Are You Setting Your Quality Team Up For Conflict? Part II

In Part I of my post, I addressed conflict coming from Report Structure Issues.  Conflicts can also arise from the design of the quality program and poor training or the communication skills used.

QUALITY DESIGN FLAWS WILL BRING CONFLICT

When you are designing the tools used by quality analysts, you may be setting expectations based on a checklist rating skills using a “did it happen or didn’t it happen” method.  There are times when the customer interaction requires an agent skill to change or not be used at all.

A manager shared this story of checklist focused quality monitoring:

The agent had a flawless customer experience demonstrating great skills and the customer sounded very happy with the service provided by the agent.  She even complimented the agent during the call.

 At the end of the call, the customer said, “Thanks…you’ve answered all my questions. That’s all I needed.  I’m going to call my husband right now and let him know”.  The agent thanked the caller appropriately and ended the call nicely.

Despite this wonderful customer interaction, the quality analyst scored him negatively for one skill.  According to the quality rating form, the agent did not ask, “Is there anything else?” 

The customer clearly stated that she was satisfied and added that she had all the information needed.

Instead of hearing what the customer said to the agent about having “all I need”, the quality analyst was focused on the quality checklist box for “anything else?”  that needed to have a yes or no.

• Is your quality monitor format rigid without opportunities for the analyst to make exception for certain call types?
• Have you asked your analysts what think their job is?   It’s amazing how many managers expect their analysts to state what’s on their job description, when in reality, the analysts doesn’t see their role the same way.

• Do your analysts just see their role as a check-off of skills or are they listening to what the customer says to judge quality?

• Does your quality program rate technical skills separately from soft skills so you can see if agents excel in both or one of these?

• How often do you review your quality monitoring tools to insure that they are providing you with the information needed for coaching skills?

POOR TRAINING AND COMMUNICATION SKILLS WILL BRING CONFLICT

An agent shared this story with me recently and showed me the emails related to an interaction with a quality analyst who had given him major quality error, which he said was incorrect.  These are the emails exchanged:

Insurance Quality Analyst email sent to Agent:  “You’ve made an error in the data entered for this call.  I listened to the call and you did not speak with the actual customer.  You spoke with his wife.  If you disagree with this error, please respond.

Agent email response: “Yes, I disagree.  I did not make an error.  Please check the customer profile to confirm.

Analyst reply:  “No. You did make error.”

 Agent reply:  “OK”

If you just looked at the dialog in the emails, it appears that the analyst and the agent disagree on the error, the analyst rechecked and confirmed the error, and that the agent finally accepted the error.

However, this wasn’t the end of the story.  After further investigation, the error was finally removed.  So, what actually occurred?

The quality analyst said that she had listened to the call, heard that the agent was speaking with a woman instead of speaking with a customer named Michael Smith directly. This would definitely be a violation of their insurance procedures and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

After the agent’s supervisor listened to the same call, he heard the agent correctly and thoroughly verified the customer’s identification and had shared information with the Michael Smith on file.  Michael was the woman caller’s name.

The analyst admitted that she had not listened to the call a second time or even looked at the customer’s account information.  She said she had missed hearing the woman identify herself as “Michael” at the start of the call.

Then, why did the agent just respond with “OK” to accepting the error when he knew he had not done so?

The agent told me that others on his team were experiencing similar situations with other quality analysts.  When they reported these issues to their supervisor, they were told it had been sent to the quality manager for review, and the agents would later receive a canned “Your error has been removed” email from the original analyst.

The agent added that these false errors still continue and that he and his teammates have decided to stop interacting with the quality analysts who email and just forward these issues to their contact center supervisor with their reason for not accepting the error.

If these issues with communication and poor quality observation skills are continuing, it is obvious that the quality manager is not coaching with his team.

• Is the Quality Manager monitoring and rating calls together with each analyst to coach them on their observation skills?

• Is the Quality Manager pulling some random emails to check on their written communication skills and direct interactions with agents?

• If the analysts are also doing coaching with agents, have you sat in and observed them coach and then coached while they observed you?

Do your supervisors and the quality analysts have similar coaching activities and goals, and discuss with each other so that they are working towards the same results?

……….

This article originally appeared in the Contact Center Pipeline January 2013 issue

Are You Setting Your Quality Team Up For Conflict? Part I

Unfortunately, conflict between Quality teams and Contact Center teams happens more often than it should.  Managers on both sides will say that it is probably due to personality conflicts or simple miscommunication.

While those factors do play a part at times, we need to dig deeper to find out what is really going on.  From my own observations and feedback from center employees, I’ve found that some companies actually set conflict in motion through their reporting structure, the design of the quality program and tools being used, or even poor QA training and coaching.

REPORTING STRUCTURE ISSUES WILL BRING CONFLICT

The Quality Manager and the analysts most often report to an operations executive who may not be actively involved in the day-to-day front line management of the center. The Contact Center Director or Manager and the Quality Manager are usually peers in this scenario.

Although companies design this structure of separation to have what they feel is an unbiased look at quality, they may also unwittingly be setting an “us versus them” conflict in motion.  The responsibility for fostering a cooperative relationship between quality and center operations lies with the executive level manager they both report to.

If the quality manager and center director have an adversarial relationship, their teams will pick up on this and the conflict will happen during their interactions as well.

One activity where conflict between individual analysts and supervisors or between both teams can be seen is during calibration meetings.  In these sessions, everyone listens to agent calls and observes system entries, rates skills together and discusses opportunities to improve.

Many calibration sessions become more about “I’m right and your wrong” finger-pointing with voices raised in argument over the tiniest details.  Of course the customer’s experience is often lost in this type of scenario.  Worse yet, I’ve seen quality and center managers sit back and allow this to happen and then privately talk with their team afterwards about how ridiculous the other team was acting.

Our quality and the contact center operations teams need to come together and agree on goals and missions for the best customer experience and business efficiencies and results.

Quality monitoring must be based on facts, not emotions.  Analysts, supervisors and their leadership must also be willing to admit when one of them erred in scoring or when an agent reporting to them failed the customer.  The ability to admit mistakes and learn from them is more important than grandstanding in front of the group.

Regardless of the reporting structure used, we need to insure that we are committed to the common goals and avoid the blame game or taking things personally.  We expect our agents to take feedback and coaching with an open attitude so the same expectation should be there for our quality and leadership teams in the center.

….PART 2 WILL FOLLOW SOON!

This article originally appeared in the Contact Center Pipeline January 2013 issue

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?

My Guest Posts on Other Blogs This Month

I’m honored by the requests I’ve received to post on other sites in our Customer Experience and Contact Center community. I hope you will visit their sites to not only read my guest posts but also learn from the excellent advice which their teams and other guest posters share with you.

This month, I have posts on the following blog sites:

Deluxe Knowledge Exchange (Banking and Credit Unions)

HDI Connect (Tech Support and IT)

PACE (Professional Association of Customer Engagement) Midwest

Customer Management IQ

I also want to thank you for stopping by, reading my posts and sharing your thoughts with me here and on social media.

Wishing you and your Customer focused teams much success!

So You Want To Become a Customer Service Leader?

Much has been written about what Contact Center and Customer Service Leadership should do to motivate, mentor and be successful with their teams. But what should an Agent or Customer Service Rep do to be successful in their quest for promotion?

1. Be willing to volunteer for projects

When there are opportunities offered and you make excuses or avoid them altogether, you send a clear signal about your initiative (or lack of it). Ask if there is anything you CAN help with. Even if there isn’t anything extra to do, your Manager will take note of your willingness to help.

2. Mentor others by being positive and encouraging

Are you the Agent the new hires like to sit with because you are knowledgeable and motivate them? Or, are you the Agent the new hires avoid sitting near because you complain about the customers or your work? Be welcoming and motivating and help your teammates succeed.

3. Stay out of the internal conflicts on your team and gossip mill

When people work together in large groups under high pressure as we have when the calls are coming in back to back, there are some who will take out their frustrations on co-workers or talk badly about management. Stay clear of these folks or you may find yourself accused of “stirring the pot” too.

4. Demonstrate the Customer Experience focus needed and Learn more about the Business

Ask for ways to improve your service skills and customer interactions. Don’t just wait for feedback and coaching. Show that you are open and willing to take feedback. Review the company goals, mission and educate yourself on how the business operates.

5. Suggest ways to help the business be successful and increase customer satisfaction

This is not complaining. This is, “I see an opportunity for ________ and I have a suggestion which will help by ______”. Don’t bring complaints. Bring solutions and ideas. When you do have suggestions, make them in a positive, factual manner, not using emotional talk.

6. Show up for work!

Enough said

7. Express your interest in moving into Leadership

Ask your Supervisor to share ways you can reach your goal via classes, book recommendations, advice on skills needed. Improving your skills in Time Management, Coaching, Verbal and Written Communication, Dealing with Difficult People, How to Motivate, Team Building and How to create a great Customer Experience will help you get a jump start on what you’ll use in Leadership.

8. Self Honesty: Why do you want the promotion?

Be honest with yourself. Is it because of the new challenge and opportunity to grow or just the money you feel you “deserve” after working there for a while? There is a big difference between being a co-worker with your Agent friends and overseeing their schedules, quality issues and perhaps delivering “bad news” to them as a Supervisor. Do you feel you have what it takes to be successful?

…If you have some more ideas to help Agents develop the skills needed to join Leadership, I hope you’ll share them here.

A Special Thank you to Impact Learning for first publishing this article in May 2012

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

Quality Calibration: You say it’s 80, I say it’s 90…Let’s call the whole thing off!

I love visiting Contact Centers and working with Leadership and Quality teams.  After 30 plus years in the industry, I will say that I’m still happy with my career choice.  I certainly have had a lot of interesting experiences working with all those Centers, but nothing can compare to some of  those knock-down, drag-out Calibration sessions pitting Supervisor against Supervisor, Supervisor(s) against the Quality Analysts, Supervisors against Manager.  You get the picture.

As I’ve sat and observed the interactions, including the eye rolling, the almost name calling and the defense of what some participants described to a Supervisor as “your pet Agent”, I wondered where the Customer Experience was in all of this.

So many Calibration sessions become more about “I’m right and your wrong” finger-pointing when the scores don’t agree, than how this call affected the Customer. I’ve even seen some Managers avoid the whole infighting issue by just scheduling Calibration sessions once a quarter or even less frequently instead of taking steps to improve them.

In order to have productive (and yes professional) Calibration sessions, we need to set some ground rules, for instance:

1.  Opinions are just that…opinions.  Our monitoring should be based on facts, instead of rating the call high because “Mary means well” or “John’s worked here a long time”.

Consistency in how we rate Agent skills is important.

♦

2. Listen for “Moments of Truth” for that Customer:  Accuracy, timeliness, problem resolution, empathy, listening – Did we take care of the reason for the call and if not, was it the Agent’s issue or a policy/procedure that prevented resolution (which needs revision if possible)?

Why did the Customer contact us and did we resolve? Why Not?

♦

3. If you don’t agree on the scores, why not?:  discuss rationally, not emotionally.

Don’t take discussion personally

♦

4. Make sure everyone understands what your Customers expect and need to have a positive Experience:  Customer Feedback, Surveys, comments Customer makes during the call, CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score, or perhaps related to the Calibration fighting, I found out this also stands for Combatshootingandtactics.com ).  Our monitoring may also include checks for sales skills and revenue generation but if the Customer is satisfied we know we have a greater opportunity to sell more.

 The Customer Experience

♦

5. Repeat number 4…the Customer rules and providing what they need and want decides whether this call was an 80 or 90 or whatever scoring applies.

This is just some food for thought and I know there are more great Calibration ideas.  I hope you’ll share some of your Calibration stories here or on Twitter (I’m @mkcallconsult) or LinkedIn

Gen Y Agents: Our Future Leaders

In one of my posts last year, I discussed some of the issues to consider when looking for Agents to promote within your Call Center or your Customer Service team. My post today is about one of the challenges many Managers have: Inspiring and developing Gen Y agents for future Leadership roles.

As you have no doubt observed, Millennials have very different skills and work attitudes when compared to the Baby Boomers that may be working in your Centers.

According to a 2009 Report on Trends in Executive Development by EDA (http://www.executivedevelopment.com),  the good news is that many of the Gen Y agents you hire will have the following strengths for Leadership:

• High integrity mind-set
• Ability to deliver results and prioritize
• Technology skills

The bad news is that many lack the following skills:

• Strategic thinking
• Ability to lead change
• Ability to inspire others

Knowing the skill challenges that may lie ahead will help you to not only include questions related to these skills during your initial interviews, but also allow you to find ways to help them develop the needed skills.  You may want to offer training in these areas as part of your development programs or instead, look at outside training resources to assist you.  But not everyone responds well to or learns well in classroom settings.

Another way you might be able to help them is by finding ways to blend the strengths they do have with their weak skill areas and coaching them for the improvements needed before they become Leaders.

Here’s just a few examples for you to consider…

Blend Ability to Deliver Results with Inspiring others:  We know that members of Gen Y love to help others, so placing them in a mentoring situation and guiding them on best practices to learn how to inspire and motivate can be beneficial for you and them.  They need to see how their contribution “makes a difference”.  You need to communicate specifically how their mentoring has made a difference in the way the Agent is performing and enjoying their job more, how it positively affects the attitudes of customers and the team, and how it is benefiting their own skills development for opportunities. Teach them how and why to give encouragement and positive feedback by linking their activity to results.

Blend Technology With Leading Change:  Millennials understand change in terms of the fast paced changes in technology.  Think about those great technical and social media skills they have!  Asking them  to help others to be successful and gain comfort with the changes in technology may be a way for them to demonstrate leadership potential. What part can they play in delivering those results for you?  Can they help older employees learn new technology and dealing with the changes that come with that?

Blend Prioritizing With Strategic Thinking:  If they have good skills in prioritizing, get them involved in helping to develop a new procedure which requires levels of priority to be set.  Give them the goal, reasons for the goal and then ask them to recommend steps to get there.  Work with them to develop the skills they will need as a Leader to understand what part strategic thinking and planning plays in bringing success for the company, customers and the team.

Not all Millennials will want to become Leaders in our centers just as many of our Gen X and Baby Boomers have been content to remain Agents or CSRs.  However, if we don’t find ways now to engage those who have some interest and potential, and help them to develop the missing skills needed, we may lose them to other businesses who are ready, willing and able to help them achieve their goals.

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.

Promoting Customer Service Agents to Leadership

Choosing the right agents to promote to front line Leadership roles in our contact centers and our customer facing service offices is often a challenge.

Most studies link poor Leadership to not only Employee Satisfaction drops but also declines in Customer Satisfaction.

From a high level view, we need to find a candidate who will provide our business with a positive mix of employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction and business results.

As proactive Managers, we should have a plan in place for both promoting Agents and supporting them by providing the training and coaching needed to be successful.

First, we need to establish expectations and goals for Agents to achieve on the path to Leadership.

We should explain to our Agents what is needed, why, and how to get there.

We also need to determine which skills are “must haves” and which are trainable. Length of employment should not be the prime factor in selection, but sadly this often happens as I see in the “Mary’s been here a long time and we don’t know what else to do with her” syndrome.

It’s important for us to review our job descriptions and update as needed:

• Does the Supervisor or Team Leader job description truly reflect the current job and skills needed? 
• When was the last time you “shadowed” them for a day to see what the work really entails?
• Do you want new front line leaders to do some other work activities that require additional skills beyond current expectations? 

When you are looking at ways to identify some good Agent to Leadership candidates, how do their Agent skills demonstrate these key Supervisor skills?

♦ Follow-through:  Calls back customers on time, completes tasks as requested
♦ Time Management:  Aware of time control on calls & project deadlines
♦ Coaching: Mentors with new hires, offers to help with training
♦ Analytical Thinking: Considers all possible ways to help customers
♦ Motivation: Has positive “can-do” attitude & encourages others
♦ Work Ethic: Good attendance, focused on customers and business results
♦ Decision Making Empathetic but firm with necessary customer decisions

In future posts, I’ll focus on some other areas of Agent development and promotion.

Let me know what you think and what your own experience has been in selecting Agents who became great Leaders.