Tips on managing performance in a contact center?

Congratulation! I am going to go a different route. Concentrate on getting the most of the people you manage and you learn to manage first. Getting the people to make their KPIs (no matter what you use) will fall into place. Think back on the best and worst managers you had. The best ones I bet showed interest in you as a person and the worst were simply number pushers.

Starting off, keep things simple. You will be overloaded and removing necessary complexities will help you get through.

Good Luck.

Make customer satisfaction your barometer. I am a customer. We all are. And from cell phones, and laptops, to mutual funds and automobiles, we keep in mind our options at all times. Any major provider of any major or commercial product has spent millions on CRM. That's a given in big business. Vendors will see to that. So do shareholders. But remember the last time that you called your cell phone provider, or checked on your mutual fund portfolio, or your health insurance coverage for yourself or the company you represent. In each instance, it's the representative that we remember who reflected the integrity, knowledge, common sense, and willingness of the provider. Over time it adds up. Many of the companies we have come to love or hate, ironically have many of the same CRM systems, providers and consultants, but companies make the difference in their culture and attention to customer experience at the front line with the people who touch the customer - and it shows. And we, as customers, react to it accordingly in our future choices of where we do business.

Hi Kristen,

In my opinion, it's all about motivation. More importantly, self-motivation. People need to feel empowered and self-directed. Managing isn't about "carrots" or "sticks" - it's about enabling your employees.

Here's a great YouTube clip that summarizes Drive by Daniel Pink.

http://goo.gl/o5kO

Good luck in your new role!

Bryan

PS - Feel free to contact me if you ever want to bounce around a few ideas.

Kristen,

I'm a management consultant based in Australia. I've worked with over 50 contact centres in 10 different countries. I primarily either help managers improve the performance of their contact centre operations (including agents), or provide training on how to do so.

The client engagements I handle usually run for up to 18 months and the training courses I run are generally for 5 days. So, there are so many tips I could provide that I honestly wouldn't be doing justice to just give you one or two.

For now, if you're interested, you can download a copy of the COPC-2000® CSP standard, which includes over 400 best practices, benchmarks and metrics, for use in your contact centre. Its free, at our website, http://www.copc.com/standards.aspx .

The standard itself has been developed over 15 years in conjunction with hundreds of contact centres COPC Inc. has worked with spanning more than 70 countries around the world, so you can have faith that the information contained within will be helpful to you.

Good luck in your endeavours!

Luke Fowler
Associate, COPC Inc.
australia@copc.com

The biggest mistake made when managing performance in any contact center is not first knowing the center's "Current Reality". Knowing what you don't know will enable better decisions, planning and prioritization, reduce risk of failed programs, initiatives or decisions, and help save money, employees and jobs. For more information see: http://www.neurametrics.com/contactcenterproduct.html

Congratulations or condolenses on your promotion, whichever you feel is more appropriate. Seriously managing a call center can be one of the hardest jobs in the world. Many centers were not designed, but rather evolved over time without a masterplan or a strategy. Often these same centers have not applied rigor to the process of staff selection nor staff promotion. The result can be a center where the single biggest asset and indicator of operational success, the ability to manage, being absent. This can make the job of the manager very difficult indeed.

So job one is to assess your supervisory and leadership staff compare their skills and capabilities and contrast these with the job functions and activities. Once you have completed the assessment and know which or your line staff can complete their duties, you can look at the actual operation of the center.

Once you have completed the above you can then examine the oprations. This is done by examining the 'thousand moving parts' of any call or contact center and 'bucketing' these elements under:
People.- Recruiting, hiring, career path, quality, rewards & Recognition
Process- Map all processes in the center as well as those that begin or end elsewhere
Technology- Assess the capabilities of the technology to optimize processes- are there better technology fits
Methodology- what you measure, KPI's etc as well as what you do with them.

With your results in hand ask yourself-Are our proceses causing us to fail and Is the call aligned to support our corporate objectives. The answers to these questions will help you to focus your attention over the next weeks and months.

If you complete the above exercises you will be well equipped to manage you center moving forward.

Hi Kristen. Here's a link to an article I wrote a couple years back for Call Center Magazine titled "Measuring the Metrics that Matter". The article was quite popular (still is!); hopefully it will provide you with the valuable info you need.

http://bit.ly/dezsiR

Please note that I am currently writing a comprehensive ebook in which I discuss in detail metrics/performance measurement, along with agent engagement and retention (among other topics). The ebook is due out this fall -- visit www.greglevin.com for more info on it, and to sign up for my weekly blog.

All the best,

Greg Levin
www.greglevin.com
greg@greglevin.com

Understand the functions you will be responsible for (Operations, Client, Training, Quality, Project Mgt, MIS, IT, Compliance etc), break them down & plan delivery, however, performance management (service delivery) will always remain the focus. Example:-

Operations Mgt: Key result areas may be Quality & productivity.

Develop a performance Mgt plan...

Quality might include C-SAT, Monitoring, Coaching, Training, Errors, Returns etc.
C-SAT might require a 6 Sigma green belt project to identify root cause of failure...develop, implement & enhance performance & introduce controls. Communication & Biz intergrity while on calls will require monitoring, improvement & action plans, where required.

Productivity might require some of the above & creative personalized plans, especially for under achievers.

Staff supporting this will require the skills, data driven approach & one on one mgt VS managing the entire team by cascades/meetings etc.

The following will also be required:

1. Leadership: This is the ability to influence VS a manager getting tasks accomplished

2. Values: Company & self, cascading these helps manage employee performance & behavior. Example: Integrity might cover employees consistently contributing towards company's goals/vision by virtue of employment agreement.

3. Prerequisites for effective team mgt: Objectivity, consistency & transparency in mgt & never deal with the employee, deal with the employee's issue/s.

Important: While coaching/mentoring team members, get them to do the talking, facilitate the decision making process (including identifying options) of the desired result/action. A technique called TED works well here..."Tell", "Explain" & "Describe", you simply ask the employee to Tell you what you want them to know or facilitate its identification, get the employee to Explain the actual action/behavior vs the desired, let them Describe to you if they seek improvement & what specific improvement, get them to Describe the importance of setting a target date/time/plan to achieve the desired result - get them to summaries the meeting. This is a process to get the employee to Introspect!

DO NOT: (1) Compare employees, use benchmarks set for individuals/team (2) Initiate an appraisal process without planing (you & the employee plans), share data, date, time, venue, last appraisal goals, etc. Use TED ! (3) Introduce changes in teams common goals without advance notice/consent.

OPI suggested above works well, Minitab-a 6 sigma tool helps track consistency/inconsistency in performance of individual's/team on all metrics, great tool!, Assigning weights to metrics based on biz needs, Johari window is good, develop a document to manage GOS (SLA) using the symposium. Develop a process document/audit checklist of recurring tasks.

1 goal
1 mission
1 set of rules for all

all clearly defined

most important
3 words:
coach
counsel
train

Our call center promotes outcomes over volume. I am sure you record interations between your staff and the person on the other end of the phone. The last question they should ask (if taking incoming calls) is some version of "Are you completely satisfied with my ability to help you today?"

Then listen to a sampling of the calls. Incent for A work and B work, check in with those producing C work regularly and put those with D work on a short leash.

Incentives for A work should simply be double what B work staffers would get.

Make sure that your staff asking this question is at the top of your quality check list.