ICMI's Customer Management Insight - April 2008 - (Page 10)

O P E R AT I O N S ing like a family, it’s easy for leaders to get caught up in a new kind of parent trap — being too close to the people to see and address the real problems. Leaders in small call centers need to develop a formal coaching regimen that ensures every frontline agent is receiving improvement feedback at least once a week. With small groups and teams, there is a tendency to eyeball the results vs. spending the time to document results in a scorecard format that ensures all opportunities are addressed and visible. 8. It takes more than just on-the-job training. A formal training program is a luxury for most small call centers, and because of their relatively low turnover, most new-hire training is done one-on-one. Many small call centers find an additional agent on the phone is more valuable than a full-time training resource that can’t be fully occupied because the people who need to be trained will have to be on the phone most of the time. It’s very difficult to find an hour for a team meeting, much less a week off the phone for a formal class. This approach leads to a lack of documentation of the standard operating procedures or even an update of the internal knowledge base. Over time, several ways of doing things will evolve, and the internal best practice will be based on who influenced the new person the most. Training starts with something that was described earlier — standard processes in place and documented. The lack of a formal training department or dedicated trainer is not an excuse for not having a clearly defined “onboarding” program. These programs can be a combination of one-on-one meetings, private computer-based role icmi’s insight plays, agent monitoring and individual testing. All of these can be easily created from the formal process and documented against an expected timeline. And, the rest of the organization can be an incredible training resource for new frontline telephone agents. A program focused on allowing new agents to spend time with the other departments — “walking in their shoes” — will reduce the learning curve time and improve their overall confidence when addressing customers. And, it’s a great way to continually connect with other areas of the organization and facilitates an environment of ongoing improvement. 9. Create a road map for senior management. One thing small call centers don’t have is a way to overcome the mathematical inefficiency that requires a significant portion of the center’s agents to be “sitting around. While we can do things to ” help fill some of the gaps with other types of work, there is nothing we can do to make everyone take a call when senior management ventures through the center. Senior management is often left with an unsettling feeling that money is being wasted because “half” of the people aren’t on the phone. Overcoming this mindset starts with educating yourself in queuing theory and using this knowledge to create a simple example of the “why” for senior management. Spending a couple of hours creating some what-if scenarios in an Erlang calculator will provide you with several new ways to engage executives in appreciating the real complexity of running a small call center. Numbers alone won’t get you all of the support you need to move your small call center forward. Spend some time creating an understanding of and appreciation for the role you play in the organization’s success. In every business there is a critical path to profit or fulfillment — simply put, the most efficient way for the organization to reach its goal. For example, for an online retailer, the most profitable path would be the customer placing the order online, paying online, receiving the exact product when promised and being happy with it. Any deviation from this path costs the company more money in support as the customer falls off the most efficient way for them to make money. In this case, every call to the call center costs the organization profit margin. But if every one of those calls is viewed as a way to help improve the path for future customers, it’s not all money wasted. Being able to connect the value of every interaction with the organization’s critical path is key to getting additional support and investments. 10. Technology expense is no excuse. Call center technologies are continually evolving, and larger call centers are normally the initial beneficiaries of the latest features. Customers’ expectations also continually evolve as the larger call centers implement the new tools to improve service or internal efficiencies. This puts smaller centers at somewhat of a disadvantage be cause the newer technologies are typically priced out of reach, and there are limits to how much advantage it can ultimately deliver. The good news for small call centers is that a lot of technology companies are paying attention to the largest segment of the market — centers employing fewer than 50 agents — and developing tools that fit these centers’ unique needs. And there is www.icmi.com | APRIL 2008 10 http://www.icmi.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of ICMI's Customer Management Insight - April 2008

ICMI's Customer Management Insight - April 2008 Operations: Small Call Centers, Big Potential Ad Index Contents Editor's Page Contact Center Spotlight People: Assessment Tools Recommended Reading Technology: Speech Recognition Special Feature: Best of Show Strategy: Service-to-Sales Success Expert's Angle - High Volume, High Stakes: A Better Strategy for Hiring Experts Angle - Secrets of Recruiting Success/Job Brands: Changing Applicant Reactions to Your Openings Experts Angle - Speech Analytics: Uncovering the Voice of the Customer

ICMI's Customer Management Insight - April 2008

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