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Why Really Smart People & ‘Strong’ Personalities can be a Bad Fit for most Contact Centers
According to recent research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon University, and Union College - raw smarts don’t have much to do with Call Center Agent performance.
Here’s what they found:
* Individual smarts doesn’t affect Call Center team performance. The average intelligence of Call Center team members wasn’t related to overall team performance. So if you’ve got a Call Center team that’s struggling - putting a couple of really smart people on it isn’t going to help. In fact - really smart people typically have issues related to handling the repetitive nature of Call Center work – and this can lead to very expensive “Quick Quit” (less than 6 month's employment) turnover.
* Personality/Job-Fit is more important than IQ. A Call Center Agent’s success depends much more upon Personality/Temperament/Job-Fit factors than overall IQ. Merely knowing how to react in a Call Center situation is far different from actually engaging in the necessary appropriate behavior – consistently – and for the long-term. Good communication skills - a good work ethic - and good coordination make Call Center teams function well. To get that - you need people who are self-motivated - and good at reading and responding to other peoples’ emotions. Teams that included even one person with superior skills in this regard had much better performance.
* ’Strong’ personalities can actually hurt Call Center performance – except in the Telemarketing and Inside Sales sectors. Customer Service & Support teams - where one Agent dominates conversations - or the decision-making - or where team members don’t do as well taking turns had the worse performance. This correlates well with other research that shows Service & Support Call Center Agents with ’stronger’ personalities are often less effective than those who perceive themselves to be more group/team oriented.
The most important key to creating better Call Center teams?
The researchers found one fairly simple answer - add women to your Call Center.
Women are often perceived to be more socially-sensitive & more communally-minded than men. To the extent that’s true - it’s easy to see how this could be helpful in a Call Center team context. And in the experiments - the researchers found that teams that included women were more socially-sensitive & better performing - than all-male Call Center teams.
Women already make up the majority of employees in most InBound Customer Service Call Centers. Male dominated Contact Centers tend to cluster in the Technical Support/Help Desk, Telemarketing and Inside Sales sectors.
Top performing Contact Centers drive their Revenue & Performance through superior hiring tactics. We help employers gain better insight & more accurate predictions as to which applicants from a pool of Candidates would perform up to, or beyond their established standards. You can find out about a Free Trial of SPAS Call Center Agent Pre-Employment Screening Software at http://www.telesoftsystems.ca/64201.html
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I did some training for a call center a number of years ago and when I did the needs analysis, I found that what is the real skills to being a great call center rep is having excellent listening skills and empathy. You don't need to be a genius to have either or both skills. Listening is foremost because people call in, mostly with problems, and they are angry. I found that out when I manned the phones before the analysis I did. I felt I needed to experience what the reps experience. You need to be able to get through their anger and really get to the problem. There are a number of techniques I applied in my retraining program. The other skill- empathy because you show your caller you understand but are not necessarily agreeing with them. When teaching both skills, the call center reps became clearly better at it. The call center productivity and responses surveys went up. So to make my long story short- you are right, no one has to be a Einstein but you do need real skills- at least 2.
@Fred. Thank you for sharing your insights regarding the importance of ‘Soft Skills’ for Call Center Agents.
It is the ‘Soft Skills’ that deliver value when it comes to the kind of service callers expect.
The Customer Service Representative (CSR) is your ambassador to your customers. The ‘Soft Skills’ and human voice of the CSR provides your Brand’s human face.
You have identified two important ‘Soft Skills’ that a CSR requires - excellent listening skills and empathy.
There are others.
Job Candidates for the position of CSR must have a unique constellation of ‘Soft Skill’ traits - and specific amounts of those traits - in order to successfully complete the job requirements. And it is indeed possible to have too little – or too much of a trait.
For example - assertiveness is an important ‘Soft Skill’ characteristic of a CSR. Too little assertiveness characterizes individuals who play a passive role on the telephone – who would rather listen than talk - who lack self-confidence – and as a result have issues related to Low Volume of Calls Handled/Above Average Call Handle Time. On the other hand - too much assertiveness can be detrimental to the customers as well as the workplace.
Top performing Call Centers drive their Revenue & Performance through superior hiring tactics. We help employers gain better insight & more accurate predictions as to which applicants from a pool of Candidates would perform up to, or beyond their established standards. You can find out about a Free Trial of SPAS Call Center Agent Pre-Employment Screening Software at http://www.telesoftsystems.ca/64201.html
Call centers that have a core of very good call center reps can hire more call center reps who are like their very good call center reps. It is easy to do, can be implemented quickly and is so cost effective that many people cannot not believe it.
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