Coaching Numbers or What They Really Mean?

As Contact Center managers, you have a lot of power.  OK…some days it sure doesn’t seem that way, but you really do.  Your supervisors and quality team are listening to you and are observing what you are focused on.

When you talk about metrics, what are you saying to them? If you talk purely “number” goals all the time, your quality coaches will be talking just “numbers” too.  They’ll often repeat what you are saying word for word during their coaching sessions with agents.

When  metrics are discussed during individual agent coaching sessions, you need to make sure that your “coach” knows how to explain them in terms of Customer Experience.

One of the metrics numbers that seems to get a bad rap these days is the length of the call. Some coaches aren’t bringing it up at all in coaching sessions.  There were some managers who actually tracked and rewarded based on the length of call “metric” set. Some don’t reward but are seemingly obsessed with setting a number for call length average based on studying this metric if reported by any other call center in the universe.

I’m a proponent of monitoring and coaching all types of calls.  Long, short and in between.  I don’t advocate setting an exact length of call goal for every call and then holding agents’ feet to the fire.  I do advocate learning if the call was handled appropriately in a likewise appropriate amount of time.

Long Calls:  When I hear lengthy agent calls, I think about my Dad’s famous driving “shortcuts” whenever he took our family somewhere. When he mentioned that he knew quicker route, my Mom would roll her eyes and we knew what was coming.  We could always plan on adding 20 plus minutes to the original length of the trip.  Hopefully the shortcut would involve a stop for ice cream. My father seemed to find ice cream regardless of the route. His passenger “customers” at least were given a treat for their troubles and perhaps that was his true goal.

Some of our agents don’t see the service or sales target straight ahead, but instead, go in circles on their way to closure.  they are not taking the simplest and shortest route to reach the customer goal.

Unfortunately we don’t have virtual ice cream to offer our customers who are stuck in lengthy calls that seem to be going nowhere.

Short Calls: When calls are too short, I worry too because the agent may have missed an opportunity to be proactive, add some additional tips, or listen better for clues for upselling and cross-selling clues.  Worse still are the agents who blend speed with talking over customers. Sally may have taken twice as many calls as the other agents, but what is happening during those calls?  Are they brusque and disinterested sounding, even though she took care of “business”?

Metrics should always be a part of coaching as long as they mean something to the customer and our business needs.

I love to see quality monitoring forms for calls that incorporate metrics as well as the soft skills and other skills needed for best quality.

We just need to make sure that our coaches aren’t just reading metrics numbers to agents, but are instead preparing for their coaching sessions by reviewing those numbers and how they relate to skills demonstrated and the overall customer experience.

Making Lemons Into Sangria: A Customer Experience Tale

Image via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Infrogmation

I was excited to go on a long awaited vacation at Universal Studios in Orlando, FL.  We are two big kids and the lure of endless roller coaster rides, Margaritaville and a stay at one of the beautiful onsite resorts is irresistible.

I’m also the ultimate pre-trip planner.  I always visit the hotel website, research activities at the location, and look at websites with tips and information.  If you are going to a theme park and love rides, you also check to see if any rides are under repair or maintenance.  I took a final peak the day before we left and was happy to see nothing noted as “closed” or unavailable.

Check-in at the lovely Royal Pacific Resort at Universal was effortless and we were met with smiles and welcomes from the moment we exited our car at the entrance.  Loews owns the property and it is clear that creating a wonderful Customer Experience has been part of the staff training.  Each “Moment of Truth” was positively met and even exceeded our expectations including early check-in to a fabulous room looking out towards Universal and a lagoon pool below.  We were thrilled!

Unfortunately the same could not be said for the start of our visit to Universal Islands of Adventure.

The first missed opportunity to delight the customer came during an interaction with the surly unsmiling ticket booth attendant who must’ve transferred in from an airport TSA interrogation team. No welcome, just a barked out “Can I help you?”.  That was my first clue to the quality of her service skills.

She stared at the paper I handed her which detailed my Credit Card points to ticket “purchase” months earlier.  She made no eye contact with me but instead focused on entering the code to print the actual ticket.  Apparently there was a problem.

As we know, most customers don’t mind that you have a problem accessing their information if you just tell them what the heck you are doing and apologize for the wait.  Not this agent. She kept entering the numbers, staring, shaking her head negatively, trying again.  Finally another agent came over and they both looked like someone had just cancelled their lunch breaks because the frowns were deepening by the minute.

The window had a tiny opening on the bottom so I bent low and said, “Is there a problem?…Do you need any other information from me to help?”  My question was met with silence and more typing.  She finally got the system to cooperate and I had my ticket.  As expected given her poor skills to this point, the ticket agent simply handed over the ticket without an apology for the wait or any other acknowledgement of appreciation.  In fact, she gave me more of a death stare as if I had done something to cause the issue.

We had decided upon arrival to go on some water rides since it was a hot day and after a long drive to the park.  As we entered the enclosed waiting area for the first ride, we saw many people with glazed over eyes and attendants looking worried.  As the film in front of the ride promised you a great time and showed happy people getting wet, the ride workers countered with the announcement that there was a minor glitch which would be fixed. Some people had been waiting 20 minutes in a hot interior area, apparently afraid to give up their highly sought place in the front of the line.  No water or beverages for purchase, probably 100 degrees inside, angry people complaining, helpless attendants trying to avoid eye contact with the crowd. This was one of Dante‘s levels of hell for theme park people that he had forgotten to add to The Inferno.

We’d had enough and left since there was no indication of a fix soon.  One of the workers told us it had been working “off and on” all day.  We understand malfunctions can happen but of course we were disappointed.  We went to the next water ride only to find the sign indicated what their Universal website did not:  “Closed for Seasonal Maintenance”.  We had now spent the first hour at our favorite theme park walking in circles or standing in a line to nowhere.

As we walked away feeling very disappointed with our visit so far, we decided lunch was in order.  We remembered the great Customer Service & food at an on-site restaurant called Confisco Grill we had visited when last onsite in 2008 (it was that good!).  We were not to be disappointed.  This is the wonderful “Moments of Truth” customer experience we had in dealing with the motivated, well-trained and customer focused staff:

1. RAPPORT: The Greeter/Hostess asked about the rides and how our visit was going while she checked for a table for us. We shared our disappointment about the ticket issue, the broken ride and the closed one.

2. EMPATHY & TAKING RESPONSIBILITY: The Hostess empathized and apologized for the lack of communication and ride glitches (despite not being her work area!),

3. LISTEN & MAKE THE CUSTOMER FEEL IMPORTANT: The Manager visited all of the tables and when she came by ours, we complimented the Hostess on her excellent skills.  She told us that the Hostess had told her that we had decided to come there based on our past positive experience and to make up for the initial park problems we had.

4. THANK YOU: The Manager told us how much she appreciated that we chose their restaurant out of all of the choices there and were returning customers.

5 . ABOVE AND BEYOND: The Manager offered us a free pitcher of Sangria to make up for “the bad start to our visit”.

The Sangria was delicious, the food as great as we remembered and the waitress was equally welcoming and efficient.  In fact every employee in the restaurant was smiling and said “Hello” to us and other patrons throughout the restaurant.

We talked about the “can-do” and customer-focused attitudes we’d experienced and made a note of names so we could recognize them on the survey we would receive later.  We have also told this story countless times because we were so impressed, despite a poor start to our vacation there.

Customer Experience really is about all of our contact with the various Touchpoints along the way.  It shows that even one person (or in this case the entire staff of one of the Universal restaurants) can change a negative initial experience into a memorable one.  Or rather Lemons into Sangria!

(For another Customer Experience at Universal, please visit this post by my friend, Guy Winch: Why Customer Service at Harry Potter World’s The Three Broomsticks Lacks Magic http://bit.ly/hDUFdf )

Customer Service Skills Coaching Activity or Coaching Results?

A Quality Assurance Manager I once worked with had a great explanation for what was happening with some of the Coaching going on in their Call Center.  He said there was a lot of focus on Coaching “activity” and not on Coaching “results”.  He was right.

Some of the Supervisors and Quality Assurance folks were waiting until the end of month and then doing a mad dash to get the number of required calls monitored.  They also rushed through coaching sessions, just to check off as completed.  One even did long distance coaching where they simply placed the monitoring information in the Agent’s desk file and said “Let me know if you have any questions”.  The assumption of that Supervisor was that the long time Agent didn’t really need any coaching but could figure it out themselves!

Many were simply giving Agents feedback on what they needed to improve in, but not spending the time to actually analyze with the Agent why the skill was a problem, discuss how they could fix it and then practice the skill with them.  And for some, follow-up was non-existent…until the next month’s coaching activity was due.  Agents making improvement were receiving no encouragement in between formal coaching sessions.

Coaching should be a priority.  But unfortunately for many, it’s seen as a drudge. Something that needs to be done to meet a goal set by upper Management.  Supervisors often tell me how tired they are of coaching the same things over and over only to have the Agent show no improvement.  When I question further, I usually find it’s because the Coach knows how to do the Coaching activity, but not the kind of Coaching needed for results.

So how can you help your Supervisors and QA have the “right” Coaching attitude and get results. Just as they need to analyze why an Agent skill is an issue, you need to do some digging too:

1. How are your Supervisors spending their day?  Do some basic time/task observation and recording to find out what is really going on with their daily activities.
2. What are you doing as a Manager to free Supervisors from activities that aren’t productive or aren’t related to Customer Experience quality & Employee Development? Can you help them find more time to coach?
3. Are you leading by example?  How are you Coaching them on their own Customer Service skills and Leadership skills?  Are you the best Coach that you can be?
4. What type of training have your Supervisors been given in how to effectively monitor calls and coach for “results”?
5. Observe the Coaching sessions they conduct.  Are they lecture or interactive?  Does the Agent appear to understand the missed opportunities in the call? Does the Supervisor know how to deal with defensive Agents or those who make excuses. Or are they avoiding conflict? Is there enthusiasm for Coaching?
6. What expectations have you set for the Supervisor to work with the Agent after the Coaching session in order to help the Agent improve?  Have they committed to do side-by-side calls, call demos, role play or other “homework” to help the Agent.
7. What kind of Monitoring and Coaching reporting do you have in place?  How often are you meeting with each Supervisor to review calls, Agent progress, help them with challenging Coaching situations?
8. How are your Supervisors rewarded and motivated for the success they have in Coaching?  What kind of feedback are they getting from you regarding their Coaching skills?  How enthusiastic are you about Coaching?

I truly believe that as skill Coaches we need to Discuss with Them, Show Them (demo), Observe Them, and then Reward Them for any progress made. As their Manager, you need to practice the same great Coaching skills with them.

“I’m a Supervisor, Jim, Not a Leader!”

Dr McCoy

If you were a fan of the Star Trek TV series, you’ll recognize my twist on Dr. McCoy’s catchphrase,  “I’m a Doctor, Jim, not a (insert job)” in my title.   The Doctor was often called upon to perform some task he had no training or skills to do.  In TV land, all this works out just fine.  In real life, not so much.

A similar situation sometimes happens when promoting a Call Center or Retail Service Rep into a Supervisory role.  The Rep is given a promotion because they had the following qualifications:

• They were an excellent Rep: met metrics and/or quality expectations.
• They knew how to be friendly with the Customers & their co-workers.
• They understood every policy and procedure and could quote them upon request.
• They came to work on time and rarely called in sick.
• They worked in the Service/Sales Center for more than a year.

So what’s missing?

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 role as a Representative – taking a lot of Customer calls (not just escalated), socializing with the Reps during breaks so the Reps continue to “like” them,  ensure attendance and lunch schedules are met, and act as the walking encyclopedia of policies and procedures (strictly enforced of course and communicated that way to Reps and Customers alike).

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”.

You Know How to Book the VIP, You Just Don’t Know How to Deliver

Image by k0a1a.net via Flickr

We recently took a cruise with Carnival which offers some fabulous prices on suites. They still have a few smaller ships and the suites we like have huge balconies where we spend a lot of hours watching the waves and flying fish. There are no extra amenities that come with the suite other than “VIP Embarkation” and “VIP Disembarkation”.  We are content with the big suite and balcony, and the promise of getting on the ship quickly and painlessly, and then exiting in the same manner. It would be a LONG drive home so the VIP Disembarkation is what we really were looking forward to.

When we arrived for boarding, we entered through the VIP line, were promptly taken care of and then sent to a special waiting area which was simply a separate room with a VIP sign and free water and coffee.  A customer service representative then came to each row of VIPs and announced how the boarding would work.  A bit of chaos when the boarding time came, but nothing too bad, i.e. it met our basic expectations but didn’t exceed.  We got onboard early and that was the goal.  A wonderful cruise that we thoroughly enjoyed followed.

During the last night at sea, our luggage tags were delivered, along with a separate letter which stated that as VIPs, we would receive priority disembarkation and needed to proceed to the _____ lounge in the morning.  We would be escorted off the ship when cleared by Customs.  Sounded very nice and efficient again, right?  But wait….where was the time to go to the lounge?  Nowhere in the letter.

I placed a call after searching again for the time to meet.   A nervous sounding young “Guest Services” man, asked me to hold…twice with no apology for holding by the way. It was clear that he had no idea what letter I was talking about.  He told me that if we carried off our luggage it was 7:15am for meeting time and if our luggage was waiting in customs area, 8:15am.  I told the young man that this couldn’t be right.  The general disembarkation for everyone was at these same times.  He repeated the same times and said he had no idea about the letter itself.  I hung up in frustration.

We are early risers so we decided to arrive at the said lounge just prior to the 7:15 time mentioned. No one was there. Not even fellow passengers.  We waited 10 minutes and a few people arrived.  They told us that they had gone in person to Guest Services and were told several different disembarkation times. No one at Guest Services knew about the letter, so these VIPs had decided to arrive early as we had. A few more minutes passed and still no staff had arrived to escort us off the ship or tell us what was happening.  We shared VIP horror stories as if telling ghost stories around the campfire.

I left the lounge in search of yet another VIP answer and found a desk just outside with a smiling young man selling “future cruises”.  He told me that this was his first week Onboard and he had no idea how VIP worked.  Then he added, “You need to visit Guest Services for that information”.  Queue the Twilight Zone music!  I thanked him and returned to my seat in the lounge.

Now it is 7:45am…no answers, no crew escorts have arrived at the lounge and the other passengers are as confused as we are.  Another passenger arrives and tells his group that he was told by a crew member that VIP were to wait in the Theater, not the lounge.  He said he showed the VIP letter to that crew member, who stared at it stating, “I’ve never seen a letter like this before”.

At close to 8am, another passenger arrives and says they were told that the VIP people have already left the ship.  Several of us pick up our bags and head for a nearby stairwell where people are clustered.  The crew member there is also VIP confused, has no idea what the letter in our hands is about, and leaves to check with a Manager.  No, she says when returning, it is not your turn unless you have all of your luggage in your hands. We did not and so our band of now angry VIPs returns to the lounge.

At 8:10am, a young crew officer finally arrives and in a whisper low voice (picture everyone leaning forward to hear) says, “If you received a VIP letter, please follow me”.

That was it?  No apology, no explanation.  We grabed our bags and ran to follow him as he headed for an exit area as if his shoes were on fire.

So, after all that, what are my VIP tips for Carnival:

1. Have someone in the Front Office actually proof read letters delivered to VIP passengers for the basics: who, what, where, when…  Is that asking too much?

2. If you are going to deliver VIP information, make sure Guest Services and staff coordinating disembarkation in the hallways/stairs has a copy and knows what VIP disembarkation means.

3. If you plan to escort a group off the ship “early”, please send a Crew Member in to the lounge waiting area to announce what is going on.  We don’t mind waiting as long as you communicate something…anything!

4. Is it too much to ask for water and coffee in that VIP lounge?  One passenger told us that they “used” to do it. Why did you stop?  It wouldn’t take much to set up a self-serve spot at the lounge bar top

5. Teach crew how to empathize and apologize if there is a mistake (like the letter without time on it) instead of blankly staring or stating, “I don’t know what this is”

Just FYI…I have that mysterious VIP letter safely tucked away in our documents here back at home and I’m waiting for the cruise survey due to arrive any day.  I wonder if I will receive the VIP or regular survey

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

Coaching the Perceived “UnCoachable” Skills

According to an SBA survey, Our Customers Leave because….
• 1% die or go out of business
• 3% move away
• 5% follow a friends recommendation to go elsewhere
• 9% leave for price – a common misconception is that customers are price sensitive
• 14% leave for product dissatisfaction
• 68% leave because they sense that you don’t care about them (attitude of indifference from Employee)

When I monitor and coach, my goal is always to think about the Customer at every “moment of truth” in that call.

I love to stop and start recordings and ask the rep what they are hearing from the customer in terms of words but also tone of voice.  Likewise, I’m hearing the choice or words and tone of the Representative at each moment of the call.  We know that the Customer is making decisions about us, about our company and that one poor word or perceived bad tone from the agent can mean a change in their own attitude.  One way to show interest is by having a positive, friendly, can-do tone which displays concern, interest in their needs and treats them as an individual rather than call number 5,260 this month.

Sometimes, I find that Managers accept skill issues as being inherent rather than “Coachable”.  They accept the skill “as is” because they think the Representative is incapable of changing their communication style. Tone is one of these.

My favorite Coach comment is:  “Well, that’s just the way Nancy talks”,  as if it is out of our control to coach or assist her and as if the Customer will just understand that’s how Nancy is.  My first thought is perhaps Nancy should not have been hired if she didn’t display a great speaking voice and tone.  However, you have her as an employee now, so how do you prevent having to remove her from a Customer contact role if the tone affects her interactions.

Tone is one of the tougher skills to coach, but also one of the most important for meeting Customer Expectation.  A Representative who can’t offer a tone of understanding, interest and friendliness is a real problem for Customers seeking this “connection” with them.  I work with the skill Coaches to find ways to overcome these challenging skill issues. Many times, we have great success.  One way to work is connecting the Rep’s challenging skill to their own life experiences.

Voice Tone and Music link often helps:

The first step is making the employee aware of how they sound and why they sound that way. During a recent monitoring and coaching session with a Supervisor who had given up on the Representative’s Tone improvement months ago, I found that she had never made the Representative aware that her facial expression and narrowed mouth type of speech which was the major cause of her poor Tone.

Once I did some Tone exercises with the Rep, discovered she loved to sing with a church choir, and linked singing to her speaking tone, the light bulb moment happened. The Rep recalled her choir conductor explaining how to sing more open mouth to get the best musical note “tones”.  She now realized that she was keeping her face and mouth too rigid and small to have a great tone when speaking as well.  After further discussion she also saw the value of smiling more to get that open tone and thinking of the run of musical notes to fluctuate her pitch.  I gave her suggestions for “punching” certain words to vary her speech pattern.

In order for the voice tone to improve, the Supervisor needed to monitor within a few days and reward the Rep for making efforts to improve.  The monitoring and feedback should be done weekly for a while to provide encouragement and recognize improvement. The more she hears positive feedback and gets more in sync with caller’s need for the tone connection to feel “appreciated” and shown interest, the more the Rep will continue to improve.