Having a problem with your call center staff....that is if they are not yet bored to death of listening to that bell ring twice indicating yet another customer on the phone?
Well I've managed almost 15 Teams on a rotation basis with each team comprising of around 15 Associates. The maximum size of my team has comprised of almost 180 members of a team of young boys/girls with almost no experience "at all" of even working a day in their lives, it was a challenge for me. I was a Bridge/Operations Manager at one of the worlds top multinationals. The center itself had all the technology available for a Manager to generate whatever stats was required to monitor the numbers being turned out.
We managed various private label credit card portfolios of Fortune 500 companies. Having taken calls myself and emerging wiser from the experience I've always stressed the need for Manager's to be able to take calls of Customers themselves which I realised kept your Customer Interaction Skills razor sharp. I've also been admired for taking escalated calls of nasty Customers who demanded to speak to "your Supervisor"!!! There is nothing that inspired my Associates more than watching their Manager take an escalated call. They respected me more for taking that call than for anything else I did for them.
But how do you manage stress, how do you manage boredom, how do you manage absenteeism? All questions dying to be answered. And after a year of taking calls, how do you prevent someone from quitting on the job?
As managers we were measured not only on average handle time but also on quality scores, compliance issues and attrition apart from diversity, keeping customers happy, saving the money of the company by trying not to waive off too many late fees etc.
But there comes those moments when a team member decides that enough is enough. I had one such team member I'll call him J.
J started off like a rocket. Great calls, good enthusiasm. etc I encouraged him to share his experiences as I did with all team members, in order that the whole team benefit from his experience. Which he did enthusiastically. A year later though it seemed that he had tapered off and his enthusiasm (which I believe is key in driving the right attitude on a call) waned.
I checked his file for the feedback I had given him. There seemed nothing in there that raised a red flag. Formal feedback sessions seemed just that "formal". So I asked if I could have lunch at the cafeteria one day, he agreed. During the course of our conversation I discovered that he had a personal problem, that he did not wish to discuss. At least not with his boss. I agreed too. However I was not going to give up trying to resolve the issue I had with him.
So I asked him - what did he think lead to his poor scores and he replied - "My low energy levels, I just dont feel I am fit for this job"! I reminded him that though this his personal life was his business, the fact that he was doing poorly at this job was definitely my business and that I had a stake in his positive well being at least within the four walls of the office.
He agreed. I also reminded him that personally if I had issues outside of the office then either I left it at the door before entering, or even if I had friends/colleagues that I had taken into confidence, then I developed some sort of support system to be able to fall back on. In a way that this did not "rob" me of any potential issue that this could create at work.
So I told him that even though he did not wish to share it with me, that I fully respected him for it. But also suggested that he needs to resolve his personal issues as it was potentially threatening his attitude and results at work.
How could he do that? If he had friends he should either seek advice or be able to resolve his issues with the people or issue that he had or be able to share it in confidence with me his boss, so that I would be able to actually determine if that had any consequence to his work.
I also suggested that if he did not trust me for this then I would be unable to help him in his work - either that or he resolve his problems before they turned serious and negated any positive results he had acheived so far in his performance.
The key word was trust! He needed to be able to trust me. And I needed to instill that trust in him. I did share that he could seek others opinions and then take a call on what I had suggested to him.
It was key that since there was an outside influence in his life that had a direct impact on his work that he was going to have to deal with this issue if not today, then pretty much very soon!
We ended it at that. I did not seek a solution at the end of that conversation I just left it to him to make the right choice. I trusted him to make that choice. I did not force him to reveal anything that he did not want to. I also made sure that he realised that there was a reason to be concerned as his issue was getting worse and negatively impacting his work.
He did come back to me a couple of days later and requested a meeting. I ended up with him confiding in me and sharing what was worrying him at home.
Turns out his Dad is an alcoholic and started his drinking in the evening after work. He then kept the whole house awake till around 1 in the morning. And there fore he just was not getting enough sleep to do his job well the next day. He came in at 8 in the morning.
I asked if changing his shift timing helped. He was comfortable with coming in at 11 o'clock. Turns out that his dad typically started his drinking after he came back after work. And kept awake till around 1 in the morning at which point he went to sleep.
So I worked it out for him, that way he could be there for the last shift which ended at 7 pm. It was not the perfect solution. It did resolve his problem at work and his scores did shoot up again. It also gave him confidence in my leadership and gave him the strength to deal with his issue at home.
His Dad is now in rehab and recovering and he was promoted within a couple of years to an Assistant Manager!!
Chris Francis
Annalytika Inc
May 8th 2008
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