lee also advises clients on building an effective resume, how to network effectively and successful interview skills.  He can be reached via his website: Tampa Bay Job Coach

5 Signs Your Frontline Manager Is Drowning

by Lee Silverstein, Tampa Bay Job Coach

I remember back when I was in the retail business and I had just been promoted to “Store Manager”. I knew I had lots to learn and made it a point to get to the store early each morning. Every morning I arrived at work, Steve (not his real name) would already be there; sleeves rolled up, tie undone and rings of perspiration under his arms. “Good morning boss” he would always utter with a smile. “Did he sleep here?” I would often wonder to myself. Being in the retail business, I put in my share of hours, but most of the time Steve was there when I arrived in the morning and when I left in the evening. It was not unusual for Steve to show up on his day off too. While I admired Steve’s attitude and hard work, he was drowning. The signs were everywhere.

Warning Sign #1 - The Manager Lacks Delegation Skills.

It was clear from Steve’s behavior that he subscribed to the adage “if you want something done right, do it yourself”, but like the saying goes “the harder he worked, the behinder he got.” Either no one had trained Steve on the art of delegation and follow-up or he didn’t retain what he was taught. While Steve worked, his employees stood around, arms crossed, discussing last night’s episode of The X Factor.

Warning Sign #2 - The Manager Hasn’t Empowered Their Team To Make Decisions.

Walking through the store the most common sound I heard, next to the ringing of registers, was “Steve Smith, please call extension 1234.” Every 30, minutes it seemed, one of Steve’s associates would page him with a question or to handle a problem. Steve had not empowered his associates to make any decisions for themselves. Even the most minor issue required him to intervene. This was also the reason why Steve was late for most meetings.

Warning Sign #3 - There Is High Associate Turnover, Particularly With New-Hires, In The Manager’s Area of Responsibility.

With the exception of 2 “long-timers” there was practically a revolving associate door on Steve’s department. As soon as an associate was hired, another would leave. New associates quickly became frustrated over the lack of training and direction from their manager.

Warning Sign #4 - There is 1 or 2 “Veteran” Associates That Are Very Loyal to the Manager.

You’re probably wondering why this is a problem. It’s been my experience that managers like Steve rely on 1 or 2 long-tenured associates to cover their…..rear. In exchange they get preferential treatment from their manager (like prime schedules) which creates resentment from the new associates (refer back to Warning Sign #3).

Warning Sign #5 - Associates Are Constantly Going Over Their Manager’s Head To Resolve Minor Issues.

It was an almost daily occurrence. One of Steve’s employees would track down the assistant store manager to complain that Steve forgot to input their vacation request or changed their schedule without telling them. The result? Refer back to #3…again.

So how did Steve wind up in a leadership role in the first place? I found out that Steve was a top salesperson at another location. Apparently this resulted in his promotion to front line manager.

In her blog post “I’m a Supervisor, Jim, Not a Leader“, Melissa Kovacevic states:

Unless a Supervisor was chosen for their Leadership potential, the ability to Inspire, Motivate and Coach in addition to their Service/good employee skills, they will often focus on what they have done well in their (previous) role……All the Supervisory classes and all the mentoring in the world will still result in a mediocre to poor Supervisor for your team if you didn’t promote someone with the “right stuff”.

Sadly, this describes Steve to a “T”. After many coaching sessions with Steve it was apparent that Steve did not have the “right stuff” and the time came for me to tell him this directly. I owed it to Steve to be (brutally) honest with him. I’ve always believed that there is a place where everyone can be successful. The longer you allow them to struggle in a position where that won’t happen, the longer you’re keeping them from finding that success. This is how I “rescued” Steve from drowning.

Call Center “Problem Employees”

Image by inju via Flickr

Sometimes, we just can’t change an employee’s behavior because they don’t want to change it.  You can read 1,000 books and articles on all the wonderful coaching ideas out there, try them all and that “problem” employee still isn’t going to change.

Many companies continue to use their Call Center as a “problem employee” dumping ground.  I imagine this is the dialog (with apologies to the great HR folks out there!) :

 

 

Department Head: “Well, Ed just isn’t coming to work on time and when he’s here, he’s always on his cell phone.  I don’t want him in my department any more”

HR Manager: “Ed has been here for 15 years.  What are you suggesting?”

Department Head: “I heard they need someone in Customer Service in the Call Center”

HR Manager: “Great idea.  Ed loves to talk on the phone so I’m sure he’ll love talking to our Customers on the phone.  I’ll talk with the VP and suggest we move Ed there instead of all the hiring expense for an outside candidate.”

The poor Customer Service Manager is later told that due to budget constraints, hiring from the outside won’t be possible but there is a great  internal employee who will be moving into their area. The Department Head never mentions the cell phone and tardy issues of course.  Ed joins the Center and now consumes a huge amount  of the Supervisor’s time due to his problems with attendance and bad work habits.

Another frequently seen scenario is the long time Call Center representative who clearly is burned out and no longer enjoys their job but stays because they “need a job”.   Despite continued lackluster performance, even when given coaching, the Call Center leaders give “Mary” a pass because “she’s been here so long…she’s our Senior Rep”.

Other times I’ve seen employees who have been written up multiple times and yet still continue to be employed.  It’s as if they are made of Teflon and all their bad performance problems just slide right off of them.

If these scenarios are happening at your own Center or company, I hope you’ll open dialog with Human Resources, Management and your Leadership Team using some of these questions or look to your own actions as a Manager:

• Why have we become so afraid to take action if Employees are unable to or unwilling to improve ?
• Why do we feel that Employee length of service trumps the need for superior service for our customers?
• Why are “problem” Employees just moved from department to department?  What are we gaining by this? Is it costing us (or losing us) money to keep them?
• If I have coached and documented the coaching interactions with the “problem” employee and have had no success in turning them around, what is preventing me from terminating their employment?
• How is continued employment of “problem” Employees affecting my staff?
• Are “good” Employees being neglected while I worry about the “problem” ones?
• If burned out in my area, do they have other fabulous skills that would be great in another department or would I be “dumping” like the Ed story above?

I’d love to hear your comments or stories related to my topic.

You might also enjoy this interesting post on Good Turnover vs. Bad Turnover from a Human Resources point of view: http://tinyurl.com/29go7oj

“Do We Still Have A Call Center?”…and more scenes from Phone Hell…

It’s amazing to me that a CEO or top management at a company can put their best company front line people in the dingiest places to work and provide little to no motivation and training.

I’ve seen Call Centers or small Customer Service teams in old trailers, Reps hanging lunches up to avoid mice sneaking bites of their meal while they go into the warehouse.  Then there are the windowless dungeons of phone hell….people given just enough room so as not to touch elbows and bad chairs that squeak or are bent like contortionists.

I’d like to say that the management in these places were not aware of what was going on, but unfortunately, all of them acknowledged it was bad and often added comments like, “Well, we are going to relocate in a year or two” or “Well, the Reps haven’t complained about it”.  If no one complained, I guess that was because that company also had huge Employee turnover problems in the Call Center.  No one stayed around long enough to complain.  They stayed just long enough to find another job or on occasion post out somewhere else within the company.

Then there was the business that had an Exec who, when asked about the Call Center team said, “Do we still have one of those?  Where are they?”  In this case, the small team of five Call Center Reps were in a building several minutes away from the nicely decorated headquarters.  There was a light out in the corridor outside the Center — dark and creepy— shades of a Friday night fright flick.  The inside was no better. Grey walls, torn carpet, no pictures or anything colorful or interesting.  And, there was row… after row… after row of old files stacked on open shelves filling one-half of the room.  Reps complained of breathing dust in. A Rep had asked for headphone replacement parts for months to no avail and was now sitting 8 hours a day with her neck bent to one side to hold the phone while she typed.  To add to the bad atmosphere, there was an off-site Manager who only visited every couple of weeks and no Supervisor on-site.

When I sat with Employees at this center, listened to calls and observed their interactions with each other, the word that best described the overall atmosphere was Apathy.  They weren’t rude to the Customers.  They took down information and answered questions. They just didn’t appear to care at all.  All of the Service Reps had good work backgrounds in the industry.  All should have been providing a high level of Customer Experience on calls but weren’t.

Fortunately, this “Do we still have a Call Center” story has  a happy ending.

Image by Martin Cathrae via Flickr

I wrote an Operational review report for this client and outlined some opportunities for improvements for the Employees as well as the Customer Experience overall.  In one section of the report, I discussed how having a poor work environment was very demotivating to the team and in turn affecting both turnover and the Customers.  Happily the CEO admitted that improvements were long overdue in the small Center.  Within two weeks of making some initial improvements in the Center, the attitudes were greatly improved and so were the Customer calls.  I had recommended,  and they had implemented, some relatively inexpensive improvements such as installing an air filter to help with file dust,  painting walls in colors the team chose, purchasing new Ergonomic chairs that were more supportive, replacing some defective headphones and cleaning old computer equipment out of the area (yes, the Call Center had also been deemed a garbage dump by IT).  I also asked the off-site Manager to commit to more hours per week in the center doing coaching and motivating the Reps which she agreed to.

I’m happy to say that the Reps’ skills have greatly improved.  The improved work environment, increased support and motivation demonstrated that Management cared about them.  With the Reps’ attitudes and skills improved,  Customer feedback is more positive and the Reps themselves are noticing that Customers are appreciative of their efforts and smiles.

Simple but effective solutions.  This has been a real Win-Win-Win for all parties involved.