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.

“Do you like to talk on the Phone?” – Recruiting For Your Call Center

Recruiting Center in Denmark

INTERVIEW:

Q: What do you consider to be your weaknesses?
A: Answering silly questions like these.

Q: How do you get along with others?
A: Fine, as long as they stay out of my face.

ONE of the first questions I ask as soon as I begin working with a new Call Center client is “What are the first steps used when hiring a new Representative at your Center?”

I hear a variety of answers but mostly, “We use an agency to screen first” or “HR finds someone who looks interesting and then sends us their resume”.

The next question I ask is, “Have your outside recruiters or in-house HR people ever worked or managed in a Call Center?”  That question is often met with a blank stare or a comment such as, “Well I gave them a recent Job Description and we talked about the position.  They understand what I need”.

Talking with someone or looking at a descriptive piece of paper is not the same as observing first hand what it takes to do the difficult job that our Reps do day in and day out.  So how do you help your recruiting people get a better idea of the attitude and skills that you need for success?

(Notice the un-trainable attitude is mentioned first!)

1. Ask the recruiting person to spend time in the Center sitting side-by-side with your top Reps and observing calls with you.  Discuss what they heard and the skills and attitude that will be important to screen for.

2. Make sure that candidate contact involves a phone interview upfront with a checklist of their phone skills & behaviors.  Some candidates are professional face-to-face interviewers but freeze on the phone or have a flat speaking tone.

3. Tell them that you can train skills but not attitude.  You need the willing and able to learn only.  And, not the leftovers or unwanted problem employees from other departments with nowhere else to go (see my earlier Blog article on this)

4. Reps with lots of experience may have to “unlearn” bad habits from their previous position so understanding the type of Center they worked in, what the goals were including their own goals in regards to Quality and Metrics and how they achieved those (or didn’t) are important.  I’ve had Reps tell me they had won awards for various skills .  I’ve asked them to produce the proof via copies of anything they have in writing which most can.

5. Testing is good but old-fashioned probing using behavioral questions and even role-play of customer scenarios can tell you a lot more sometimes.

There are many more tips for best practice call center recruiting. I’ve shared a related article below.  I hope you’ll share of your ideas for candidate “screening” or stories of recruiting success or failure for your Center.

Related Articles

• How to Hire Better Call Center Agents (customerthink.com)

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