Off Center
 
One of the keys to success in managing a call center is being prepared for the chaos and destruction that lurks around every corner in this dangerous world.  Despite the constant threat of total catastrophe and mayhem, many call centers don’t have a formal disaster recovery plan in place.

It isn’t clear whether the leaders in such centers are unaware that complete calamity could strike at any second, or if they are aware of it but simply don’t know how to deal with it. Assuming the latter is the more common case, I’ve decided to share several tips on developing an effective disaster recovery plan. Follow this list of “do’s” and “don’ts” to ensure that your call center has at least a snowball’s chance of surviving the cataclysm that will likely befall it soon.

DO organize a Disaster Recovery Task Force to develop and oversee the implementation of your call center contingency plan. The task force should be composed of managers, supervisors, agents, IT specialists and a good bartender, and should come up with recovery guidelines for a variety of disaster scenarios, including an earthquake, extensive system failure, or center-wide hangover following a staff barbeque. Be sure to select a leader of the task force, as having a single individual in charge helps to keep everybody focused and ensures that there is somebody to blame outright should the recovery plan fail miserably.

DON’T select an outsourcer located in the same zip code as your call center to handle customer contacts during disasters. If your center is scooped up by a tornado, you’re going to need a company that still has a roof and walls to pick up your slack. Agents at outsourcing firms are under enough pressure as it is without having to worry about dodging shards of flying glass during calls.

DO take advantage of your own resources if your organization has more than one call center site. Having multiple call center locations is the best way to minimize damage during a crisis situation. Meet with managers of each call center site to discuss such important disaster planning issues as emergency call-routing processes, data security, customer notification, and how to have a panic attack without your agents knowing it. If your company currently has only one call center, start looking on craigslist for good deals on some used ones.   

DON’T forget to put the plan in writing, and make sure it contains short and concise sentences that clearly state each step because if it contains long and complex sentences then it becomes harder to understand and thus increases the likelihood that your call center will be unable to react quickly in the event of a disaster and stuff like that. Clarity and brevity are key. 

DO educate the entire frontline regarding the disaster recovery plan. It’s important not to leave your agents in the dark – there will be plenty of time for that when a hurricane or flood destroys all the power lines in your area. Make sure your agents fully understand the plan and their specific role in it. Occasionally test the plan by screaming “Fire! Fire!” and observe how agents react under pressure. Such drills are most effective if you are able to hide your giggling.


To assist you even more with your disaster recovery efforts, buy a copy of my Full Contact ebook (http://goo.gl/kVMhf). I actually don’t cover that topic, but you can print out the pages of the ebook and use them to prop up any table or desk that might get damaged during a disaster.

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There are few better times for call center professionals to over-indulge and act happily insane than during Customer Service Week (October 3-7). It’s our own special week of the year to shine and celebrate, and to punch people in Marketing without getting in much trouble. I personally spend the entire week hooked up to an IV that pumps Red Bull into my system 24 x 7 while I run around shouting “Customer service ROCKS” from the rooftops – unless I’m lucky enough to land a speaking gig that week, in which case I do the same thing from behind a podium.

The past few years, however, the struggling economy has put a serious damper on many companies’ Customer Service Week celebrations. Some forsake the week entirely, claiming they just don’t have the budget to throw CSW parties or provide staff with any special rewards or recognition.

That is such a crock. There are plenty of ways to embrace CSW and show your frontline employees just how valued and appreciated they are when they aren’t screwing up. Following are just a handful of ways to do CSW right – without having to bust open the piggy bank or search through agents’ pockets for loose change.

 Remove agents’ ankle monitors. While having agents wear ankle monitors to ensure they never leave their workstation for any reason makes sense most of the time, it can be a little demoralizing during CSW. So why not free your agents of their electronic shackles as a gesture of appreciation? Doing so will let them know you value and trust them – at least for five days in October each year. And it won’t cost the call center a dime, unless of course your agents take advantage of their newfound freedom and abandon their shift during peak periods to catch a matinee at the mall.

Use candy to reward the non-abuse of customers. I once worked as an agent, so I know how challenging it can be to get through an entire call without swearing at or hanging up on the customer. Since CSW is the perfect time to reward and recognize notable achievements and to be nice to customers, consider giving candy to agents who somehow find the strength to not abuse callers for a day or two during the week. Such an incentive is a win-win: Customers won’t have to endure as much agent vitriol as usual; and agents – if successful in their attempts to not openly disgrace callers – will get to enjoy shorter shifts due to their sugar-induced coma.

Wield a softer whip during coaching. Another effective and affordable way to demonstrate your respect and admiration for agents during CSW is to strike them with less force when delivering post-call feedback. Since it can be difficult to train coaches and supervisors to snap their whips more softly than they’re accustomed to, it’s a good idea to replace the center’s normal chain whips with more agent-friendly leather ones.

While CSW is a time for joyous celebration, it’s important for agents to realize that the use of a softer whip is not a permanent change, but rather a special treat reserved for a special week. Make sure they understand that full-force floggings during coaching sessions will resume the second the clock strikes midnight on October 7, which is also when they’re ankle monitors should be re-attached.


SPECIAL CUSTOMER SERVICE WEEK OFFER:  Speaking of special treats, from now until the end of Customer Service Week (Friday, Oct. 7), I'm offering 30% off on all OFF CENTER goodies, including: the Full Contact ebook (http://goo.gl/8aVnk); the State of Home Agent Staffing special report (http://goo.gl/pAfQI); and all Contact Center Tunes (http://goo.gl/DwvcU). To take advantage of this limited-time offer, be sure to enter the following discount code when purchasing any of the items mentioned: csw2011

Happy Customer Service Week!
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Many of you probably read the title of this post and thought, “Oh great, another rant from some self-important rabble-rouser who feels he has to constantly question authority and shake things up.”

That was my intention, at least.

I know, I know, there’s enough negativity in the world as it is, what with the lagging economy and the cancellation of All My Children. But I feel that I must express my angry views on several irksome issues and trends that currently plague the call center industry – not just because I feel they are detracting from our collective success, but also because I crave attention.


Overly decorative terms for frontline staff.  There has never been a universally accepted term in our industry for the “folks on the phones”. Agent. Rep. CSR. Associate. I don’t really have an issue with this per se, but I do feel that some call centers have taken things too far – using such terms as “Customer Contact Engineer”, “Headset Hero” and “Service Level Soldier” to describe frontline staff.

Instead of trying to make agents feel important by giving them ostentatious monikers, try making them feel important by paying them what they are worth and installing a window or two in the call center.

I encourage creativity, just not in this instance. If I write an article on your call center and you ask me to change “agents” to “Customer Ambassadors” in the final draft, I might just have to take a swing at you.
 

Deceptive conference session (and webinar) titles. While attending an industry event a few months ago, I sat in on a session whose title caught my attention in the conference brochure: “10 Surefire Ways to Obliterate Agent Attrition”. Sounded pretty exciting, but when the speaker opened his presentation with a complex mathematical equation to calculate turnover and some motivational quotes from his high school guidance counselor, I knew he wasn’t going to deliver.

Using deceptive session titles to attract conference (and webinar) attendees is unfortunately becoming the norm in our industry. Therefore, I recommend we create a law that requires all sessions to have short, unappealing titles like, “Quality Monitoring: An Important Thing”, or “Agent Training: Why Not?”. This will help to lower attendees’ expectations and increase the chances that the speaker will make it back to his or her room without being flogged by fruit.


An unhealthy obsession with “best practices”. How do you get 100 call center professionals to jump off a cliff? Tell them it’s a best practice.

I must get 20 emails a week from managers and supervisors who want to know what’s “best practice” (or “industry standard”) for things like service level objective and call abandon rate. I used to try to explain to such people that industry-wide best practices don’t exist, but they threatened to harm me and my family if I didn’t help. So now I just make up answers to appease them and get back to my nap. My standard response is: “Every world-class call center I have ever encountered answers 108% of calls within three seconds and has negative 1.7% abandonment. They also require all agents to wear Lederhosen on Fridays.”   

My advice is for you to ignore so-called “best practices” and instead focus your attention on determining what is best for your specific center based on what your specific customers and agents want and expect. But if you don’t want to take my advice and choose instead to continue your mad quest to uncover as many best practices as possible, then purchase my ebook – it’s chock full of them: http://www.greglevin.com/full-contact-ebook.html

7 Comments
 
 
Call centers are notorious for their less than inspiring (and often even damaging) facility design and aesthetics. Companies expect agents to efficiently provide exceptional customer experiences, yet house said staff in buildings that even maximum-security penitentiaries would deem drab and dangerous.

There has been so much focus in recent years on the evolution of call center technologies and channels, companies have failed to notice that their actual call center facilities are stuck in the Industrial Age. The poorly designed physical environment in which agents work often leads to chronic vision problems, back pain, wrist issues, and phalangeorbitosis – the uncontrollable urge to repeatedly poke oneself in the eye during calls and while on breaks.

Research shows that effective interior design, spatial dynamics and ergonomics result in employees who are committed to customers rather than to hospitals or asylums. Below are several examples of call center facility design innovation – based on interviews with several thought leaders in this area, as well as a few weird dreams I’ve had recently.


Strobe lighting. While traditional facility design experts say that indirect lighting is best in call centers (as it reduces glare and soothes nerves), the most progressive in the facility design community now believe that strobe lighting – with its rapid-fire flits and flashes – has the biggest impact on agent effectiveness and enthusiasm.

By creating an atmosphere more typical of a 1970s disco club or modern-day techno party than an office environment, strobe lighting shocks staff out of their workplace apathy and complacency and tricks them into thinking that there is excitement in their everyday lives. The result is a more vibrant frontline whose renewed energy can be felt by callers, thus enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty. Sometimes agents will even bust out funky dance moves.

What about the long-term effect on agents’ nerves? Proponents acknowledge that strobe lighting will undoubtedly wreak havoc on your staffs’ frontal lobes and limbic systems, but so will listening to customers complain and swear all day, so you might as well create a fun party vibe to assuage the misery.


Stackable workstations. The traditional approach of grouping agent workstations in clusters, pods or simple rows is fine, but it takes up a lot of unnecessary space and provides little opportunity to reward deserving agents with prime seating. That’s why forward-thinking design specialists have started recommending stackable workstations for call centers. Following this innovative approach, the workstations of the center’s lowest performers are placed at ground level, the workstations of the moderate performers are stacked on top of them, and the workstations of the top performers are placed above everybody. A ladder can be used to gain access to the middle and upper levels, or, if you’d like to whip agents into shape, a climbing rope may be substituted.   

It all forms a sort of “who’s a star and who sucks” performance pyramid that occupies much fewer square feet than traditional phone floors (though may require much higher ceilings). And since nobody wants to endure the shame and disgrace of being on the bottom level for very long, all agents will strive to continually improve in hopes of climbing to a more respectable level. Further, centers that embrace the stackable workstation design will find that their best agents are rarely offline, as the risk of a fatal fall will keep them glued to their seat.


BREAK rooms. According to numerous studies, angrily breaking objects that have nothing to do with why you are angry is the number one way to keep from killing customers or coworkers. Such findings have inspired many call centers to replace such hokey stress relief tactics as squeezy balls and Xanax placebos with BREAK rooms – dedicated areas where agents can go and destroy everything in sight after handling a difficult call, enduring a harsh coaching session, or receiving their paycheck.  

A typical BREAK room should include lots of easily replaceable windows, plenty of old computer monitors, and paper mache replicas of every manager and supervisor.


I’d love to hear some of YOUR innovative facility design ideas. Feel free to share them in the form of a comment below. (Serious ideas only, though – this topic is nothing to joke about.)
10 Comments
 
 
The queue is finally empty
The customers are calm
The reps no longer gasp for breath or cry out for their mom

The ACD did not explode
As many thought it might
It routed all 10,000 calls to agents out of spite

The supervisors now can coach
And work on raising scores
Though might as well forget the reps who’ve sprinted toward the doors

The manager’s exhausted
But has yet another task
To calculate the C-Sat rate – that’s why he has a flask

The call center is quiet now
It’s rare to have such peace
It’s the kind of calm that comes when reps just press “release”

So close your eyes, oh weary ones
You day is now complete
Worry not of calls and chats – you’ll soon be screwed by tweets


In clinical trials, this poem successfully lulled 87% of call center insomniacs to sleep. If, by chance, you continue to struggle with insomnia even after reading this poem, talk to a licensed physician about medications and supplements that can aid sleep. Or, if you need IMMEDIATE relief, simply have a conversation with somebody from Accounting or Legal.  

3 Comments
 
 
Just because your call center surveys customers and occasionally even looks at the feedback they provide doesn’t mean you have a “Voice of the Customer” initiative in place. A true VOC program entails continuously and carefully analyzing customer ratings and sentiment, identifying trouble spots and trends, and taking decisive action before your customer base starts to hate you as much as your agents do.

If your call center is as serious about the customer experience as it is about low wages and bad lighting, then you need to make sure that your VOC initiative includes the following special components:   

Tools that report whether the customer was using their “inside voice” or their “outside voice.” Naturally, you want to pay attention to any customer who provides negative comments about a recent interaction, but for prioritization purposes it’s important to distinguish between customers who are merely a little frustrated and those who are considering hiring a hit man. By investing in speech analytics tools that detect customers’ emotion/volume levels during calls and survey responses, it becomes easier to determine which customers to ignore, which ones to call back within the week, and which ones to kidnap immediately before they ruin your brand via Twitter.
  
“Fist of the Customer” (FOC) software. Sometimes customers don’t verbalize exactly what they are feeling, thus it’s important to have tools in place that can dig deeper and uncover hidden sentiment. While still very much in the testing phase, FOC technology measures how forcefully frustrated customers throw their phones or punch their computers when interacting with an agent or IVR. Equipped with special motion-detection software that I’m too stupid to understand or explain, a typical FOC solution can be programmed to send an instant alert to the call center’s recovery team whenever a customer’s punch reaches a “Mike Tyson” or “Jerry Springer guest” level of force.

A “Last Word” option for agents.  To avoid having your customers’ negative and abusive comments adversely affect agent retention and morale, it’s important to incorporate a VOA (Voice of the Agent) component into your VOC program. After receiving a scathing rating or comment from a customer, agents will likely want to retaliate and get the last word in after they stop crying. Let them do so by providing them with what they think is the customer’s phone number but is really the number to a crisis hotline where operators are used to enduring profanity-laden diatribes from complete strangers.   


NOTE: If you found Greg’s “Voice of the Customer” recommendations to be insightful and valuable, you should consider seeking help from a licensed mental health professional. Contact Greg for referrals.

4 Comments
 
 
When you are burdened with a mind as manic as mine, having your own blog can be dangerous. Fortunately, I’ve trained my internal editor to out-muscle my internal madman, thus ensuring the only posts of mine that make it to the public domain are those that are truly fit to print – at least in my eyes.

You’ve seen how quirky some of my previous Off Center pieces have been, so you can only imagine how unsettling and odd some of the posts that didn’t make the final cut were.

I have neither the space nor the gall to include the actual text of the aforementioned scrapped posts, and you haven’t the time or the stomach to read them. However, I thought you might be interested in knowing some of the titles.          


Blog Bits that Died on the Chopping Block

-Ensuring Effective Self-Service: When You Care Enough to Not Talk to Customers

-Three Tweets to the Wind: How Social Customer Care While Under the Influence Can Enliven Your Brand

-Whatever, YOU Are: Dealing with Abusive Callers

-Micromanagement Is the New Black

-The Art of Coercion in Agent Coaching

-I’m Okay, You’re Okay – the Problem Is Those Freaking Callers: How Customers Ruin Things for the Rest of Us

-Enhance Call Center Aesthetics by Letting Your Ugliest Agents Work from Home

-Agent Diapers: An Innovative Approach to Increasing Call Center Productivity  

-Rev-Up Employee Retention: Make Agent Attrition Grounds for Termination

-Laughing at Irate Callers: The Intrinsic Power of the Mute Button

-Best Practices in Best Practice Practices

-We’re All Going to Die Someday: Putting Low Service Levels into Perspective

-UFATEC: Using Fewer Acronyms to Enhance Communication


I’m always looking for blog topic suggestions from outside contributors that I can reject. Feel free to leave some of your more intriguing ideas for future posts in the comment box below.

7 Comments
 
 
In a recent landmark study of over 5,000 call center professionals, when asked what was most needed to improve operations, the number-one answer given by respondents was “Irish-style rhymes about customer care.”

Upon learning this, I spent the better part of the next 17 minutes composing the following. Enjoy!


Call Center Limerick #1

There once was a manager who
Micromanaged all reps on his crew
For the reps it was hectic
Each breath was a metric
If you died, well, he measured that, too


Call Center Limerick #2

There once was an agent named Lear
To his schedule he’d never adhere
He’d sign off the phone
Then find his way home
And return too late smelling like beer


Call Center Limerick #3

There’s no way our service is level
Our customers’ nerves get disheveled
They growl and they yell
They shout “Go to h*ll!”
At times we must service the devil


Call Center Limerick #4

We aim to up Customer Sat
But nothing’s much tougher than that
With one guy this evening
I used a kind greeting
And swear that the customer spat


Call Center Limerick #5

Our call center’s scary and hectic
I get very buried in metrics
Most measure my speed
Like how fast I can pee
I can’t leave my seat – so I wrecked it


Call Center Limerick #6

My center launched chat out of spite
We know that our staff cannot write
They’re puzzled and vexed
Cause they struggle with text
Unless they’re out Saturday night


4 Comments
 
 
Very few people in our industry dreamt early on in life about being a call center professional. If you happen to know somebody who did, be careful – he or she is probably dangerous. (Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer both reportedly fantasized about customer care as kids.) If you yourself had dreams of a call center career when you were younger, then I was just kidding about the whole "dangerous" thing. Otherwise, I wasn’t.

Just because you didn’t plan on becoming a call center professional doesn’t mean that you haven’t landed in an exciting and rewarding field. With customer service being the big differentiator among competing brands these days, call centers are hot. You’ve probably even been invited to sit at the cool kids’ table in the company cafeteria, or at least you no longer have your lunch money stolen by some bully from Marketing.

Even still, many call center managers and supervisors – because of their random arrival in this crazy profession – continually struggle with existential career issues, constantly asking themselves such questions as,  “Do I belong here?” and “Is it too late to become a fireman?”

It’s ok to question whether or not you are a real call center professional. To help you find out, look for the following symptoms… I mean signs:


10 Signs You’re a Real Call Center Professional

1) You’ve legally changed your name to an acronym.

2) At the end of a date, you ask the person to complete a satisfaction survey.

3) You don’t giggle when you hear the term “shrinkage”.

4) If ever homeless, you’d create a sign that reads: “Will forecast call volume for food.”

5) You think an engagement party is a gathering to raise employee morale.

6) The fitness instructor at your gym told you to do 10 "reps", and you argued that that would be highly unprofessional.

7) You have a tattoo of A.K. Erlang… right next to your tattoo of Alexander Graham Bell.

8) You can’t telecommute because you’d miss the smell of headsets.

9) When friends ask about your social life, you tell them your call center now interacts with customers via Twitter.

10) You get all these jokes.


6 Comments