We founded a program based on the following idea:

Desire + Concept = Implementation

Call Center management has to have an interest, build the platform and execute. Here’s what we advise your management team to do right away:

1. Desire must exist for a concept to materialize. Yet if managers, supervisors and agents don’t have initiative, nothing is going to happen. So the desire to build a great call center and a concept of how a great call center operates don’t get off the ground without collaborative initiative.
2. Call center managers have a desire to create something better than what currently exists.
3. In our experience, most management teams lack the correct concepts to create the best call center possible. We’ve found that agents, when allowed to be creative problem solvers often come up with the best concepts for improvement and design.
4. A lot of great programs don’t get off the ground or implemented well because of a lack of initiative. The implementation stage offers the most challenges, anyone can come up with good ideas, and most everyone desires to improve their performance or grow their paycheck, but the building of a powerful contact center generally dies because the initiative to make it happen wilts. We have found that the inability to maintain initiative is the foremost reason why call centers fail to create a performance-based communication culture.

What to do? What to do? We encourage you to blend desire + concept = implementation.

1. Find up to 5 initiatives that need completion
2. Spec out how to complete them, from A-Z, the entire concept from idea to execution
3. Rally the troops, find the champions for each initiative, the people who won’t rest until it’s done
4. Implement the program based on an end-goal timeline.

For more on this topic, read our new white paper “Take Concepts and Bring Them to Life in your Call Center”.

That being said, there are a series of pressing questions every organization is asking (or should be asking); if your trainers aren’t nudging you with these questions, you’re wasting your training dollars.

Question 1: How is your organization or department handling the evolution of training at work?

Question 2: Are you seeing or experiencing the shift away from traditional Instructor Led Training (ILT) to Elearning and Mlearning (mobile (device) learning)?

Question 3: Are you creating formal and informal learning opportunities? (The terms’ formal’ and ‘informal’ learning have nothing to do with the formality of the learning, but rather with the direction of who controls the learning objectives and goals. In a formal learning environment the training or learning department sets the goals and objectives, while informal learning means the learner sets the goals and objective.)

Research you need to know about that drives our leading-edge training design and delivery shows that

• About 70% of learning is provided through the use of challenging assignments and on-the-job experiences. (Informal)
• About 20% of learning is developed through relationships, networks and feedback. (Informal)
• About 10% of the learning is delivered via training processes. (Formal)

My advice? Look at your standard training program and start chopping it up into little, itty, bitty pieces that can be repurposed into informal learning structures. Let me know if you need any help!

Call Center Agents

1. Recognize that first-level supervisors have little decision-making capability.
2. Expect their compensation to change for the worse.
3. Desire a comfortable, appealing workspace
4. Want to work somewhere that has a proven track record
5. Want growth and adaptability
6. Want fair resolutions to disagreements
7. Want ongoing, high quality training
8. Hope their managers will act prudently, not just react to situations
9. Want fair, empathic managers

What you can do about it

1. Create committees or teams to address agents’ concerns. Volunteer-based training teams, compensation teams, and quality scores teams will help surface issues and ensure communication.
2. Encourage and create a communication process for agents to express their concerns or offer suggestions. Use web-forms and anonymous email addresses to solicit comments and feedback. Just because you ask for feedback and suggestions doesn’t mean you’re going to act on every suggestion. Make sure your people understand that. But truly listening to people and keeping your finger on the pulse goes a long way toward employee engagement.
3. Use focus groups and roundtables to dig deeper into subjects that require attention. Invite selected agents to meet and talk; give them a forum.
4. Do surveys. Use the web and traditional survey formats to get inside your agents’ heads. You need to know what they’re thinking and feeling.

Training has to be more important than that. In fact, according to 2011 training industry data, organizations spent $171.5 billion – almost $46 billion more than in 2009 – on employee learning and development in 2010. But no matter how many billions are dedicated to training, only by linking learning initiatives to company goals and strategies will those dollars translate into sustainability, which is a strong competitive advantage for all organizations.

What value does the learning function provide the business? When learning is tightly aligned with the business’s priorities, both the learning team and stakeholders can readily articulate the learning function’s value proposition.

So try this exercise with your C-level executives and front line managers. Ask them the question, “What value does the learning function provide the business?” Or use your own language to ask the question; every organization is different. Make it a conversation, heck – take somebody out for lunch and have an actual discussion. Can you get everyone to agree on the value that the learning function provides the business?

After you get your feedback you have to go into marketing mode. Depending on how many people agree on the value that training provides, you’ll have your work cut out for you. You either have to get others on board, or you may have to change perception. In either case, start by crafting a succinct message that says exactly how the training / learning function contributes to the call center business. Use real language and examples call center supervisors relate to. The first step to showing the value of a call center training program is to create a program that has organizational value. More on that soon…

I mentioned Kirkpatrick www.kirkpatrickpartners.com
below. They’re the kings of training evaluation; they’ve been the industry
standard since the late 50s. Trainers HAVE to understand their approach. One pearl
of theirs: begin with the end in mind. Know what training outcomes you want
before you design the training. So often trainers want to jump in and start
creating training.

For training to be effective, i.e. something the Cs are
willing to pay for*,   you have to be able to prove it’s working, for
us when training works, the 3 Ps – people productivity profit – grow.

Thanks to the current uber-productive Kirkpatrick Jr. and
his cheerleading wife, no one has to struggle to figure out how to effectively
measure training. They share their free resource library which includes Power
Points, recorded webinars, hours of reading material, provided you follow a few
simple guidelines. Register at www.kirkpatrickpartners.com
to access all of their resources, which they are INCREDIBLY generous to
provide. I fell in love with their Hybrid Course Evaluation Form. It’s
absolutely brilliant and perfect and is making me look good. Great resource. Let
me know what you think of it.

BOOK CLUB READING FOR JAN/FEB Kirkpatrick’s Transferring
Learning to Behavior This book takes on this age-old challenge, first examining
why learned concepts don’t make it into practice, then offering solutions that
will work in the real world. Co-author James Kirkpatrick, a training
practitioner, introduces five prerequisites that help an organization achieve
ultimate training success. He includes practical examples from his own work,
plus 12 best-practice case studies.

]]> http://callcentertoday.com/contactcenterblog/2012/01/19/learning-2012/feed/ 0 http://callcentertoday.com/contactcenterblog/2011/12/21/agents-want-clear-rules-they-deserve-them-too-2/ http://callcentertoday.com/contactcenterblog/2011/12/21/agents-want-clear-rules-they-deserve-them-too-2/#comments Wed, 21 Dec 2011 02:01:12 +0000 The Contact Center Express http://callcentertoday.com/contactcenterblog/?p=242 Agents want clear, explicit, fair rules to guide their performance. For management the hardest part of laying the ground rules is that the rules may not be clear to the people who actually work with them: the agents. To clarify the rules, hold meetings, send emails, make posters, etc. You can’t over communicate when the rules are new. All channels of communication must be open so there is NO ambiguity in terms of expectations. It is also important that management regularly asks for questions and use good communication techniques like paraphrasing and mirroring to check for understanding. Regularly asking “Am I being clear?” is a good habit to get into when you’re rolling out new rules. Management must also leave their doors open to future questions should complications arise.

In addition to clear rules, it also must be clear to agents who will answer their questions, and address their problems and concerns. In most call centers, agents report to a supervisor. If the supervisor is out on a particular day, who will they be referred to? It’s imporant that agents communicate clearly with their floor supervisors, and not skip to the upper echelons of managmeent. The reason call centers implement a chain of command is to allow time and space for everyone to do their jobs. A supervisor’s job is to manage his or her call center team. Upper management then manages the supervisors. This is how the channel of communication works and agents must be clear on this point.

Call Center Today is often asked to improve call center staff performance. When we analyze any given situation in which the employee is “underperforming” there are often additional circumstances that contribute to underperformance. Corporate resources and support are important factors, as are follow through and manager involvement. In other words, it’s not always the employee’s “fault”.

To design the right performance improvement solution, it’s important to implement a training needs analysis first. If you skip the preliminary analysis and jump directly into a training solution, you will be left wondering why your training didn’t fix the problem or improve performance, etc.

Training Needs Analysis doesn’t always have to be a formal, extensive process. But some time must be dedicated to analyzing the resources and support learners have. Also a clear understanding of the training objectives is critical. Before you even prescribe a training solution, are you sure that you know the exact outcome you’re looking for? How will you know whether your training is successful unless you know exactly what attitude, skill, knowledge or behavior you’re training for? Your thoughts??

The process, of course, starts with the management team.  So below, Call Center Today has compiled the key avenues that managers need to explore in order to craft the right outbound telephone strategy.  In turn, these are the programs which makes agents spectacular in outbound telephone selling.  For decades, business has been initiated, fostered, even completed, on the telephone.  Here are keys from the call center managers side of things – how the call center managers need to approach the process.

1.   Scripting

2.  Sales / Service Effectiveness Training

3.  Influence from Team Managers – Perception of Accomplishment

4.  The Strategy to Outbound:  Hunters and Nurturers 

5.  The Learning Academy

6.  Compensation Plan  

7.  Understanding Data and the audience

8.  Developing a touch program to manage customers and prospects more efficiently

9.  The quality program – understanding customer and agent behaviors and training to improve

10.  Hiring the right agents and on-boarding them well

On-going blog postings will profile each of these 10 programs.  Imagine that each program is a “bucket” all its own.  And in the bucket are dozens of platforms, programs, training modules, ideas, and benchmarks to make that program in the bucket successful. In particular, how you hire agents, manage them, train them and teach call center agents to enjoy the relationship with customers in the outbound sales environment is critical. It is as much about the process of engagement on the phone as it is about the process of completing a telephone sales.

For more information, or to discuss consulting programs with Call Center Today, email us at Training@CallCenterToday.com. Or visit us at www.CallCenterToday.com.  Or call 888-835-5326 x111.

I remind them that technology is a learned skill and reiterate that if management wanted technically proficient artists, they would have hired from the IT or MIS departments. I stress that agents have the tendency to panic over the challenges of technology, thereby failing to learn the programs at hand.

After I have explained the technological basics to my agents, and provided them with a reference manual regarding these tools, I then advise them to concentrate on the other, more important aspects of the job.

All managers should spend some time, on the first day of training, reviewing and summarizing the technology to be used in the call center environment. To fail to do so is to leave agents in a state of paralysis.  However, managers must always remember to never lose sight of the skills that actually lead to success on the telephone. Use your technology.  Cultivate your human capital. Human Capital is the reason call center agents have been hired in the first place.

New agents should focus on the core aspects of the job that they will be performing day-in and day-out (not fretting about the technology they’ll be using).  Some of the aspects of the job warranting particular emphasis are:

1.                 Has the agent learned the characteristics of the product?

2.                 Is the agent ready to successfully communicate with customers and sell the product over the telephone?

3.                 Does the agent have the potential to become a well-rounded, positive employee?

4.                 Will the agent contribute to the well-being and success of the call center or department?

5.                 Does the agent understand the standards he is expected to meet?