CRM - August 2008 - (Page 26)

AGENT MORALE The (Service) Cultural Imperative Workforce management tools? Flexible schedules? Working remotely? Not necessary. Not if you ask anyone who’s traveled to Japan and observed its contact centers. Based out of New York, Diana Kyser is the vice president in charge of customers at TheLadders.com, a Web site that offers resources and content to job-seekers targeting salaries of more than $100,000. She recently was one of 14 employees selected to make a pilgrimage to Japan in order to observe training practices and strategies at customer service centers there. Kyser says that she was blown away by the radical difference in culture compared to her experiences in America. “In Japan there are no incentives,” she says. “You don’t tip people and [they] don’t expect bonuses. I think it’s a lot less entitlement-based than we are here in the States: We often have poor morale because people don’t feel appreciated and get yelled at all day.” This lack of appreciation melted once Kyser hit the Asian side of the Pacific Ocean. “Agent turnover and the outlook toward customer service are different [in Japan],” she says. “It’s more of a venerable position. People in the call center we visited have been on the phones for 25 years.” Contact center agents must think deeply about the true purpose of their jobs, and that shift is the first step toward changing the negative perceptions of their work. “I think that we have lost our focus on how important it is to serve other people,” Kyser posits. “Especially with the Internet, everything’s so impersonal [today]. [Agents] have to reintroduce the human element and make it something that’s respected again.” —CM 26 successful. That’s the most critical piece most people typically miss.” The results of the personalized coaching that Enkata pitches to clients are best seen in one of CRM magazine’s 2008 Service Elite winners: By upping the coaching—among other improvements in unification of agent metrics—JPMorgan Chase’s Chase Card Services boosted morale, decreased agent turnover, and saved $2.5 million per year in the process. (See “Credit Where Due,” April 2008, for more on the award-winning deployment.) IS TECHNOLOGY A PANACEA? There is one common thread among many of the possible methods of boosting agent morale: technology. But is technology really a cure-all for a problem that’s become consistently worse in the last 10 years? Workforce management (WFM) solutions—the umbrella under which e-learning, scheduling, performance management, and quality monitoring fall—seem to have great promise. According to a recent study from DMG Consulting, the WFM market grew by 15 percent last year, and is primed to make its largest jump ever in 2008, with 20 percent growth. However, Jim Rembach, senior vice president of Customer Relationship Metrics, a provider of customer experience research consulting and managed services, says that his firm’s statistics suggest that the expected growth may not happen: Its 2008 Workforce Management Practices Study finds that dissatisfaction with the WFM process jumped to 47 percent this year, compared to 38 percent in 2006. Dissatisfaction with the WFM software itself also increased, albeit at a slower clip: 46 percent in 2008 compared to 41 percent in 2006. Coincidentally, agent turnover seems to be exacerbating the technology troubles: Employees are less experienced overall, including in the use of WFM software; 18.5 percent of respondents say they have had less than 10 hours of total training on the technology, compared to 13.3 percent in 2006. Rembach maintains that even though the growth in dissatisfaction is not large, statistically speaking, the decrease in training time suggests the situation will not improve any time soon. “To me, [the results] are kind of an oxymoron,” he says. “You have newer people and less training. How does that work?” Innovation, he adds, is actually making these solutions more complicated to use. So, if training continues to decline, dissatisfaction in WFM products will continue to increase. Rembach believes that the onus is on companies to take the time to adequately train their people, so that unnecessary blame does not fall back on the vendors providing this technology. “I think we need to meet and address [this technological gap] head on,” he says. “It’s not just about buying the application. You have to train your people, and give them the proper support. Make sure people don’t purchase a solution without the training and support to go along with it.” Barring a shift in perception, Rembach says, the vicious cycle will continue—and will continue to damage the WFM market. “I think we’re at a precipice,” he says. “You can’t keep driving toward the cliff. This is an opportunity to take a detour.” He’s not ready, however, to ring the death knell. “I see this as an opportunity, and hopefully it’ll be seen that way,” he adds. Verint’s Brown agrees. “It’s not just about technology—it’s how you use it,” he says. “We need to help customers in the journey toward adopting these new technologies so they can use them effectively. Quite frankly, I’d say it’s an opportunity for us to work with our customers to continue to do better in this space.” The journey toward improving agent morale may have taken many detours— especially in the last decade—and perhaps complete satisfaction will always remain out of reach, but Brown says that’s no reason to stop trying. “If we heard that everyone was completely satisfied, then that would be very gratifying, and maybe that’s a spot we’ll get to in a few years,” he says. “But there’s still plenty of work for us all to do.” Contact Editorial Assistant Christopher Musico at cmusico@destinationCRM.com. www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | AUGUST 2008 http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - August 2008

CRM - August 2008 Contents Front Office Feedback Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point Maximum Security A Code Win Doesn’t Blow Forming the Platform CRM on Twitter CRM Class Is in Session Making CRM Mandatory for University Administration Required Reading Cover Story: Calling it Quits Wouldja Look at That? 8 Enterprise Strategies That Stick CRM Searches for Search All Lines Are Not Busy UC: As Easy as A-B-C Even Contact Centers Have Room for Improvement Money Lying Around? Secret of My Success Re:Tooling Scouting Report Pint of View

CRM - August 2008

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