ICMI's Customer Management Insight - September 2007 - (Page 31) O P E R AT I O N S and ICMI Membership. Speaking of CMI, be sure to drop by the keynote hall early on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings (Sept. 1112) to catch CMI editors presenting a live early morning talk show (preceding the keynote speaker). They’ll provide you with a brief preview of daily sessions and keep you updated on key happenings for the day. Guests will include industry experts The majority (86.5 percent) of organizations have either a formal employee wellness initiative in place or at least offer resources and programs that help to ensure wellness among staff. However, only 41.1 percent of contact centers promote their wellness initiatives during agent recruiting and hiring to help attract and engage job candidates, and more than a third (39.2 percent) of centers fail to seek direct feedback and ideas from the center’s existing agents regarding the organization’s wellness efforts. Wellness courses, work- and practitioners. It promises to be both informative and entertaining! While there are plenty of exciting activities and events taking place this year at ACCE, we realize that one of the main reasons for attending the conference is to find out how to solve your top management challenges. Let’s take a look at some of those from our 2007 research studies: AGENT WELLNESS INITIATIVES Most organizations understand the importance of keeping employees physically and psychologically fit, and have done a good job of ensuring that staff have the amenities, resources and educational outlets needed to help keep them feeling — and working — well. Where many contact centers are dropping the ball, however, is in their communication regarding the company’s wellness programs. icmi’s insight shops and training comprise a substantial part of most respondents’ wellness initiatives, with 81.9 percent of centers reporting that they offer formal classes and counseling to help agents adopt a healthier lifestyle. The most common resources cited by respondents include weight loss/nutrition courses, stress management workshops, classes focusing on general health issues, smoking cessation programs, and crisis counseling. CROSS-SELLING AND UPSELLING things well; however, many still have some ground to cover before seeing their cross-selling program reach full potential. It appears that most centers have a solid understanding of the importance of embracing cross-selling and of clearly communicating the center’s expanded role to agents to gain full buy-in. And most centers have done a good job of training staff for their new role, as well as inspiring them to meet or exceed the key metrics that are aligned with the center’s new service-sales approach. Where many call centers need to improve is in the areas of hiring and workflows and processes — more than a third (37.2 percent) of respondents indicated that they have yet to make any changes to their hiring practices to enhance cross-selling success in the center. This is a concern, considering the fact that these centers have gone from needing service-only agents to needing agents with a mix of service and sales skills, yet they haven’t added any hiring tactics nor assessments to help with this endeavor. At least some other centers have: 48.3 percent indicated that they now profile prospective agents differently than they did prior to introducing the cross-selling program, 32 percent reported that they now hire for different skills, and 19.2 percent have broadened the hiring pool. But only 16.9 percent have added pre-hire testing to help determine which agent candidates have the right skill sets for cross-selling. CUSTOMER SATISFACTION MEASUREMENT Many centers that have transitioned from service- and support-only environments to more blended, revenue-generating operations have the right idea and are doing many According to many experts, we have entered the age of the customer; however, it appears that a large number of contact centers have yet to receive this message, as | SEPTEMBER 2007 www.icmi.com 31 http://www.icmi.com
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.