SUPERVISORY PLANNING

SUPERVISORY PLANNING





Regardless of your job title, position in an organization or experience, your number one task will always be to attract, satisfy, and preserve customers. And everyone has customers.

WHO ARE YOUR CUSTOMERS AND WHAT CAN THEY DO FOR YOU?

Customers. For many of us, these are easy to identify. They buy things from us. But some people will say, “I do not work directly with customers.” Before you accept, I suggest a closer look at just who exactly our customers are. Everybody has customers.

In organizations, customers take two forms, internal and external.

INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL CUSTOMERS

Internal customers are those people, departments or organizations served by what we do. The only person who might have no internal customer is the individual who works completely alone. For the rest of us, internal customers are a fact of life.

Everyone has at least one internal customer: his boss; managers also have internal customers in the form of the people they supervise. They rely on us to meet their needs.

External customers are those people or departments who are the end users of our organization’s products or services. This is of course, the traditional use of the term “customer”.

Often we call these people different names depending on our business. We call them customers, clients, guests, patients, patrons, cases, franchisees, passengers, students, and the like.

Satisfied customers are those who purchase (although not always for money) and receive value from the goods and services you offer. Generally these customers have a choice. If they don’t like what you offer or the way you offer it, they can go elsewhere for similar goods and services. When they do, you and your organization suffer. Satisfied customers create profits. Profits, in turn create organizational success and the ability to pay employees.

Some organizations however have “captive customers”. They provide a service customers can’t get elsewhere. Public utilities and government agencies are examples. Customers can’t shop around for electric power or license plates. This brings up the question:

WHY GIVE GOOD SERVICE IF THE CUSTOMER HAS NO CHOICE BUT TO DEAL WITH YOU?

It’s easy to see how keeping customers happy is important to the health of profit organizations, but why be so concerned with service in nonprofit, monopolistic or government agencies? After all, where else will they but what we sell? Here’s why:

In the government agency, public utility or nonprofit organization, customer displeasure with service quickly becomes customer animosity. This animosity can snowball. As customers come to expect that they are going to be treated poorly, they in fact will begin to treat employees poorly (in “self-defense”). The attacked employee fights back and the stress on both parties mount.

Some results of this stress on employees and the organization:

- Increased stress-related illness.
- Employee burnout and absenteeism.
- Higher turnover – people quit.
- Cost and inconvenience of training replacement employees.
- Increased difficulty in attracting good employees to the job.
- Negative public view of the organization.
- Lower sense of pride in the organization.
- Lower sense of self-worth among employees.
- Increased defensiveness in employees, which can lead to even more stress.

Very few people can put up with the day-to-day barrage of unhappy patrons who expect to be treated poorly.
The best reason to give good service is that it makes you feel better.

At the most basic level we are all motivated to act in a particular way because our action will either:

- Result in a gain (reward) or
- Avoid a loss (punishment)

Giving good customer service, even in nonprofit situations, can satisfy both motivations for the giver. People who provide good customer service – regardless of the nature of their business – earn psychological benefits in addition to any rewards offered by their organizations.

If you are frustrated or unhappy in your job now, take an objective look at the kind of service you are giving. In almost every case, your job satisfaction mirrors the satisfaction people feel when doing business with you. Giving poor service is a way of beating up on your self!

So regardless of the profit aims of your organization, giving good service makes sense for you an individual. It also makes a lot of sense for you as a member of an organization. Organizational success often affects your additional success. So let’s talk about service and your organization.

GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS

When it comes to organizational success with customers, I have good news and bad news. First the bad news: The average American company will lose 10 to 30 percent of its customers this year – mostly because of poor service. When customers have a choice, they will go to the competition almost one-third of the time.

Customer satisfaction is like an election held everyday, and the people vote with their feet. If dissatisfied, they walk (sometimes run) to your competitor.

When your customers do not have the choice – such as in dealing with public utilities or government agencies – they will use their feet for something else: they will kick you. Customer dissatisfaction will erupt in the form of animosity directed toward you and your organization. Public relations efforts alone will provide little more than a bandage. The psychological toll on employees will result in higher turnover and additional costs as these burned out workers need to be retrained or replaced.

Now the good news. Organizations that initiate effective customer retention programs have seen profits jump 25 to 100 percent. Nonprofit groups see reduced turnover, better financial results and happier staffs.

Like it or not, customer service is the competitive battleground. In fact, it will always be the decisive battleground.

Most people accept, or at least give lip service to the idea that “the customer is the boss.” We talk about the customer “always being right.” We say that the customer is “our reason for existing” as an organization. But the real management challenge lies in translating these slogans into actions that convey these feelings and beliefs to the customer.

Even when leaders truly believe in the importance of customer service, they still face the difficulty of getting the customer contact people to do what customers want. The problem gets trickier when we see that the lowest paid and least well-trained employees are often those who face the customer everyday.

- A multi-million dollar fast food operation, for example, places its success squarely in the hands of the minimum-wage teenager taking orders and delivering the food.
- The image of a multi-billion dollar bank is created in the mind of the customer by the entry-level teller who handles his day-to-day transactions.
- A multi-million dollar call center continue to earn more millions through its call center agents who normally take calls from or to customers for at least eight hours per day.

Customer service is the master key to success for each of us individuals and for the organizations we work in.



THE CRUCIAL ROLE OF CUSTOMER EXPECTATION
As a customer entering into a transaction, you expect (albeit perhaps unconsciously) to be treated a particular way. What we expect is often based on our past associations with this person or organization or ones we see as similar. This similarity is highly subjective and may be unfounded if put to the test of rationality, but for us, it is real. If we have had good experiences with that person or organization before, we’d probably expect something satisfactory. If the last transaction was not so positive, we might assume the next one would not be better.

When we judge that quality of a tangible product, we use more objective standards. For example, when we buy a new automobile, how do we judge its quality? We probably look at things like:

- Its reliability (it starts and runs well).
- Low frequency of repair (it seldom has to be fixed).
- Appropriate size (it holds my family comfortably).
- A good price relative to its quality (it looks nice but doesn’t cost an arm and a leg).
- Workmanship (it seems to be well-built, it has a nice paint job).

Likewise when we judge the quality of a service (a house painter’s job, for example) we measure it against such standards as:

- The work was done on time (he met the deadline).
- The surfaces to be painted were carefully prepared.
- The paints were mixed and applied neatly.
- The painter cleaned up after the job.

These kinds of standards are pretty predictable. They are much the same for each customer.

But evaluating the degree of customer satisfaction goes beyond the core product or service bought. The standards by which customers measure satisfaction are more ambiguous.

To further complicate matters, expectations will be different among organizations or under differing circumstances. When purchasing a tangible product, people expect different treatment from a “high-touch”, full-service retailer than they do from a warehouse store. They expect different service from a prestigious law firm than a state auto license bureau.

For that matter, they probably expect something different from the same store at different times. Perhaps a little less personal attention is anticipated during busy periods.



THE CALL CENTER SUPERVISOR

Contact center supervisors within Communications and High-Tech companies make or break projects, initiatives and morale—they are the key to running a successful contact center. Yet they are also one of the most overlooked and underdeveloped resources in many contact centers. Developing and supporting supervisors is one of the most effective and fastest ways to improve Communications and High-Tech contact center performance.

Who has the toughest job in a contact center? Consider the front-line supervisor: cheerleader, product expert, problem solver, systems troubleshooter, coach and motivator, trainer, amateur psychologist, friend and disciplinarian. Leading teams of 12 or more agents, these supervisors perform a key managerial role, with responsibility for meeting quality, productivity, customer satisfaction and sales targets as well as coaching and training employees. Ideally, supervisors should focus most of their attention on their teams. However, in the real world, this often is not the case. Rather than spending time with their people, supervisors are often found updating spreadsheets, generating reports and creating paperwork for management— almost anything, in fact, other than spending time with their agents and their customers. Some contact center supervisors even view their managerial role as an opportunity to stop dealing with customers. How did this situation arise?

Often, supervisor performance falls short because the company simply promotes its best-performing agents, without screening for the qualities necessary to become an effective leader. Because companies often rely on informal, ad hoc training at this level, contact center supervisors typically get little opportunity to build these skills. Over time, their role tends to expand into a "catch-all" job, leaving them unclear about their true responsibilities and how they will be measured. Lacking a focused role and clear performance objectives, supervisors also lack a clear sense of what kind of behavior to encourage in their agents. Some even fail to realize that they will be judged by their team's efforts, actually rating their own performance higher than that of their team. Those who do try to influence performance frequently focus on a single metric, such as reducing call handling times, to the exclusion of all others.

Make supervisors a catalyst for workplace change

The best-performing contact centers use a formal coaching process by which supervisors can create rapid change in performance on the contact-center floor. Instead of just talking about performance goals, supervisors should be working closely with their staff to create the behaviors that support business performance.

Optimizing supervisor performance within Communications and High- Tech companies has a profound effect on many key performance measures: the time to proficiency for new hires, average call handling time, first call resolution, errors and rework, customer retention and cross-selling and up-selling. In fact, optimizing supervisor performance might be the most effective step you take to improve overall contact center performance, delivering immediate dividends in quality, productivity and customer satisfaction. It also is a popular move: agents like it, because they get more attention and feel they have a voice in the organization. Supervisors like it because their roles are better defined and more focused. Best of all customers of Communications and High-Tech companies like it—because they get better service. Finally, supervisors are often simply overworked, with responsibility for too many agents to make a significant impact on any of them.

Recommendations

1. Find out what supervisors really do all day. Straightforward diagnostic tools are available today that help determine where supervisors are spending their time and which of these tasks are adding value which only the supervisor can add.

2. Eliminate non-value-added tasks. Interviewing new recruits and scheduling overtime are important tasks, but they can also be performed by other functions. Likewise, specialists can handle escalated customer calls, faxing and filing, as well as report generation and other statistical tasks. In fact, leading practice recommends eliminating most if not all such functions that will keep contact center supervisors from managing their people and their key performance indicators.

3. Turn supervisors into people managers. An effective front-line supervisor is first and foremost a people manager who should be given the coaching and support needed to grow into this role. In turn, supervisors must take responsibility for recognizing and motivating their agents through positive reinforcement. Supervisors should spend at least 70 percent of their time with their agents: listening in on phone calls, setting individual targets, conducting one-to-one coaching sessions and holding regular team briefings to communicate critical information and solicit feedback.

4. Clarify and focus the supervisor's role. The job that supervisors perform and the metrics used to measure their performance both tend to expand and become diffused over time. A balanced performance scorecard is a more effective way to measure supervisor performance—it recognizes their key role in developing and managing agents, and keeps supervisor and agent performance aligned.
RESPONSIBILITIES A SUPERVISOR
• Responsible for providing leadership and direction on improving customer satisfaction, institution satisfaction, and associate satisfaction while maintaining and/or improving budgeted productivity and quality standards. The Supervisor will coach, develop and lead a team of associate ensuring all associates objectives are met and adherence to company/department policies and procedures.
• Recruit and hire a high performance call center team.
• Work proactively with associates to ensure performance standards and policies are consistently met throughout the organization.
• Coach direct staff, providing professional development opportunities through work assignments, special projects, further education and feedback.
• Maximize employee satisfaction through leveraged use of incentives, recognition, clearly defined roles and reasonable expectations
• Provide leadership examples within team, fostering strong morale, positive team interactions, fairness, and open communication. Embrace change, make sound decisions, value diversity, and effectively manage disagreements.
• Manage employee performance issues, including corrective action and performance reviews.
• Monitor trends and provide feedback to CSR’s for all key performance indicators (weekly, bi-weekly and one on one sessions)

WORKFORCE PLANNING
The Time for Workforce Planning is Now
I always define strategic staffing/workforce planning as the process by which organizations identify and address the staffing implications of their business strategies and plans. Usually, this includes defining staffing needed to implement those plans (both in terms of skills and staffing levels), forecasting the staff that will be available at those same points in the future, comparing “demand” to “supply” to calculate specific staffing gaps and surpluses, and developing the staffing strategies (spanning planning periods) and specific staffing plans (for each period) that “best” eliminate these gaps and surpluses. What is it about today’s business climate that causes me to think that this is such an important process? Workforce plans will allow you to:
• Get a jump on the competition. Most economic indicators now show that the recovery has begun and that more prosperous times are near. The companies that will be best positioned to take advantage of better times will be those that are prepared and can react rapidly. This is especially true of those that have anticipated their needs for staff and thus have the people they need to fully implement their business plans. Companies that wait for the tide to turn before they define staffing needs will be left in the wake of those that are ready to move ahead. Workforce planning can clearly help you to prepare as you need to. Remember – planning is the key here. You don’t need to “act” in advance, but you need to have the plans in place that allow you to act as quickly as conditions warrant.
• Fully understand how staffing requirements have changed. Although the full impact of the recovery on jobs is not yet understood, we already know that many of the positions that will emerge will be very different than those that have existed in the past. Many other positions seem to be gone for good. New positions are being created. The required skills and staffing levels of the positions that will be needed are changing significantly. Consequently, our means of addressing staffing needs must continue to change as well. Traditional staffing actions will no longer be appropriate. Here are just a few examples of the changes we already know will occur:
- Continued improvements in technology have driven significant increases in productivity and efficiency – which in turn have resulted in some permanent reductions in staffing levels. A recent study conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank cited “the emergence of a new kind of recovery, one driven by productivity increases rather than payroll gains”. For example, even as consumers bought cars and SUVs in record numbers during 2002 and 2003, the number of jobs in transportation equipment sector actually dropped by 133,000. That same study showed that in 2002 and 2003 the economy grew on average 1.3 to 5% per quarter, but number of jobs fell .4% per quarter during those same time periods.
- Budgets will remain tight. Even when more prosperous times come, increases in efficiency will allow companies to continue to “do more with less”. To maximize profitability, they will support growth that comes with existing resources, supplementing their workforces when necessary by using contingent staff and outsourcing more work. Organizations will take on added staffing expense (such as full time hires) only when absolutely necessary.
- The impact of global outsourcing on domestic workers still employed will be significant. The companies that prosper will be those that can quickly find alternative assignments for the people whose previous work was outsourced. The efforts to place these valuable employees will probably require training, creative job placement, and relocation. Clearly, workforce planning directly supports all of these actions.
Do you know what the impacts of these changes will be on your staffing requirements? Do you understand how your long term staffing strategies and plans must change to meet those needs? Where will productivity improvements allow you to maintain lowered staffing levels? Have you determined what should be outscored, and to whom? Have you identified the workers for whom new positions might be found? Do you understand the implications that such placement will have on training and relocation? The simulation capabilities of workforce planning can help you to define the probable impacts of all of these issues. Further, well-defined workforce plans can help you define what your organization should consider doing to address the staffing issues that are raised.
• Define all staffing requirements, not just recruiting. I always define staffing to include any movement into, around, or out of an organization – including retention. During (or in preparing for) the recovery, organizations may indeed have limited recruiting needs, but it is unlikely that all staffing actions – at least as I define them – will cease. Turnover and increased retirements will create openings, at least some of which will be filled internally with existing staff. When will these openings occur? Which candidates would fill these openings most appropriately? Would these placements require targeted development or relocations best planned in advance? Will there be “cascade” effects, where the moves implemented to fill openings in one place create additional openings that must themselves be addressed? All of these issues can be identified and facilitated through a well-defined workforce planning process – even none of the needs are met through recruiting.
• Identify the impacts of aging on your workforce. What will the impacts of attrition, layoffs, and retirements be on the capabilities of your organization? Are there areas where you are vulnerable? For many organizations, seniority was a factor to be considered when making recent staffing reductions. Consequently, the workers that are still employed include a large number of aging baby boomers who will become eligible for retirement in the next five to ten years. As these people leave, what plans do you have in place to ensure the orderly transfer of knowledge and experience to those workers that remain? Workforce planning can help you to identify where there might be problems and what should be done to address those vulnerabilities.
• Verify that your planned staffing approaches are realistic. It could be that you have already begun to think about how you will meet your staffing needs once the recovery hits. How sure are you that those approaches are sound, realistic plans that can actually be implemented? Take for example cases where you plan to outsource work. Have you thought through how much work will be outsourced? Have you defined the skills that will be required of the individuals now responsible for that work? Have you identified the probable sources of those people? Are sufficient numbers of qualified personnel available? All of these same questions apply to the use of contractors and contingent staff. Are you confident that there is an adequate pool of people with needed skills, in the locations that they are needed, when they will be needed, willing to work for you at the rates you are willing to pay? Workforce planning will help you to better define the extent to which you will rely on sources such as these and will help you to verify that these approaches are realistic, feasible, and cost effective – including defining alternate approaches if any of your preliminary plans prove unrealistic.
In all of these cases, little (if any) recruiting will be required, yet great uncertainty regarding staffing issues, strategies, and plans remain. A well-designed workforce plan will help you define your needs and develop the plans and strategies that “best” address those needs. And ensure that you will be in a position to meet the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. Unfortunately, however, traditional workforce planning practices may not be effective in these cases. What should you do instead?
The Changing Face of Workforce Planning
I certainly believe that workforce planning (as defined above) is needed – but not the traditional, “one size fits all approach” that is so often attempted. The nature, scope, and timing of the staffing issues you face will vary tremendously. There is simply no one standard process or set of planning parameters that you can employ in all of these different situations. To be effective in these times of great change, workforce planning must be implemented in a non-traditional, more flexible context. Here are some suggestions on what you might do:
• Focus on issues, not organizations. Instead of developing workforce plans for entire units (or the organization as a whole), create a series of staffing strategies and plans that each address particular issues. Build staffing strategies that focus on groups of positions or job families that are critical to business success or for which external competition for talent is great. Pay specific attention to jobs that will be hard to fill (or include capabilities the organization has not needed previously). Look at areas of the organization where significant changes in required skills or staffing levels are anticipated. In any case, don’t try to plan for “all” jobs.
• Tailor the process for each issue. Rather than creating a “one size fits all” process that applies everywhere, vary planning parameters (e.g., the positions to be included in the analysis, the planning horizon, and the structure of the model itself) so that they are appropriate for each issue. Allow units to use definitions of “long term” that are appropriate for the issues being addressed, even if those definitions vary from unit to unit. Let units define job requirements at a level of detail that makes sense for them, even if that level of detail differs for job groups. Include only those jobs where staffing actions must be proactive (e.g., staffing and training a customer service unit so that it is fully functional before a new product is launched) or where the organization needs time to respond (e.g., cases where staffing needs will be met through longer term development of existing staff, not through short-term hiring or the use of contractors).
• Build contingency plans and develop “what if” analyses. Many organizations think that workforce planning is only valuable in defining what will actually be done. While this is a good application of workforce planning, it is by no means the only one. Use the simulation capability of workforce planning to define what you might do to meet anticipated needs and then verify that those plans are realistic. If you think that your needs will best be met by using contingent staff, develop “what if” workforce plans that define the number and type of workers that will be required and verify that a sufficient number of staff with those skills are actually available in your market. If you are going to use contractors, define what your needs will be (in terms of skills, staffing levels, and timing) and locate vendors that can supply the talent you need. In none of these cases are you actually taking staffing actions (e.g., you are not hiring anyone), but by planning in advance you will be sure that your staffing plans are feasible and can be implemented quickly when the needs do arise.
• Define all staffing and development needs, not just recruiting. Use the modeling process to define internal movement and cascade effects. Scope out the development that will be needed to support these job moves. Identify needed relocations. Define the impact of aging on your workforce and create plans that ensure the orderly transfer of knowledge and experience to workers that remain. Get a true picture of all the staffing and development that will be needed.
Clearly, workforce planning can help position your organization so that it will prosper quickly as the economic climate improves. Workforce planning will allow you to better understand the conditions you will be facing and can help you define the staffing strategies and actions that will allow you to be successful. However, those workforce planning actions must flexible and focus primarily on the your most critical staffing issues. Further, the simulation capabilities of the process will allow you to develop in advance realistic staffing plans that can be implemented quickly when the time is right.








STAFFING BEST PRACTICES
CREATING A STAFFING SYSTEM
Consider these findings:

Global competition for customers and employees will be the biggest issue facing organizations in the coming year.

The importance of people as a source of competitive advantage is intensifying—with decreasing numbers of skilled workers.

Employees continue to feel less firm loyalty.

Firms need to be more flexible in responding to the fast pace of change, and HR functions need to become better at delivering results.*

Your organization’s ability to hire, develop, and retain employees may be the single most critical determinant of your success in the next two decades. The current labor crunch is not projected to end any time soon.

To assure your long-term success, your organization must devise a way to fulfill its personnel needs. The solution: a well thought out staffing system.

A STAFFING SYSTEM

To improve the quality of employees at all levels of an organization, staffing must be a strategic priority. “The [executive team] of an entrepreneurial firm has two basic jobs: to set the vision and strategy and to hire the people to achieve them. Therefore, [senior management] needs to drive the implementation of a staffing system and hold people accountable for results. A staffing system, or a staffing plan, is a template, a model and a process for those who recruit, screen, interview, and hire new employees. When properly designed and implemented, it leads people through the hiring process from start to finish, telling them what steps to take, what order to take them in, and what needs to be accomplished with each step. A staffing system standardizes personnel practices, assures that everyone in the company is consistent in hiring policies, and thereby becomes a formula for removing some of the risk and uncertainty from the process. Without a staffing system, you might as well roll the dice and take your chances.

An effective staffing system consists of five essential steps:

1. Painting a picture of the ideal candidate
2. Developing a cadre of qualified candidates
3. Screening the candidates
4. Interviewing and checking references
5. Making the hiring decision

In today’s world, companies have to hire fast because the market will not allow you to take a month to hire a top prospect. At the same time, you must hire effectively by maximizing your resources and avoiding snap decisions that will cost more time and money, should the new employee fail to work out. Without a staffing system, you dramatically reduce your chances of achieving these goals.

KEYS TO A SUCCESSFUL STAFFING SYSTEM

The staffing model you design should reflect the nuances of your industry and your organization. Here are a few guidelines and basic criteria from the practice experts that may help you work through the process.

Build your staffing system upon objective, performance-based criteria.

Create job profiles around measurable criteria related to ideal performance behaviors.

Benchmark job performance using your company’s standards as well as standards of the top performers in the market place.

Eliminate bias from decision making.

Use a structured interview process.

Plan the content and method of candidate evaluation to ensure equal treatment.

Focus on a candidate’s past job performance, not personality.

Elicit information that compares candidates against performance-based criteria.

Seek examples of specific behaviors that are deemed critical for success. This structured interview process not only helps you determine the right fit for the position, more importantly, it takes much of the risk and uncertainty out of the process by providing a standard approach that ensures that everyone in the company hires in a consistent standard.
Develop a staffing plan.

Plan staffing requirements based on your strategic or business plan.

Hire proactively based on planned needs and expected attrition.

Maximize your organization’s existing resources.

Determine the gaps in current resources and develop strategies to fill them. When companies hire in a reactive mode, managers feel pressured to fill the open slots. They lower standards and hire in haste in order to get the warm bodies to keep up with the growth. A staffing plan provides order and discipline to a process that too often feels rushed and chaotic. While preparing your plan you ask yourself these key questions:

How many new employees will be needed during the coming year?

Why will those employees be needed?

When will they be needed?

How long will they be needed?

How much will it cost the company to hire new employees?

What value will they bring to customers and the organization?

And finally, be sure that your hiring managers embrace, adopt and are trained in how to effectively use your staffing system.


BENEFITS OF A STAFFING SYSTEM
The success of any organization depends upon choosing the right people for your team, adding that the steps that one takes in putting together a cohesive corps of personnel begins with a well-devised staffing plan. The benefits achieved from this design far outweigh the time spent devising it.

A well designed staffing system:

Significantly increases your odds of hiring the right people.

Creates consistency in hiring decisions throughout the organization.

Supports management development.

Helps to improve benchmarking throughout the organization.

Reduces costs of the hiring process.

Limits liability.

You can’t make immediate wholesale changes in the quality of your people. But by implementing a staffing system, you establish behavioral benchmarks and standards for each position in your company. As people leave, you start hiring to those standards and gradually improve the level of talent. Over time you will see a dramatic improvement.”

The Secret to Hiring Top Agents
In your call center you have three different types of telephone agents: top performers, adequate agents, and marginal agents.
• Top Performing Agents: “Grade A” agents with the “right stuff” that pushes them to succeed and the seemingly natural compatibility with the duties of the position. You probably have a few in your call center now and wish that you could duplicate them.
• Adequate Agents: “Grade B” agents who perform their duties adequately enough “to get by” – but no better.
• Marginal Agents: “Grade C” agents who have a high level of absenteeism, low productivity, poor performance, weak customer satisfaction ratings. It is likely that some may even have a negative impact on agent team morale.
We ask for a lot from today’s call center agent: to handle more clients and calls, to do order-taking, to offer cross-sells and up-sells, to be proficient with computer and support systems, to act in a non-confrontational manner, to be good-humored, and to work well in a team environment. As a call center hiring manager, your challenge is twofold: to find quality applicants and weed out unsuitable candidates.
While almost everyone can use a telephone, not everyone is cut out to work successfully as a call center agent. Hiring the wrong agent is the root cause of turnover and is a significant drain on finances, customer satisfaction, and agent team morale. Every failed hire causes you to throw precious budget dollars down the drain retraining recruits for the same position, not to mention the lost sales and service opportunities, lowered productivity, and higher absences associated with a poor job fit. Here are seven best practice steps you can take to address these two issues in order to recruit more top performing call center agents.
1) Create an Agent Success Profile: What are the core competencies, personality traits, skill sets and demographics of your top performing agents? You should be profiling your top performing agents for various essential characteristics required for the positions. Ask yourself:
• Are there specific “must have” skills or knowledge that your top performing agents need?
• How do your top performing agents profile in terms of typing speed/accuracy, computer literacy, specific industry knowledge/experience, etc.?
• What are the key personality traits of your top performing agents?
• Are you looking for an inbound agent? If so, you may seek a persuasive communicator who is motivated by security, work environment, coworkers / team, service, and recognition.
• Are you looking for an inside sales agent? These agents are often persuasive and persistent communicators who are service oriented, yet motivated by sales opportunity.
• Or are you looking for an outbound sales agent? You may be seeking an assertive and persistent closer who is motivated by income and conquering challenges and who initiates customer interactions.

2) Create a Recruiting Strategy: Create a recruiting communications plan that identifies and targets the job seekers that meet your agent success profile criteria. Your recruiting plan should include:
• Personal referrals.
• Print advertisements.
• Colleges, universities, and technical training programs.
• Special interest organizations.
• Online job postings.
• Job fairs.
3) Deploying an In-Depth Telephone Screening Process: All of your recruiting advertising should have a call-to-action using a 24/7 automated employment information line/phone screen, which is then followed by a structured telephone interview. The information line/phone screen can be as simple as an extension on your voice mail system:
“Hello, and thanks for calling. You’ve reached the 24 hour employment information line for ABC
You’ll earn a base wage of P15,000, plus bonuses, get training, and all the support you’ll need to succeed. We’re conveniently located downtown, with easy public transit access, and there’s plenty of parking nearby.
To succeed, you’ll need to be confident, professional, and have an excellent telephone communication style.
To take the next step in our telephone audition hiring process, please tell us your name, and please spell your last name. Please include your telephone number, and the best time to call you back.
And finally, please read back to us the ad you are responding to, and remember, this is a telephone audition, so give it your best shot!
Here comes the beep, so give us your name, your telephone number, and read back the ad.
Good luck in your job hunt. Thanks for calling.”
A 24/7 automated employment information line/phone screen can also use an interactive voice response (IVR) system. Either way, you will save time and money by:
• Reaching more applicants faster.
• Recruiting top candidates before your competition.
• Building a bigger applicant pool.
• Ensuring that applicants have a clear understanding of important job requirements.
• Assessing applicant’s ability to follow basic instructions.
• Conducting “voice auditions” to assess an applicant’s “telephone personality”.
• Reducing time spent with unqualified candidates.
• Maximizing applicant buy-in and participation in your hiring process.
The job candidates who pass the phone screen should then be promptly followed up with using a structured telephone interview. A structured telephone interview is used:
• To further sell the job opportunity.
• As a second screen of candidates for “must have” skills and attributes.
• To further evaluate a candidate’s telephone persona.
• To schedule a candidate visit at your call center for going forward with hiring process.
When delivered consistently, a structured telephone interview is part of a legally defensible hiring process – all candidates are asked for the same information in a consistent fashion.
4) Deploying Pre-Employment Assessment Testing: This is used to confirm a candidate’s personality traits and skill sets. Many successful organizations find that candidates for agent positions must have a unique constellation of traits in order to successfully complete the job requirements. These organizations hold that an agent’s success depends much more upon personality factors than product knowledge, past experience, or skill set.
Merely knowing how to react in a customer service situation is far different from actually engaging in the necessary appropriate behavior. There are special CD-ROM based pre-employment testing software and skills tests that are designed for the call center industry
5) Using a Structured Face-to-Face Interview: Look at core competencies, valid pre-employment assessments, prior training, and skill sets. This style of interview has great value in call centers because it allows you to identify candidates’ past behaviors and use them as good indicators of future performance and behavior.
Before you conduct a structured face-to-face interview, you need to go back to your original success profile and core requirements document. Identify the most appropriate core competencies for the position and build your questions around these competencies. They should be very specific queries designed to determine how candidates behaved and thought during certain situations. An example of a structured interview question is:
“Tell me about a time when you went far beyond what could normally be expected in order to satisfy a customer?”
The target behavior you are looking to uncover is customer focus. Can this candidate demonstrate that they can go “above and beyond the call of duty” to ensure that caller requests are handled effectively and with a customer service orientation?
6) Having Your Candidates Experience a Job Preview: This depicts day-to-day activities, responsibilities, and the environment of the call center. The goal of a call center job preview is a final attempt to sell the candidate “in or out” of the job. You need to paint a realistic picture of the company, call center environment, hours, flexibility, management style, and performance expectations. This can be done as easily as having candidates sit in the call center for a period of time to form their own opinion before accepting or declining the job offer (check your local labor laws to see if candidate time spent in a call center preview by “sitting in the call center” qualifies as “paid time”).
There are also software-based call center simulators that are available to give a candidate the ability to accurately experience call center work, such as referencing and cross-referencing data and dealing with a variety of callers and customer service scenarios. When used as part of a pre-employment process, software-based call center simulators are generally not subject to local labor law interpretation as “paid time,” but consult your attorney regarding local laws.
During the call center job preview time, the candidate should also be encouraged to communicate with supervisors/team leaders and potential coworkers. Done correctly, this step will help you attract people who genuinely want to work in your call center.
7) Reference Verification: Once you have decided you wish to hire a candidate, be sure to check their references and verify key information. You will also need to check security clearances and perform drug testing if there are required in your call center.
These best practices hiring steps are easy to deploy, cost-effective, and predictive of an individual’s suitability for your agent positions. They will allow you to recruit, select, and hire agents who fit your employment needs better and stay on the job longer – leading to an agent workgroup that has more experience and is more productive.
Employee Orientation & Training
It is very important to have an orientation and training program for your workers. Accidents occur in all areas of your operation. The best way to prevent injuries is to educate your workers about safety procedures and the safe operation of equipment in production areas.
New employees should always be given a training or orientation session before they actually begin their work. A thorough training session should also be held for all employees at the beginning of each season. During the orientation session, you should review and explain your safety policies and work rules with the workers. Videos dealing with safety should also be shown. Handouts reinforcing the information covered during the orientation will help to further increase the safety consciousness of your employees. (Following this chapter are outlines for safety lessons and handouts you may copy for your training lessons. A catalog of training materials is included at the back of this manual.)
After the orientation, you should walk through the operation with employees and explain the production areas. This may seem monotonous but it will help to prevent accidents. The walk through should include a review of the responsibilities of each individual job. Be sure to cover the responsibility of each worker in the event of a fire or other emergency. Develop emergency action and escape plans and explain them to your employees. Emergency drills can be valuable aids in familiarizing your employees with the actions they must take, the routes they must follow, and the location of any special safety equipment. Workers familiar with a plan of action and evacuation are less likely to panic and more likely to be of assistance to themselves and their coworkers in an emergency.
Next go over the do's and don'ts of your operation. (You probably will cover this in the review of your safety policy and work rules, but it will not hurt to reinforce these rules one more time.) This lets the workers know what is acceptable and what is not in the workplace.
Finally, explain the location of dust masks, chemical application protection, and other protective devices. Though workers are not always required by law to wear these devices, they protect workers form the hazards of work and their regular use will reduce your future liabilities. It is important that you provide these devices and encourage your employees to wear them.
An orientation session should be held prior to the time an employee undertakes any work in your operation. A general training session for all employees should be held at the beginning of the season. Regular safety meetings (5 to 10 minutes in length) should be held throughout the season. At these meetings, managers and employees should be encouraged to report any potential safety hazards and any accidents or near accidents from the previous week should be discussed. This will keep safety awareness at a high level and help to prevent recurring accidents.
You may want to develop an incentive program for your employees to keep them interested in safety and accident prevention. This program may include a reward system such as a bonus to further motivate your employees. The remainder of this chapter provides examples of emergency action plans and weekly safety meeting materials.
Training - First Day on the Job Management Responsibilities
A new employee's first few days on the job will create lasting impressions and will form a foundation for his or her work habits for years to come. Will your new employee perform his or her job safely, efficiently, and correctly? Part of the answer depends on you, on the way you train your employees from the beginning.
A good trainer knows the subject thoroughly, has a desire to teach others, is friendly and cooperative, has leadership skills, and has a professional attitude toward work and other employees. However, the ability to empathize is an especially important quality for a trainer. When you begin the training process, make sure you put the employee at ease. To do that, show your confidence in his or her ability to master the job. Build that confidence by asking about previous work experience. If he or she has worked in a similar job, explain how he or she may be able to apply that experience to the new job.
Develop the new employee's interest in the job by explaining how his or her particular job relates to the work of other people.
Early in anyone's training, it's a good idea to give the new employee a tour of the plant, office, or facility and introduce him or her to various coworkers. During the tour, point out first aid stations, fire extinguishers, emergency phone numbers, etc.
Easing an employee into a new job also involves emphasizing the need for quality, production, and safety. This means demonstrating all personal protective equipment, pointing out required machine guards, and explaining personal safety regulations such as the removal of jewelry, or wearing specific types of clothing. These points should be stressed as part of the new employee's preparation for the job.
Encourage the new employee to ask questions at any time. Let him or her know that all questions are useful, and that you will be glad to answer them. If a new employee feels that questions are appreciated, he or she will feel much more comfortable.
Explain the safest, most efficient way to complete each task
As you go through these steps, identify the key points of the job. These points may cover special job procedures, important safety considerations, major hazards, or the need for personal protective equipment. Explain accident or injury reporting procedures.
Scheduling is another part of preparation. The length of time you will need will depend on the complexity of the job and the employee's previous knowledge and experience.
Define the job. Explain all procedures and responsibilities carefully and completely. Incidentally, proper housekeeping is an important part of an employee's job. The new employee's first impression of the workplace should show by example how it is to be maintained.
Demonstrate the task the new employee is to perform
Position yourself correctly alongside the employee so he or she will see the job exactly as it should be performed. As you demonstrate the job, explain what you're doing and why. People retain information better when they understand the reasons for performing a job a certain way. After you've explained and demonstrated the job, review it. Then ask questions requiring more than a "yes or no" response, that will tell you if the employee understands the operation thoroughly. Be sure to tell the new employee about all potential hazards associated with the job, as well as ways to avoid those hazards.
When you are sure the employee understands the job, it is time for a trial run under your watchful supervision
As the new employee performs the job, ask him or her to explain each step. Be sure he or she grasps all the key points you have presented, and can explain them in sequence. If a mistake is made, never embarrass the employee. Review the operation and have him or her repeat it until it is thoroughly understood. Don't be afraid to let your own personality come through to your employee. It will help put the employee at ease, and help him or her to get to know you better. Well-trained employees reflect well on you. Production may increase, and the amount of waste and the number of tasks that have to be redone may be reduced. There will be fewer injuries when employees know how to perform.
KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

Key Performance Indicators, also known as KPI or Key Success Indicators (KSI), help an organization define and measure progress toward organizational goals.
Once an organization has analyzed its mission, identified all its stakeholders, and defined its goals, it needs a way to measure progress toward those goals. Key Performance Indicators are those measurements.
What Are Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
Key Performance Indicators are quantifiable measurements, agreed to beforehand, that reflect the critical success factors of an organization. They will differ depending on the organization. A business may have as one of its Key Performance Indicators the percentage of its income that comes from return customers. A school may focus its Key Performance Indicators on graduation rates of its students.

A Customer Service Department may have as one of its Key Performance Indicators, in line with overall company KPIs, percentage of customer calls answered in the first minute. A Key Performance Indicator for a social service organization might be number of clients assisted during the year.
Whatever Key Performance Indicators are selected, they must reflect the organization's goals, they must be key to its success, and they must be quantifiable (measurable). Key Performance Indicators usually are long-term considerations. The definition of what they are and how they are measured do not change often. The goals for a particular Key Performance Indicator may change as the organization's goals change, or as it gets closer to achieving a goal.
Key Performance Indicators Reflect The Organizational Goals
An organization that has as one of its goals "to be the most profitable company in our industry" will have Key Performance Indicators that measure profit and related fiscal measures. "Pre-tax Profit" and "Shareholder Equity" will be among them. However, "Percent of Profit Contributed to Community Causes" probably will not be one of its Key Performance Indicators. On the other hand, a school is not concerned with making a profit, so its Key Performance Indicators will be different. KPIs like "Graduation Rate" and "Success In Finding Employment After Graduation", though different, accurately reflect the schools mission and goals.
Key Performance Indicators Must Be Quantifiable
If a Key Performance Indicator is going to be of any value, there must be a way to accurately define and measure it. "Generate More Repeat Customers" is useless as a KPI without some way to distinguish between new and repeat customers. "Be The Most Popular Company" won't work as a KPI because there is no way to measure the company's popularity or compare it to others.
It is also important to define the Key Performance Indicators and stay with the same definition from year to year. For a KPI of "Increase Sales", you need to address considerations like whether to measure by units sold or by dollar value of sales. Will returns be deducted from sales in the month of the sale or the month of the return? Will sales be recorded for the KPI at list price or at the actual sales price?
You also need to set targets for each Key Performance Indicator. A company goal to be the employer of choice might include a KPI of "Turnover Rate". After the Key Performance Indicator has been defined as "the number of voluntary resignations and terminations for performance, divided by the total number of employees at the beginning of the period" and a way to measure it has been set up by collecting the information in an HRIS, the target has to be established. "Reduce turnover by five percent per year" is a clear target that everyone will understand and be able to take specific action to accomplish.
Quality Monitoring

The Quality Monitoring Lifecycle shown in the figure below is a critical model for designing or improving your quality monitoring program. Supervisors play a critical role in the monitoring calls, agent feedback, and the training and coaching steps of the Quality Monitoring Lifecycle.




Function 1: Monitoring Calls
Supervisors are responsible for overseeing their agents’ performance as well as the smooth operation of the call center overall.
The pros and cons of having supervisors monitor calls include:

Pros Cons
 Have a complete view of overall call center performance, areas for improvement, customer service issues, and performance objectives.
 Deliver more objective evaluations while being mindful of improvement goals.
 Have a personal stake in call center performance.
 Ensure training programs and help for struggling agents is available as weaknesses are identified.
 Have direct accountability for agent performance and for formal performance reviews.
 Feedback has much greater impact coming from supervisors due to the manner of this relationship.  May not reach the agent personally.
 May be viewed as correction or punitive and therefore negative bias will exist.
 Agents may not be as likely to openly ask questions or seek help and advice.
 May take time away from other supervisory responsibilities.

Key Points:
In order to ensure the effectiveness of a supervisor monitor, be certain that:
 Documentation is part of every monitoring session.
 Supervisor does not delegate or neglect duties that are important to the success of their role as monitor.
 Supervisor is not too far removed to make credible observations about individuals and the group as a whole.
 Supervisor is accountable for performance improvement.
Function 2: Agent Feedback
Supervisor duties typically include feedback and evaluation exercises.
Agent feedback needs to be presented in two forms: Written and Verbal.

Written feedback provides a record of the agent’s progress and it is an imperative element of the entire process. It is a key element in the documentation process of quality monitoring.
You should have two copies of the evaluation:
 Agents are to be handed one copy of their performance evaluation.
The other copy goes in the employee’s file or is stored in an electronic data format that can be easily retrieved.

Verbal feedback between an agent and a supervisor provides an invaluable resource for agents to improve their performance.
Reasons for verbal feedback:
 Verbal interpretation of scores and goals.
 Agents gain insight into what they are doing and why.
 Agents can ask questions.
 They can interject their opinions.
Feedback should be given as soon as possible:
 Within 24 to 48 hours of monitoring
 Better allows agents to understand where they have succeeded and where they need improvement
Function 3: Training and Coaching

When to Perform
When training or coaching is delivered depends on the skill gap or area for improvement that is identified during quality monitoring. Most improvement opportunities can be placed in one of two timeframes.

Urgent
(immediate correction) Developmental
(scheduled over time)
Critical gaps in performance that have a direct impact on customers or on business performance must be corrected immediately.
Same day coaching or training should be implemented in these cases. Below average performance with skill areas such as product knowledge or system navigation would be better addressed with scheduled development plans.
These training and coaching sessions may take weeks or months to complete depending on the availability of the needed training and the scheduling availability for that agent.


Do’s and Don’ts of Coaching
Your goal in coaching agents in this lifecycle approach is to create a development plan that both you and the agent can agree to for a specified time period. This development plan will include training and other opportunities for mentoring to address gaps in the call monitoring results. During the coaching session, you must focus on the positive outcomes you want to achieve.

Must-do Must-not-do
 Communicate call center goals, expectations and measures regularly. Keep agents informed of their performance, clearly linking their work performance to overall call center operations.
 Provide prompt feedback and comprehensive agent evaluations on a regular basis. Always use credible and consistent measures when evaluating agents.
 Involve agents when creating a development plan and performance agreement that are beneficial for both them and the call center.
 Recognize and reward agents when they meet goals. Use positive reinforcement to encourage high-level performance and improvement.  Do not degrade agents.
 Do not be negative, rude or disrespectful.
 Do not "talk down" to agents.
 Do not publicly reprimand or criticize agents.
 Do not display favoritism or bias.
 Do not display unprofessional behavior.
 Do not be inconsistent or erratic.
 Do not ignore problems.
 Do not focus entirely on numbers.
 Do not assume all agents learn at the same pace.
 Do not overlook agent contributions or improvements.


The Reality Of Performance Optimization
What does ‘good’ look like?

For years, business has taken for granted the customer’s relationship in the buying and selling of products and services. Many take a snapshot look at marketing, operations, or automation, but few through the eyes of Total Customer Service Excellence. The reality of today’s competitive market demands that YOUR business not only look inward at the process, but also continuously seek external feedback to optimize performance using the real opinion of the consumer. What better place to begin than at the point of contact with your customer service call center; a team of front line representatives who each interact with over 60 customers each day or thousands on a monthly basis? Let us talk about these daily interactions as a reality-check in peak performance measurement and optimization.
Metrics, or key performance indicators, when viewed independently may be easily attainable. Each performance measurement must be tangible, visible and, above all, actionable when taking a reality check. Next, to provide informative decision making properties, there must be a structured and disciplined approach to compare information for executive reporting. In benchmarking specific data points, you can analyze performance gaps or gains to a peer group, an industry, your competitors, or yourself.
Effective service is best recognized in qualitative terms, in having the optimal experience between the agent, the business, and the caller—what I call the A, B, C’s. Total quality service is typically monitored in over 92 percent of today’s call centers as an internal gauge on the level of trained expertise provided by an agent for professional, accurate and immediate response to the caller. On the other hand, the caller is simply looking to receive information on a first call resolution basis. Between this stands the corporate business rules designed to enhance the growth of the company. All this is in a perfect world when needs and goals are interlinked. Let’s look at these varied points of view.
The agent is the key to ensure effective interaction. Therefore, it is critical to have selective criteria to select, hire, train and monitor their effect on the real state of quality. Positive ratings demonstrate optimal or excellent service standards, while poor quality performance indicates needs for immediate training or knowledge management systems. In actual quality monitoring forms, we see various measures on professional attitude, accurate knowledge and sales/service skills. Any of these support core competencies of the agent’s roles and responsibilities.
Yet, to optimize quality as a cornerstone to support your business may not be an easy achievement. Therefore, we hear the ever too familiar “This call may be monitored for business or training purposes”. If the agent has knowledge, the caller gets resolution, then the business will grow and prosper. If not, coaching and real-time, expert help is given and tracked by the immediate supervisor. In best practice organizations throughout the world, we have found that the ideal has been for the direct supervisor to provide the business coaching based on fairly calibrated quality monitoring.
Corrective and positive action is taken by inviting assessment on satisfaction from the actual voice of the caller at the point of contact. Feedback that is immediate, relational, and actionable adds value to the real-time check on attitude, skills, and knowledge for call resolution. In reality, less than 38 percent actually use the voice of the customer to improve quality service, let alone the 8 percent of businesses who currently take critical action on the metrics and feedback provided by the call center interactions. Consumers WILL articulate the reality on satisfaction levels and how well your business is doing, and there IS room for improvement in every industry.

ROI = Reality to Optimize your Improvements and determine if and where you need to make a change.
Recap on Effectiveness Metrics:
• Agent as provider is professional, trained, with knowledge access
• Business rules are supported and mapped to the supervisory role
• Customer as receiver desires a first call resolution from a trusted source
Critical Efficiency Indicators:
• Average Handle time vs. profitable call completion
• Average speed of answer vs. level of tolerance to wait
• Adherence to schedule: projecting workflow for optimal workforce planning
Efficiencies may be the easier to gain; after all it is the quantification of time and money. Productivity or efficient operations take an inside look at how you structure your business. Many of the measures utilized quite heavily in the 1990s focused on being time-efficient in completing a transaction. In the call center world, this continues to include all the elements of the average call handle time. Talk time, hold time, transfer, after call wrap-up time are all components of the completed transaction. We may know the average of any of these metrics to benchmark against peer-group for gap analysis. But the real magic of the analysis, would be to do a deep dive on the ‘cause and cost’ of poor performance. How do we identify the caller need to business results? Why did the call need escalation? Did we note the account for type tracking? What affect does putting an angry caller on hold have on the interaction?

When looking at internal efficiencies that affect the call, there are multiple, easy to gain performance measures you can use to correct or improve the processes to support the business. Look at speed of answer: if you answer the call in less than 30 seconds, check to make certain that the caller’s willing to wait time is 40 seconds or more. If your center is inbound, speed to answer can make the difference of a sale or means to a completed call. Service levels again contain many factors that bear upon the cause or cost of operations, most critically the staffing component. If your call type demands immediate contact, you would be willing to staff upward to increase availability causing a shorter wait time, but in a service call, the level may expand, as the caller is willing to wait for expert advice.
A third performance indicator is the adherence to schedule. This is the one metric that is owned by the agent, driven by scheduling management, and enforced by the business manager or Supervision. Adherence means availability. Available agents increase the contact level, and increased calls translate to greater call closure. Therefore the moral of this metric is to be on time, to schedule, and be aware of handle time to ensure readiness for the next call.
The Reality For The Credit Manager
Just as in our balanced scorecard on performance, you must take a realistic look to optimize and gain best practice in your line of work. Whether it is sales or service, credit or cash, there are internal measures for keeping your business in the green and profitable that lend to time and money. You can set up operational and organizational procedures to ensure that a consistent and efficient transaction will be made. The other side of that coin is to be known as world-class quality organization in the eyes of your customers. The knowledge that you provide total quality service shows with a three-way win:
1. Agent retention and elevation of service delivery
2. Business optimization for growth and profitability
3. Customers needs resolved at the first contact increases loyalty
There are actually 104 additional measures and 16 supporting processes in moving from a Reality Check to a Peer Group Performance Benchmark. Measures help to prioritize and provide an understanding of the operational cost vs. optimal service excellence. A deep dive analysis provides meaning beyond the measures for those serious in the journey to optimization.
We end with a quote from our book, How to Conduct a Performance Measurement Audit of your Call Center: A to Z, “Conducting a call center performance audit is both an art and a science. It requires the real science of measurement and the art of communicating actionable areas of change.”

Five Steps to a Better Call Center
For call centers to operate successfully, they must cultivate personnel equipped for today's demanding environment. This requires appropriate investments in agent recruiting, training, motivation, culture, continuing education, information and tools. For many call centers, getting approval for, and sustaining, these initiatives demands a rethinking of call center planning and leadership.
To be sure, call centers are making progress, as measured in the billions of dollars invested in call center technologies and agent training; and in the increased respect from top-level executives.
Yet, many organizations are unable to keep up with customer demands because technologies and customer expectations are evolving unabated. For example, industry pundits predicted that self-service capabilities (e.g., Web and IVR services) would reduce reliance on agent-assisted services. The Internet, telecommunications and computer technologies have enabled organizations to automate transactions once requiring human contact. But they also create new services. And, by rendering customer interactions more complex, the new technologies require increasingly sophisticated agent assistance.
In addition, technology-savvy customers are increasingly unforgiving of organizations that do not provide the choices and services they demand. According to the surveys, far too many organizations don't. But the studies also reveal an industry in transition.
A recent ICMI study of the multi-channel environment reports, for example, that most organizations (86%) offer on-line self-service or plan to do so soon. Sixty five percent have, or plan to implement, an e-mail response management system. And 53% indicated that lack of vision/leadership from top-level management was not a barrier to call center development.
However, close to half of the respondents report they are not meeting service-level objectives. Only about half are measuring customer satisfaction across every contact channel. More problematic, 93% of the respondents cited budget constraints as "somewhat of a challenge" or a "big challenge." But their top concern is finding, developing and keeping qualified staff.
Evolving Skills and Knowledge Requirements
Indeed, skills and knowledge requirements at all levels of the call center are escalating:
• Agents must serve well-informed and diverse customers; adjust to changes in products, services and technologies; operate in a time-sensitive, multimedia environment; communicate with customers quickly and accurately; and understand Web- and IVR-based applications.
• The responsibilities of supervisors are also increasing as they assume roles involving data analysis, process improvements and inter-departmental coordination.
• Call center managers and directors, too, now answer to higher management. And they increasingly shape corporate strategy.
• The demands on analysts, workforce managers, trainers and others are also increasing.
The Need for a New Approach
But as personnel requirements snowball, many call centers are having trouble getting the funding and support to attract, train and retain talent. This is likely due to the usual weak reasons managers give for increasing the operating budget:
1. The telephone-centric call center is becoming a "multichannel contact center;"
2. Workload is growing and transactions requiring agent assistance are becoming more complex; and
3. Customers demand access to call center services.
None of these points are inaccurate. But consider: e-mail, on-line services, wireless services and handheld computers have become pervasive at work.
Call centers have to handle workload as it arrives, lest queues spiral out of control. Nonetheless, too many call center managers are told: Deal with it.
The third argument - that customers demand that organizations provide accessible call center services - will generate interest in organizations that care about good service.
Which begs the question: Should the call center get funding and support to upgrade positions, handle workloads, and invest in improvements?
Yes. The multi-channel call center is transforming services provisioning, the building of customer relationships and the acquisition of customer intelligence.
But for call center managers to get and keep qualified people, they must plan and demonstrate leadership, to wit:
1. Base investments on the call center's contribution to value;
2. Educate management on workload dynamics;
3. Identify competencies for each position;
4. Determine how many people are required; and
5. Build career and skill paths.
1. Base investments on the call center's contribution to value.
Return on investment falls into the following areas:
o Improved customer satisfaction and loyalty. Customers demand user-friendly, self-service systems. They need to reach well-informed and capable service and support representatives. They want choices.
o Improved quality and innovation. By capturing and assessing customer experiences and input, the call center can pinpoint problems. That enables design and manufacturing operations to make improvements.
o Focused marketing, products and services. By capturing and analyzing customers' buying trends, feedback and demographics, the call center can help marketing efforts better understand prospects' needs.
o Efficient delivery of services. By pooling resources, call centers let customers efficiently reach information and services.
o Increasing self-service use. By helping customers understand and use IVR and Web-based self-service, call centers support customers and capture information to create more intuitive services.
o Additional revenue and sales. By enabling customers to reach agents, the call center can provide upsell and cross-sell opportunities.
o
2. Educate management on workload dynamics.
Call center mangers are increasingly working with colleagues to develop strategy and integrated processes. But for call center managers to elicit executive support, executives must know how call centers operate.
Understanding the balance between staffing and workload is important. Being understaffed creates low service levels, high agent occupancy (the percent of time agents handle versus wait for calls), and long customer queues (see Figure 1). Consequently, the call center must coordinate with other units to properly handle marketing campaigns, changes in products or services, and adjustments to terms and policies. Understanding the time-sensitivity of call centers will facilitate budgeting and cross-organizational collaboration.
3. Identify required competencies for each position.
Managers should assess the job requirements for each call center position, including both general and specific skills and organizational knowledge. If job applicants don't have the desired competencies when hired, they must receive training.
4. Determine how many people are required.
Some call centers have lowered recruiting and hiring standards to keep up with workload or counter high turnover. That can lead to repeat customer complaints to higher management, negative publicity and lost business.
Look again at Figure 1. Each person has a significant and positive impact when service level is low. However, keep adding agents, and the improvements become incrementally less significant. (Economists call this the "law of diminishing returns.") Most call centers target a service level in the middle of the range.
The table illustrates staff requirements for one half hour. It's important to add for activities that keep agents from their workstations. Also, schedules should accommodate requirements for daily increments. That means managers must build forecasting, staffing calculations, agent activities unrelated to handling workload, and schedules around intervals, not daily averages (see Figure 2).
Call center managers must show the relationship between staff and service levels when budgeting. While everyone may be "busy," call center agents can't arrive early to get a head start - nor stay late to handle calls that stacked up. They've got to be there when the work arrives.
5. Build career and skill paths.
An annual report on staffing and retention noted the top five reasons for agent turnover. They were: better opportunities outside the organization; compensation; better opportunities inside the organization; lack of career opportunities; and handling complaints all day. These underscore the importance of developing career and skill paths.
A typical career path requires the development of job families; jobs arranged in a hierarchy by grade, pay and responsibility. The career path indicates the requirements for each job within the family.
Because corporate-ladder-based staff development can be limiting (due to the finite number of supervisory and management positions), call centers might more effectively develop staff by focusing on skills acquisition. Individuals receive more recognition, responsibility (and compensation) as they achieve new skill levels.


DON'T FORGET PAY
One thing is certain: As the call center becomes more complex, organizations will have to reconsider the importance of pay and benefits. Many managers emphasize that pay is one factor, and often not the most important. True, this argument can get carried too far. But there are lots of opportunities for competent, personable people with technical and communication skills.
Call centers require more diverse skills than perhaps any other part of the organization. Customer behavior, information systems technologies, queuing theory, forecasting, statistics, human resources management, training, written and verbal communication skills, reporting, real-time management, and strategy are all part of the environment. That call centers lose capable people to environments that are allegedly more interesting is an irony. Developing attractive career and skill paths remains a frontier of opportunity.
Performance Enhancement
Diagnosing Performance Problems
One of the toughest tasks for any manager or supervisor is to determine the cause of a performance problem. Since decisions to remediate the problem will depend on the diagnosis, accurate assessment is crucial. In this article we will outline a model of factors influencing employee performance, so that you are less likely to ignore a possible source of performance deficit. In future issues of the Public Sector Manager, we will return to this topic in more detail.
The Nature of Performance
Work performance is influenced by a number of factors. When performance is excellent, it is a result of a number of circumstances that work together to make this excellence possible. So, stellar performance requires that ALL relevant influences on behavior are in place.
Sadly, poor performance can result from a SINGLE factor or influence that drastically reduces effectiveness. Frequently, a performance problem that is allowed to continue unchecked will expand as other influences turn from positive to negative.
A Seven Factor Model
We can suggest seven factors that influence or determine the level of performance. These factors are multiplicative in nature. For those of you whose favorite subject in schools was NOT math, this means that performance will be as strong as the weakest link in the chain of performance determinants. If there is a deficit in any one of these factors, performance will suffer.
Factor 1: Aptitude
Aptitude refers to a person's native ability to perform the task or tasks. Each of us has strengths and weaknesses that determine if we can learn or perform a task. Poor aptitude for a task could mean that the person could never learn how to do it, even with all the supports in the world. Assessing aptitude is very difficult.
Factor 2: Skill Level
Even the simplest responsibilities require skills. Skills differ from aptitudes in that they can be learned, up to the limits imposed by aptitude. To assess whether a performance deficit is a result of lack of skill, ask the questions, "If his/her life depended on it, could the person do the task?" If the answer is no, then it could be a skill problem.
Factor 3: Understanding of Task
A person must understand the nature of the task, and what is expected. If this clear communication is lacking, no amount of skill or motivation will bring about effective performance. Performance management is the common means for conveying understanding of the task. The best way to assess an employee's understanding is to ask questions within a coaching environment.
Factor 4: Choice to Expend Effort
If a person has the aptitude, skills and understanding of the task required, it may be that there are factors causing the person to "not make the effort". These may be personal or related to the work environment. Assessing whether there is a motivational problem is difficult, and can best be done by examining other indicator behaviors (absenteeism, lack of participation in meetings, or other factors that suggest a motivational problem.
Factor 5: Choice of Degree of Effort To Expend
Sometimes effort is not an on/off thing. An employee may be putting in a limited amount of effort and therefore producing inferior results.
Factor 6: Choice To Persist
Performance requires that effort be initiated and sustained over time. This motivational factor may result in projects started but never completed. If an employee is not persisting in tasks, it can indicate boredom, fear of failure, or may relate to a lack of skills. Careful, diplomatic discussion is required to uncover if and why this may be occurring.
Factor 7: Outside Factors
Performance can be reduced due to factors beyond the control of the individual. The organization itself may be setting barriers to performance, or uncooperative co-workers and managers may contribute. Discussion with the employee during performance management should include reference to factors outside the control of the employee that impede progress. If these outside factors are allowed to continue, unacknowledged, motivational levels will drop, complicating the issue and creating a chronic under-performer.
Conclusion:
It is important that performance problems be addressed as soon as they occur, and the above factors be examined to determine whether they are contributing to the problem. By working with the employee in a cooperative way, it is possible to identify and remediate some of the underlying causes of work performance problems.



DEVELOPING
A PRODUCTIVE TEAM

Team building is an effort in which a team studies its own process of working together and acts to create a climate that encourages and values the contribution of team members. Their energies are directed toward problem solving, task effectiveness, and maximizing the use of all members’ resources to achieve the team’s purpose. Sound team building recognizes that it is not possible to fully separate one’s performance from those of others.

Team building works best when the following conditions are met:

1. There is a high level of interdependence among team members. The team is working on important tasks in which each team members has a commitment and teamwork is critical for achieving the desired results.
2. The team leader has good people skills, is committed to developing a team approach, and allocates time to team-building activities. Team management is seen as a shared function, and team members are given the opportunity to exercise leadership when their experiences and skills are appropriate to the needs of the team.
3. Each team member is capable and willing to contribute information, skills, and experiences that provide an appropriate mix for achieving the team’s purpose.
4. The team develops a climate in which people feel relaxed and are able to be direct and open in their communications.
5. Team members develop a mutual trust for each other and believe that the other team members have skills and capabilities to contribute to the team.
6. Both the team and individual members are prepared to take risks and are allowed to develop their capabilities and skills.
7. The team is clear about its important goals and establishes performance targets that cause stretching but are achievable.
8. Team members know how to examine team and individual errors and weakness without making personal attacks, which enables the group to learn from its experiences.
9. Team member roles are defined, and effective ways to solve problems are developed and supported by all team members.
10. Team efforts are devoted to the achievement of results, and team performance is frequently evaluated to see where improvement can be made.
11. The team has the capacity to create new ideas through group interaction and the influence of outside people. Good ideas are followed up, and people are rewarded for innovative risk taking.
12. Each member of the team knows that he or she can influence the team agenda. There is a feeling of trust and equal influence among team members that facilitates open and honest communication



WHAT MAKES
A GOOD TEAM LEADER?

The way a team is led will have a major impact upon the success or otherwise of the team. When asked what they want from a team leader, team members will often identify several values they would want a team leader to hold.

▪ Commitment to people as well as task is the first key element.
▪ Desire to support and serve the team as well as lead from the front.
▪ Enthusiasm, energy, inspiration and sufficient expertise.
▪ Willingness to shoulder responsibility rather than pass the buck.
▪ Ability to make the team come together to achieve more that a group of individuals.

COMMITMENT TO PEOPLE

Most team members are primarily concerned about relationships and about being valued as a team member, before they are concerned about the task that the team is to undertake. Feeling secure in a group environment is an important prerequisite before individual contribution. The good team leader is able to spend time building the team, not only when the team starts off, but when a newcomer joins an existing team.

DESIRE TO SUPPPORT AND SERVE

Whilst team members want to see the ability to lead from the front, they are also strongly motivated by the ability to lead from the back! Servant leadership from the team leader is vital if team members are in turn, to want to serve each other. There is a balance to be struck between a willingness to take on any chores that need to be done by the team, and taking an inappropriate balance of roles so that the leadership is diminished.

ENTHUSIASM, ENERGY, INSPIRATION, AND SUFFICIENT EXPERTISE

Unsurprisingly, team members want to be inspired and motivated by team leadership which has the energy and enthusiasm to fire them up. However, they also want to feel secure that the team leader has themselves, or access to, the necessary expertise to lead the team in the right direction. The leader doesn’t have to be the most knowledgeable of the subject at hand, but if they are not, they must encourage the input of others.

WILLINGNESS TO SHOULDER RESPONSIBILITY

Team leaders are tested under pressure. When challenges arise, as they inevitably will, the leader will need to take responsibility to ensure that they are fixed as far as possible and that the team is strengthened as a result. This does not mean that the leader should admit that issues beyond their control are in any way their fault, (although they should be honest in admitting their mistakes), but rather adopt a proactive stance to ensure the team is not deflected from its course.

ABILITY TO ACHIEVE MORE AS A TEAM

Teams only become a team once there is some synergy within the group, the team process adds value to that which a disparate group of individuals would achieve undirected. This is likely to require the team leader to explore leadership models that share the leadership role within the team, to have an understanding of different individual team roles, strengths and gifts, establish a mutual accountability within the team, and to create a team environment which is open, fun and allows healthy and productive discussion.





ELEMENTS OF A
GOOD TEAM LEADER

BE A ROLE MODEL FOR YOUR TEAM

Being the team leader means you are the designated role model. Lead by example. If you take long lunches or cut corners, they will too.

DO NOT BE AFRAID TO DELEGATE

One of the advantages of having a team around you is that you can delegate some tasks. There’s little point in having a team if you do not let them get involved. Giving colleagues responsibility will also help in their own empowerment. However, do not use delegation simply to avoid work that you should be doing yourself.

GIVE YOUR TEAM CLEAR GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

Make sure everyone is clear about the team’s long tern goals and short term daily or weekly objectives. Teams work better when every player knows what they’re working towards. Give your colleagues reasonable time scales and deadlines rather than vague statements such as “as soon as possible.”
SUPPORT YOUR TEAM

Make sure that colleagues are given full credit for what they do. If they do well, praise them to the senior managers. Defend them where appropriate and cultivate loyalty. This should make your team more productive.

AVOID MANIPULATING YOUR TEAM

Discuss everything openly to cultivate an atmosphere of trust. Although keeping knowledge and information to yourself may make you feel more powerful, sharing information will make the team stronger and cohesive.

LISTEN TO YOUR TEAM

Do not forget to take on board any feedback they give you. Effective team leading is a two way communication process.

PLAY THE TEAM’S STRENGTHS

Although you are the team leader, it doesn’t mean you are the best of everything. So allocate tasks to whoever is best suited to the job in hand. And if someone comes up with a great idea, let them run with it and take credit for it.

BE PATIENT

Team building takes time. You may be given a team of people who you would not have hand picked yourself. Do not expect everything to come together instantly.

WHAT MAKES
A GOOD
TEAM MEMBER?

Just as team members will have expectations of team leaders, they will also have expectations of other members. Being a great team member can aid the team process as much as a good team leader. Here are some of the elements that make a great team member.

▪ Commitment to the team above themselves.
▪ Positive contribution to the team proves and goals.
▪ Enthusiasm, energy, inspiration and sufficient expertise.
▪ Willingness to take responsibility for elements of the team’s work.
▪ Delivering on commitments.


COMMITMENT TO THE TEAM ABOVE THEMSELVES

The factors that made up a successful team leader included both commitment to people and a desire to support and serve. Great team members are also servant-minded: seeking to serve others before their own needs.

POSITIVE CONTRIBUTION TO TEAM PROCESS AND GOALS

Some team members may be willing to take a back seat – saying “it’s the leader’s role to tell us what to do!” This is symptomatic of a work group rather than a team. Great team members will support the team leadership with suggestions for improving the effectiveness of the team process or new ideas for delivering the team goals. This can lead to the leadership being shared around, as different team members drive the process at different times.

ENTHUSIASM, ENERGY, INSPIRATION, AND EXPERTISE

Team members do not only want their leaders to inspire and motivate them, having other team members who are also able to play this role is seen as very positive by most team members. Having a team structure which allows individual expertise and gifts to be understood and productively used by the team is very affirming to team members, and in turn, encourages their contribution. It’s not only the team leader who has the responsibility for developing that kind of team structure.

WILLINGNESS TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR ELEMENTS OF THE TEAM’S WORK
Arising out of the previous element, team members should be willing to run with elements of the team’s work – taking away tasks from the main group to work on. These might not only be tasks, but could also include elements of team development.

DELIVERING ON COMMITMENTS

If an individual is to be fully valued by the team, they must be committed to the success of the team. If they agree to carry out action steps at team meetings, there is an expectation that these will be carried out, unless the expectation is changed. If at the following team meeting, the team is surprised by an individual not delivering on what they agreed, there is a danger that they will lose trust in the individual. Further occurrences of this will almost certainly move the group process backwards. It is better to resist the pressure to deliver initially and set appropriate expectation, than to say yes, and then spend the next weeks finding ways of apologizing.
Proactive vs. Reactive
• A proactive person is results-oriented.
• A reactive person is in the blaming mode.
• A proactive person is responsible for his attitudes and actions.
• A reactive person is influenced negatively by circumstances.
• A proactive person sees an answer for every problem.
• A reactive person sees problem in every answer.
• A proactive person is part of the solution.
• A reactive person is part of the problem.
Emotional Bank Account
Deposit
• Courtesy Patience
• Respect Honesty
• Kindness Service
Withdrawals
• Overreactions
• Ego trips
• Not keeping promises
• Giving false expectations
• Disloyalty

Be a Change Agent
A Change Agent is a proactive person who puts an end to negative tendency in the workplace, home, community, and in the society at large.