How to get my CSR's be more compassionate?

I started to respond by saying a lot depends upon whether you are providing offshore support for a country with a different culture than yours or whether you are building an emerging business to support businesses in KSA. Upon second thought, I think the approach is the same.

Here are some ideas.........

1. Your CSRs need to understand the culture they are working with. The issue is a whole lot more complex if you are supporting an unfamiliar culture. But, the CSRs need to be able to empathize with their customers. That means they need to be able to understand what the customer's expectations are when they call customer service and why. Training and role playing are important in this area.

2. Reward those who catch on early and have them become your SMEs to help bring the rest of the staff along.

3. Hire those who demonstrate they deal well with change and have good people and communications skills.

4. Provide accurate and frequent feedback.

5. Have your CSRs record the problems they encounter, whether it's not knowing how to answer certain types of questions properly, not having the right information at hand, or not being able to deliver the level of resolution you expect. Track the issues, identify the important ones and provide training and direction to overcome those issues.

6. Train, train, train.

Afshan,

As long as there are customers and customer service, the question of compassion will continue to be asked!

The single best way that I've found, to instill compassion for the customer within the minds, hearts and actions of customer service reps, is to put them face-to-face with customers. Let me explain this first, through a personal story:

I used to work in a soup kitchen, where we would feed meals to the homeless people in the city. When the meals had been served, I would often sit down with some of the homeless, and strike up a conversation about where they were from, etc. Simple, non-intrusive questions, just to get them to open up as real humans.

Inevitably, they would tell their story about how they came to become homeless. Upon hearing this, I would get a much better sense of empathy, and see them more as real adults who have simply had more misfortune than I. Hearing them tell their personal stories caused me to see them differently.

The point of my story is that once you hear a person tell their own story, you see them differently, and treat them differently. You feel a connection, and act on it.

So, how to apply my story to your situation?

Create a forum in which your customers can tell their stories. This might be a matter of inviting one customer to a staff meeting each week, and warmly inviting them to share their story with the group(how they use your product/service; what issues arise, and how those issues impact their lives in a personal way). If the right environment for this doesn't presently exist, then create the environment. (If this idea is not practical, find a similar one that is.)

Bottom line is, once your CSR's get face-to-face with customers on a regular basis, and in a non-threatening, non-confrontational environment, they'll begin to develop a greater sense of empathy for your customers, and once done, compassion will take root.

'Hope that helps!

Jim

In My opinion, its all about rewarding good behaviors and eliminating bad behaviors in your CSRs while dealing with the customer.

To start with, try have a mock customer interactions either by phone or by email, QA those interactions for any mistakes. Do counseling of your CSRs and in the end bind some reward with the success... not with the count of customers handled but how well they are handled.

Now days not only sales agents gets the reward on getting new customers but companies have started rewarding their CS people for taking good care of their customers. Remember finding a new customer can cost you 7 bucks but retaining will cost you only 2.

This is a particularly difficult question to respond to because its like suggesting a medication to a patient without seeing them. Everyone carries passion in various ways. Often we confusion passion with overwork which isn't always productive, delivered well and can in fact be a catalyst for creating an atmosphere of discord amongst other employees. There will be days when passion runs low and can run high, but key to have an impassioned commitment & delivery is the balance of environment, employee capability and suitability for the work at hand. Don't think for one moment that passion equates to better customer delivery, that passion is a commodity that one can develop, or that is always appreciated by a client who simply wants a resolution or a level of understanding that they have other matters to attend to.

I agree with Eric. The company culture starts at the top and trickles down. You can hire compassionate people, but if the culture isn't emulated at the top, that person will find a new job. Show compassion to your CSR's. Train them on the environment you want to develop on an on-going basis. Create a work environment that will translate to the customer. Your first customer is your employee. Find key people and raise them up as leaders.
A company called Propadoo encourages employees to brag about each other and increases the motivation and incentive to offer compassion to each other, and that translates into compassion for your customers.

Think of them as your most valued scout. If you were the captain of a fort in the old West, and you sent out a scout to find out about the enemy and the terrain, how valuable would that scout be to your defense operation? Consider your CSR's to be just that. Take great care of them---resource them, train them, empower them, affirm them, but most important, involve them. They know more about your customers than anyone on the planet. They can be brilliant in terms of insights about how the organization can better serve customers. So, if their fingerprints are not on every new iniative related to your customers, you are like the captain of the fort asking troups to fight blindfolded.

There are many good methods for having compassion for the customer above. I'd like to add two:

Remind the CSRs about the service they have received and encourage them to always give the kind of service they would like to receive. This is especially true when the customer makes a mistake: the CSR may become frustrated with the customer, but I encourage them to remember we have all made mistakes and to cut the customer some slack.

Remind the CSR about the value of their work. Happy customers renew contracts, tell their friends to buy, and add products. That makes for a growing company that can give raises and provide growth paths to the CSRs.

These are all creative responses and all will help you instill the customer service spirit you are seeking. The most important element has not yet been mentioned. That is to “hire the right people.” Truly successful customer service workers have unique characteristics. I call it a “nurse” personality. That is, someone who lives to help others. It’s an ability that can’t be taught. Remember Nordstrom’s famous response to the question, who trains these people? “Their parents do.”

The following quote from my book on this subject is below:

“The most important advice I can give you is to hire people who embrace your company values and exhibit a passion for working for you. Hire people who have the general desire to do the type of work you need done. My point here is you must give careful thought to the temperament, values and work ethic of those you hire. Hiring may be the most important set of decisions you make. Do your homework.”*

*”Improve Your Bottom Line…Develop MVPs Today” www.neverloseyourjobbook.com

Jim, I agree that proper hiring is the most important element to assure the right "service approach to customers." In fact, proper hiring can be considered the most important element for optimizing any team or organization - not just CS.

You then say that the right customer service people have unique characteristics that "can't be taught."

So, going back to Afshan's original question:

"... so how do you get them trained?”

If you've inherited a customer service team, and you feel they lack a service mentality, is training not worth the effort?

Afshan,

Great question and a common concern for many call center managers and operations personnel. eGain published the following article that is highly applicable; "Make Your Contact Center Emotionally Intelligent":
http://www.egain.com/docs/articles/article_dcrm_08may.htm

About eGain:
eGain is a provider of multichannel customer service and knowledge management software for in-house or on-demand deployment. For more than a decade, global companies have relied on eGain to transform their traditional call centers, help desks, and web customer service operations into multichannel customer interaction hubs. These hubs enable improved customer experience, end-to-end service process efficiencies, increased sales, and enhanced contact center performance.

If you want to make sure that your Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) have a Customer Facing Attitude - and that they are capable of being ‘more compassionate’ - I would suggest that you first invest in ensuring that you are hiring the right people.

After all – even if you deliver the world’s best training program to the wrong trainees – you’ll still wind up with a poorly performing, dysfunctional Call Center.

Your CSRs are your ambassadors to customers. The human voice of your CSR – along with the CSR’s ‘Telephone Personality’ provides your company’s human face.

Call Center work is generally acknowledged to be tedious, stressful, repetitive & boring. A CSR job in a Contact Center requires an employee to uniquely combine reliability with flexibility - and mix adherence to a schedule & procedure with adaptability in order to meet customers’ needs. CSRs are rewarded for metrics such as customer satisfaction, volume of calls taken, sales quota and product knowledge - to name just a few. CSRs have to manage customer interactions constantly – in an environment driven by targets – while their job is constantly monitored electronically.

Typically there are 3 grades of CSRs found in a Contact Center: (Above Average), (Average), and (Below Average).

(Above Average) CSRs seem to have “The Right Stuff” that pushes them to succeed & a natural compatibility with the duties of the position. They work hard - exceed expectations - do more than asked - achieve high quality consistent results – receive above average Customer Satisfaction Ratings - can always be counted upon - need little direction - and work extremely well with everyone.

(Average) CSRs perform their duties adequately enough “to get by” - but no better. They are the partially competent. Generally they’re strong from a Typing Speed & Accuracy and Windows Literacy standpoint - but are missing a key ingredient or two from a Soft Skills/Customer Empathy/Job Fit standpoint.

(Below Average) CSRs are the people who just don’t fit somehow – and who don’t deliver value when it comes to the kind of service your customers expect. Sometimes they’re good people in the wrong jobs. They need extra coaching, training & supervision just to achieve below average results. Often they cause unnecessary conflict. (Below Average) CSRs have the Lowest Training Pass Rates, Highest Levels of Absenteeism, Lowest Levels of Productivity, Poorest Performance & Customer Satisfaction Ratings, and they generally have a Negative Impact on Call Center Team Morale. They represent the real problems in a Contact Center workforce.

While (Average) & (Below Average) CSRs may seem fully qualified at the Interview Stage – they’re a Poor Job Fit – the cost of hiring them is enormous – with little value add to an organization– and a negative impact on Service Levels, Customer Satisfaction, and Brand Reputation.

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

You mentioned that the concept of customer service is a new one for the people you're training. One simple technique that can help them embrace a mindset of service is this: Ask them to think about their own experiences as a customer--in person, on the phone, over the Web, etc. What have they learned about service from their own experiences (good and bad)? What are the specific skills that make the encounter a pleasant one? What practices made a bad impression? And so on.

By making it about them, you'll get the learners to be engaged and reflective. From here, they can begin to create their own mission as a provider of customer service--how do they want to be seen by customers, what type of service do they want to provide, what will give them a sense of pride and satisfaction in their work, etc.

Customer service is an intrinsically rewarding profession; simply put, it feels good to be helpful to another person. Once your traineess understand this, they'll be inspired to, as you state, "show compassion"--and a lot of other qualities and characteristics as well.

I regularly train Impact Learning's Getting to the Heart of Customer Service http://bit.ly/9go5Gh, and the simple activity outlined above is a great way to start the session