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Top Five Secrets of Vendor Management

Today’s economy is vastly different from that of the past, and it requires an increased attention to building and maintaining meaningful and mutually beneficial relationships. Not only do you need to build relationships with your customer base, but you should also make every effort to create strong relationships with your vendors. Here are a few tips to help you get started with ideal vendor management. The Relationship Is Everything When working on building trust between your company and the supplier, make sure to be completely open, honest, and professional. There is simply no room for anything else in supplier relationships. By listening to your suppliers’ concerns and keeping them involved in your process, you’ll increase your chance of strengthening your relationship and keeping your supplier around for the long haul. Identify Weaknesses In order to continue to grow as a company, you must be able to take a careful look at your successes and weaknesses. Work with your supplier and regularly evaluate the supplier data to pinpoint weaknesses in both companies. By doing this, you’ll both be able to improve your businesses, and together, you’ll be stronger. Build a Partnership Call center vendor management relies upon a partnership with your suppliers. When you treat your suppliers like the valuable partners they are, both parties will benefit. Benefits from creating a strong partnership include a willingness to collaborate, higher quality outcomes, dependability, and reduced costs. Increased Opportunities If you’re hoping for financial prosperity, you’re most likely to achieve this when you have a relationship with your vendors. Supplier relationship management often results in lower risks, higher efficiency, and increased financial benefit for all parties. All businesses tend to thrive when there’s a collaborative effort on all accounts, from managers, to employees, to suppliers. Do your best to connect and maintain positive relationships with everyone you work with, and you’re on your way to a successful business. Use the Technology Available Technology is evolving quickly, and there are many different systems you can use to simplify the process. SRM technology can be extremely helpful to both your company and the supplier, as valuable information is at your fingertips in an easy to digest presentation. With the data you need just a click away, make sure to routinely analyze this information to get the most out of supplier relationships. By utilizing the technology available to you, you’ll be able to keep your communication with suppliers strong and continually evolve your business to improve upon weak areas.

7 Incorrect Ways of Call Quality Monitoring

Keeping your customer service quality at the top of its game is an important tool for your company’s continued growth. This truth drives the central purpose of call quality monitoring, which is to ensure that customers get what they need in an accessible, professional way every time they call. Maintaining this standard is about more than just developing quality assurance evaluation criteria that work for your customers. It is also about making sure you avoid these seven major missteps that take your call quality in the wrong direction. Monitoring Only Agents IVR systems are a major point of customer dissatisfaction in a lot of situations where call centers wind up getting less than stellar reviews. By monitoring when customers opt out of the IVR system, when they hang up, and how they use it to complete their calls without needing an agent, you are able to build a better idea of how it is working for you, and eventually a better system. Without that information, you will never even know if your IVR is the problem. Failing to Provide Training and Support The entire purpose of call quality monitoring is defeated if employees receive ratings and feedback but not training and support to effect change. If you want to see real results from your quality team, they need to use feedback as a pivot, moving from issues into direct strategies employees can use to be successful. Yes/No Evaluation Criteria Just like a failure to provide training, a failure to provide nuanced feedback really keeps employees from following through on quality goals and improvements, because it doesn’t provide them with the information they need to successfully navigate the situation. Failing to Get Agents on Your Side Your quality program is only as good as its support within the department. If agents view quality feedback as policing, or as unproductive, then they tend not to follow through with the steps needed to grow and to attain the objectives that define the purpose of call quality monitoring. This means that in a situation where you do not have the backing of the agents, it is likely that quality assurance is not working at all. Individualized Interpretation of Guidelines This is an issue for any organization, but if you hold regular calibration sessions, it does not need to be. Most employees will do their best with guidelines and instructions, but only by reviewing the expectations together in an environment that allows for questions to be asked and clarification given can you be sure everyone is understanding the goals and procedures in the same way. Being Secretive Your best results are obtained when employees understand how and why they are being evaluated, as well as what to do with the information they receive. By being secretive about sampling, monitoring, or any other aspect of your ongoing evaluations, you only work against your own objectives. Failing to Reward Staff for Improved Satisfaction Last but not least, quality programs fall apart when staff does not feel invested in quality. That means that when your program starts to reach its objectives, you reward the agents and other staff involved in making it to this new benchmark. By steering clear of these seven wrong ways to do quality monitoring, you begin to carve a path toward a sustainable, consistently improving quality program. This blog was first published on LinkedIn.

Enhance Call Center Productivity With HR Involvement

If you run a call center, your main focus is probably on efficiency at all costs. Of course, call centers rely on efficiency to gain the best results, but you might be surprised by how to attain a high level of efficiency from employees. Improve Employee Morale Call centers are notorious for producing unhappy employees, and in turn, productivity suffers. Some call centers attempt to break the cycle of disinterested employees by implementing a rewards system for placing more calls. However, this often backfires, as the pressure to make more calls increases and the employees actually end up feeling more discouraged than before. While incentives have the potential to work well, bringing in a strong HR team to a call center environment has a much bigger chance to have a positive result on employees. Create Happy Staff The ultimate goal of HR in any company is to create a work environment that both employees and employers can feel comfortable in. Without a qualified and experienced HR team in place, it’s likely that your workplace will suffer. It’s essential that every employee be treated fairly as a valued member of the team to keep call center productivity high. In call centers, it’s easy for these employees to simply feel like a cog in the machine. This leads to a drop in meaningful work, and the final result is a blow to the company as a whole. If your main priority is keeping your employees happy, take the steps toward hiring an HR team to help you reach your goals. Change Your Business to Reflect Customer Needs As customers continue to enjoy engagement with companies, call centers are wise to change their policies to reflect this desire. In order for employees to be effective in all channels of communication, HR should step in to provide training and guidance. When every employee is confident in his or her abilities and is excited about the work, your business will thrive. Act Quickly If you do not currently have an HR team for your call center, consider starting the process to hire an HR leader immediately. However, be sure to take some time to conduct a bit of research on what to look for in HR professionals before hiring. For best results, consider applicants with previous experience in HR, or those with HR or communications degrees. Once you add a team of HR professionals to your workplace, it’s likely that you’ll notice a change in call center employee engagement.

3 Ways to Create Authentic and Relevant Connection with Your Team

In order to have an authentic connection with people at your workplace, you need to show a certain level of vulnerability. Your leadership journey should start with a Leadership Point of View. Wickline describes this in an August issue of Blanchard Ignite as a story about, “. . .the people and events that have shaped who you are. It also speaks to your values, your beliefs and what drives you as a leader.” This is not always easy. Many people find opening up to be scary and emotional. Wickline suggests a couple of first steps to get you started on your journey. Take Time to Reflect Look back on where you’ve been and how you gained your current perspectives and values. Your past is part of your leadership journey as well as your present. Reflecting back gives you a lot on insight into who you are now. Even Wickline gained value from this exercise. “When I started working on my Leadership Point of View, I had to think long and hard about my current attitudes and how they came to be. For example, when somebody tells me I can’t do something, I immediately fight against that and do whatever it takes to prove them wrong. Where on earth did that come from?” Tell A Story Many times reflecting back will bring to light stories. Stories help you connect with people. An employee relationship is easy to build when you present your authentic self through these successes and failures. Wickline expounds on the importance of stories: “People remember stories. If I just say, ‘Here is a list of things I think are important,’ people won’t remember that. But when I tell stories about experiences I’ve had or share something I learned from my mom or dad, it makes a connection.” Creating a Deeper Connection As you open up to people, they will start responding to you. A leader is more than just a boss. A leader is someone you respect and want to follow. Through your stories you allow people to connect with you in a more meaningful way. Your leadership experience helps guide others in their own journey. Good things to share include life events that have shaped you, people who have influenced you and everyday happenings that keep you motivated. Wickline shares the benefits of this process by saying, “People who put the time and energy into this process consistently look back on the experience as something that helped them rediscover the values and beliefs they hold dear. Sharing your story with your team creates a deep connection.” So don’t be afraid to share a bit of yourself and allow yourself to be vulnerable every now and then.

Is Your Call Calibration Integrated to QA Scoring and Coaching?

During a call center interaction between a representative and customer, a third participant sometimes monitors the call to ensure quality. This is called call calibration, and it is a very effective way to ensure that the quality of your customer service remains high. Businesses score the quality of the call using the call quality guidelines and quality monitoring form to provide representatives with feedback. If there is a problem with your call calibration, it will inevitably lead to customer service issues. Read the information below to determine if your call calibration is properly integrated with your coaching and scoring technique. The Benefits of a Uniform Approach Your calibration sessions will only be helpful if everyone has agreed to adhere to a single set of standards and objectives. If all participants have not agreed, there will be no uniform scoring method. It can take a while for your workers to adjust to a uniform set of guidelines, but once they do, your calibration sessions will allow you to enjoy the following benefits. Calls are measure consistently, regardless of which calibration professional scores it. Call monitors understand how to properly evaluate calls and adhere to performance standards and objectives. Representatives or agents receive fast, consistent feedback regardless of which QA monitor issues it. Calls are evaluated uniformly by all supervisors and QA monitors. Coaching improves because everyone is on the same page and uses the same approach. Tips for Successful Calibration Sessions There are numerous ways to ensure that your call calibration sessions are successful, including the following. Classify the nature of your calls, and select them according to your own QA needs. Devote at least one hour to each calibration session. If you need to determine which participants need coaching, send a copy of the recorded call to a QA monitor, and have them score it prior to the session independently. Record these independent scores for your own records. Have a single person give a summary of the call. Discuss variations in scores and review objectives with participants. Once a call is scored, ask the scorer for an explanation. Summarize lessons learned at the end of each session. Help each member understand whether or not they met the standards, and review the standards after each discussion. Take notes for future reference and for your own records. Prior to each session, go over the Call Quality Guide. Scores may vary, but you should always set an acceptable variance standard. Once the participants get used to the new guide, you can lower the window of variance to five points or less. If you are utilizing recorded calls, you may want to post the scores so that any variance will stand out. If you prefer to utilize live calls, you can have the participants score them one at a time. Just be sure that you go over the results with each scorer. Review the guide with participants before the start of each calibration session. Following the tips above will help you make the most of your calibration sessions. It will also ensure that the participants have a non-confrontational and supportive environment to voice their opinions and concerns in. This blog was first published on LinkedIn.

Call Center: Myths Vs Reality

There are a lot of misconceptions when it comes to call centers and how people perceive them. They don’t often realize how drastically call centers have changed over the years. Thanks to constant advancements in technology, call centers are transforming the way they do business and deal with customers. Here are three common myths associated with call centers. Contact centers are “cost centers” not revenue generators One common misconception is that contact centers are simply cost centers as opposed to revenue generators. The customer service experience is a top priority. A satisfied and happy customer is far more likely to recommend a company than someone who is dissatisfied. This makes creating a positive experience for the customers absolutely crucial. There is tremendous emphasis on providing quality service which translates into positive promotion and a higher potential for more leads, more customers, and ultimately more revenue. Customers don’t use the phone for support anymore This is one of the biggest myths out there. Customers mostly prefer to speak to agents over the phone, according to research, to resolve complicated issues. The telephone is a great way to connect and get questions or problems solved in a timely manner. Often times customers have to switch from web to phones to get their questions answered. It is much easier to clarify a point when you are able to articulate it. Call center managers are only concerned with cost-per-call and chat-bots are replacing humans Although cost-per-call remains extremely important, customer satisfaction and the quality of service are now the priorities. It is how companies are differentiating themselves from the competition, and new development metrics have been put in place to measure those areas. It is also often believed that chat-bots will completely replace humans in the contact center. This is definitely a myth as that personalized interaction is the foundation of good service. Humans will continue to answer questions and support customers and will always remain critical components of call centers because the value of human interactions is priceless. Don’t get me wrong, bots can be beneficial because they can eliminate the need for agents to have to answer the same questions time and time again, but the critical and complex situations require that agents are always readily available. A lot misconceptions will continue to arise as our technology continues to evolve. Human interaction, however, will always be an integral part of the contact center industry. As bots become more apparent their use will continue to serve as a way to answer quick, easy and frequently asked questions. This will allow the agents to do more to positively influence the customer experience… A personalized, human, experience.

How to Avoid Frustration and Still Lead with Patience

Leaders are often tasked with dealing with several different personality types, some of whom are difficult to cope with. However, even in the most trying situations when working with difficult people in the office, it is important to maintain a sense of decorum. Part of that decorum is knowing how to avoid frustration and still lead with patience. A working knowledge of the different personality types can help effective leaders with employee grievance handling and enable them to avoid conflict and improve overall workplace productivity. Though there are many types of difficult people in workplace, the five most common types that leaders will have to handle typically fall into these categories: the bully, the gossip, the narcissist, the naysayer and the passive aggressive type. While each of these personalities have their shortcomings, each of the negative traits they display can be turned into positives with patience and perseverance. From a leader’s perspective, a way to turn negative behavior into a positive experience is to remember to stay focused on the specific goal that is trying to be obtained. One key to neutralizing the negative behavior in the workplace is to actually include the person in the conversation. Even the most hostile negative behaviors can be neutralized when attention to the task at hand is prevalence. Regardless of the type of worker encountered at work, a true leader knows how to handle confrontations in the workplace, and in many cases, is able to diffuse the negative traits of many personality types. Another key to neutralizing negative behavior is following Franklin Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. One of these habits involves an internal shifting of attitudes toward people with problem behavior. Called a paradigm shift, this approach often allows leaders to gain a better understanding of an employee’s reason for the negative behavior. Many will think acknowledging negative behavior is counterproductive. However, leaders who keep the goal of a meeting in mind know that negative behavior is often a manifestation of frustration on the part of the employee who feels unheard or undervalued. The simple act of listening to an employee and encouraging participation can not only alter the course of a company, but also the negative behaviors. The leader who know how to avoid frustration and still lead with patience can gain not only the confidence of those he or she leads, but can also bring out the best qualities in employees who sometimes exhibit the worst traits.

How to Boost Call Center Quality

Your call center is the first point of contact customers have with your company, and your customers will form an opinion of you based on the quality of your call center team. Therefore, the importance of maintaining the highest standards of call center quality assurance cannot be overemphasized. The goal of every call center should be constant improvement. A contact center quality monitoring system can help you achieve this goal, but is most effective when combined with these additional strategies for boosting call center quality assurance. Have a Quality Goal in Mind If you aren’t working towards a concrete goal, you might as well be grasping at straws. The key to growth and constant improvement is to have a clear goal of the quality standards you want every agent to adhere to. This goal should be a minimum requirement and should be achievable without being too easy to obtain. When setting your quality goals, keep every aspect of the customer interaction process in mind. For example, you should aim to have separate, distinct goals for each of the following areas: Sales Customer support Problem resolution Follow-up Feedback If your team does not know what is expected from them during each stage of the customer interaction process, it will be difficult for them to maintain a sharp, goal-driven focus. It is important to understand that no call center team can achieve perfection, but perfection is the very goal they should be striving for individually and collectively. Reaching for the stars ensures that they still come out on top even if they fall slightly short of their goal. Utilize Technology If you don’t provide your call center managers with sufficient technology to monitor their progress and shortcomings, you are setting them up for failure. The best call center quality assurance programs are typically those that include call tracking, accounting and recording technology. Rely on your managers to decide what type of technological systems will best help them accomplish their goals and identify weaknesses and strengths with ease. Keep Track of KPIs and Metrics Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and metrics are invaluable tools that should be tracked and analyzed religiously. These tools can reveal invaluable information including average call handling time, call resolution rates and more. If you are not currently keeping track of your KPIs and Metrics, you have no way to measure your weaknesses or the improvements that your team makes. Rather than using the information gleaned from your metrics to punish your team or impose additional rules on them, use them as an opportunity to show your team what areas have room for improvement. Showing the data to your team and helping them come up with call quality procedures and goals will help them take pride and ownership in their roles. Improving call center quality assurance is one of the most important things you can do for the benefit of your company and the improvement of your employee morale. When your employees know they are giving their best, they are more likely to take pride in their work and treat customers the way they should be treated. This blog was first published on LinkedIn.

Four Vendor Management Tips to Make Outsourcing a Win-Win Venture

Outsourcing has been responsible for the success of many companies, but how do you make it work for you? If you want outsourcing to be a win-win venture, there has to be an effort from both parties. The exceptional success that you’re capable of seeing has everything to do with the way that you manage a vendor. Here are four tips on how to see real success. Share Ideas With Vendors If you want to strengthen the relationship that you have with an outsourcing provider, make sure that you share information that would help with service. For example, if you have an offshore marketing representative, then telling them about new product designs might be beneficial. Trust is a staple of any business relationship. If you are open and honest about your ideas, it will give them the opportunity to offer better service and to reach your goals. Collaborate With Vendors When you choose a vendor to perform a major business function for your company, you clearly trust in their expertise. With that type of trust, there’s no reason not to let them in on strategy meetings. In fact, their team might be able to come up with fresh strategies. There’s a competitive edge that allowing your vendors to strategize with you brings to the table. Commitment With Vendors One of the top tips that you can be given is to make sure that there is mutual commitment. Both parties want to succeed, so it makes sense to work together to reach the goal. With your outsourced vendor, you should expect the commitment to delivering the best service possible. Likewise, they are expecting a level of commitment out of you. In order to make sure that you get the best service possible, make sure that you’re paying your fees and providing the correct information and materials necessary to see the goal come into fruition. Mutual Benefits With Vendors Call center vendor management requires that you have a contract that is mutually beneficial for you and the vendor in question. It’s important to look at the points that will affect both parties and help them to achieve their goals. It’s important that no matter what negotiations you’re in that you make sure that everyone is benefited. Don’t let anyone tell you that outsourcing can’t be successful. You can see incredible results that will benefit you and your vendors. In order to make the most out of your business relationship, follow these tips. It can be a win for both parties.

8 Objectives of Quality Monitoring

Your quality program for customer service is the main way your company directly interacts with customers, and that makes it a key component in your strategies to retain customers and to convert first time purchasers into repeat business. This puts a lot of stress on the program, especially if your organization has any questions about the role of quality monitoring. Ensuring that your employees understand your quality monitoring objectives and the overall impact that they have on the company means getting better responses to feedback and better returns on your quality improvement gestures. Individualizing Forms and Procedures The first quality objective should be to move the customer service personnel away from a “one size fits all” method of responding to customer concerns. That means understanding the variety of concerns customers have, as well as using quality monitoring to address any issues with understanding different customer needs and concerns. Keeping Forms Up to Date Your forms and procedures also stop working at the point where they no longer reflect either your customers’ experience or your offerings. Unfortunately, it can take some time for outdated forms and procedures to work themselves out naturally. This is where quality monitoring has an opportunity to take responsibility for not only the revisions, but the proliferation of those documents after each change is made. Avoid Technology as a Cure-All It is tempting to think of technology as the eventual answer to any business challenge, but the fact is that more often than not, the real change needs to be made at the level of human implementation. That means your quality objectives should weigh both what technology is used and how it is used if you are to make the most of the role of quality monitoring in your organization. Track and Share Your Results One of the major goals of your quality team should be to get the entire department excited about quality improvement. That means sharing the results of your monitoring and making sure that everyone understands the ways that these results are used to make the entire organization better. Avoid Being Seen as the ‘Call Police’ There’s no doubt that your quality monitoring objectives include some direct and quantitative goals for your company, and that is great. Being a supportive resource for growth provides an alternative that makes it easier to build rapport and gain cooperation from all the employees in a department. Hold Periodic Calibration Sessions Just as your forms and procedures need to be updated to ensure that they are changed and detailed enough to support your customer support needs, your overall approach needs to be re-calibrated from time to time across the whole department. Use Representative Sampling Many call centers rely on small samples of their overall call volume to make decisions. One of your most important customer experience to move toward representative sampling. That way, you have the confidence of knowing that your results fit the big picture. Use What Works In the end, quality monitoring objectives are about understanding what your company needs to be successful. As you calibrate yours, keep in mind that some objectives might be lower priority for your business model than others. Throw out any that don’t work, and keep on running updates and re-calibrating your procedures until the right balance emerges. This blog was first published on LinkedIn.

Three Critical Things to Know While Leading a New Team

Good leaders are never completely satisfied. They are always reaching for higher levels of excellence, and this requires a combination of self-awareness and personal growth. Leadership can be particularly challenging when you’re transitioning to a leadership position with a new team. What are some critical things you need to know if you’re going to be successful? Always Aim for Transparency One expert on leadership takes clients and leaders through a process called Leadership Point of View, which is essentially a look back at one’s own leadership journey. Think about how you got to where you are as a leader. Where did you start? What challenges did you overcome? When you share the details of your path with your new team, it helps them to better know you as a leader and a person. If you don’t share your story up front, it could take months or even years for you and your team to reach the level of understanding that could have been achieved through a simple introductory session. On occasion, take time to ask yourself, “How well does my team know me? Is there anything I can do to become more transparent as a leader?” This may mean that you have to implement a new information sharing protocol or take a more active role in team building activities. Look for Feedback The members of your new team may hesitate to give you feedback because they fear a negative response. Take the time to ask for feedback, and do so regularly. Ask for patience from your team members, and make sure they understand that you want to work with them, not lord over them. This is particularly challenging if you’re transitioning to an environment with a different cultural understanding from your own, such as if you are leading an overseas team. Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable, and be humble enough to make adjustments. Be Committed to Growth Be willing to step outside of your comfort zone for the sake of growth. Identify what isn’t working, try out new behaviors, commit to change, and rally the support you need to accomplish your goals. You may even find it beneficial to find a coach who can help you progress in your career and personally. Don’t be discouraged if at first you don’t mesh with your new team as well as you would like to. It can take time before you adapt to them and they adapt to you. However, if you remain open to growth and change, you’ll be on the pathway to success.

How to Integrate Quality Assurance and Coaching for Success

We all know the importance of offering exceptional customer service and the countless benefits that result from doing that. Quality assurance is at the core of ensuring that your customers receive quality services. In order to fully equip customer-facing employees, coaching programs must be comprehensive. How you train your staff determines the effectiveness of the quality assurance program. The seamless integration of quality assurance and coaching processes is critical to producing sustainable success. Define the Coaching Process You need to define the exact coaching process that everyone can follow so that this process can be integrated uniformly. Depending on the particular quality assurance goal, determine how much time, on average, the coaching session should require, what points will be covered in each session, how you will monitor the progress of the agent after the coaching session, and what elements should be documented in the resulting action plan following the session. Typically, front-line managers will initiate the coaching sessions, so consult with them on the best practices and methods in addition to your other subject matter experts. It is essential to have a mutual understanding of the process for consistency of the messages passed to the representatives. As you seek their input, you will also gain buy-in to the process, particularly if it is new or requires change. Document the process, you agree to follow for future referencing purposes. Train Your Coaches In addition to involving them in the process definition, you must train the coaches in order to drive lasting performance improvement. A well-trained coach knows that the employee should be able to both identify their errors and offer possible solutions. The coaches’ role is to guide them to accurately assess the situation and articulate how they will address the area of opportunity. The invaluable skills the coaches learn during their training will go a long way in ensuring that all employees receive consistent coaching. They will understand better how powerful teamwork is and instill the same spirit into the agents, without any bias during the evaluation and coaching stages. When the leaders are well-trained they will be positioned to develop consistent behaviors that promote quality interactions with the end customer. Build Partnerships with Agents The partnership means both parties own their roles and duties towards achieving the agreed goal. When the agents understand how they contribute to the success of the QA program they will be at the center of developing an improvement strategy. Leaders need to encourage agent participation in the evaluation process for an active partnership. For instance, seek their input as you draft the evaluation forms and involve them in calibration sessions. A great leader inspires others to be the best they can. You will motivate your agents to deliver quality services by demonstrating the behaviors you wish for them to emulate so that they learn from you even when you are not actively coaching. Choose and use words that will impact their attitude. Listen carefully to them and they will listen to your advice and guidance. Create an environment conducive for effective coaching to occur. Prepare in Advance Once you have looped in the managers and customer representatives, you need to prepare them mentally regarding the upcoming coaching sessions. Failure to do so will lead to one-way communication and mediocre results. A coaching session will be most effective when the agent is free to provide input on delivering quality services, identify where they believe they went right or wrong, and possible solutions to remedy the prevailing issues. An Acknowledgment under your guidance will equip the agent to take responsibility for his or her actions and encourage effective two-way communication. Leverage Technology Technology is always your ally when it comes to integration. There are countless technology options that will make your work effortless and seamless. For example, you can develop scorecards and dashboards to reduce the time you would otherwise use for data analysis and free up time for coaching. Information can be aggregated to make it easy to understand and provide targeted direction for program remediation efforts. Following these tips will enable you to integrate quality assurance with coaching: define the process, train the coaches, build partnerships with agents, prepare in advance and leverage technology. Your business will grow and thrive when every person actively participates in the Quality Assurance program.

Are Perceptions of Power Important to Understand?

In any leadership dynamic, there is a dominant impression that is made between the leader and those who report to that leader, either directly or indirectly. A leader can sometimes be a force that appears to be larger than life and frankly, intimidating. The question every leader should be asking is, “Are perceptions of power important to understand?” The answer to this question is a resounding yes, and should be heavily considered in a leader’s vision for a company. At any given moment, a workplace has five different power dynamics in the workplace: Reward power, which can be either impersonal or personal. Reward power offers a boon for employee performance that is beneficial to the company. The impersonal reward implies a fiduciary compensation for an employee, while the personal implies favor. Coercive power, which is highly personal because it can equate to using bullying or scare tactics as motivation. This is almost always negative and should be avoided in most cases. Referent power, which is power that comes through admiration. The danger of reverent power is that it can cause a sycophantic environment where the leader may only hear pleasing news. Legitimate power, which relies on the rank or title of the position as the driving influence of power. Leaders should be cautious of merely relying only on their position as their source of power. Expert power, which is the use of power that relies on the knowledge and expertise of the leader. The danger with expert power occurs when the expertise is withheld from an employee or team. Although each of these dynamics may be present in the workplace and be employed from time to time, either individually or in tandem with one another, each also has a prescribed pratfall if not used properly or in moderation. Using any one of these dynamics improperly can lead to a lag in motivation and can decrease productivity in the workplace. Regardless of the leadership’s thoughts on how a business should be run, leaders should also understand that perception is just as important, if not more so than delivery. If an employee has expectations that do not align with either the leader’s vision or that of the team, it can have a domino effect on the productivity. Are perceptions of power important to understand? Yes, and so are the dynamics of power and becoming an effective leader. Regardless of the leadership style used, these perceptions shape the way in which a company runs.

The Importance of HR in a Contact Center

HR should play a huge role in your contact center in order for employees to achieve the best possible results. If you’re currently experiencing a high turnover of call center employees, it’s time to rethink your HR practices in order to enhance employee happiness, and in turn, increase the overall success of your call center. Employees Need HR Working in a call center is one of the most stressful jobs imaginable due to the unpredictable nature of the work. Cold calling is often difficult to contend with, as the employee is likely to be met with an annoyed or even irate person on the other end of the line. When nerves are running high, it’s likely that your business will be met with a huge turnover rate. In order to keep employees happy and relaxed, you should think carefully about the role of call center HR. A team of HR professionals should be in place to work with your employees on relaxation techniques and ways to cope with angry customers. Keep Up With The Latest Technology Your HR team should do their best to research the ever-changing technology in the BPO industry and hold regular meetings to update the employees. If there are new ways to reduce the workload of call center employees, the HR team should be able to make the entire team aware. Simple changes in technology to make the lives of employees a bit less stressful is always an excellent way to ensure a higher level of employee satisfaction and success. Properly Train Employees The role of call center HR has a much broader scope than many call center business owners and managers often realize. In addition to working with employees on a regular basis to improve coping skills in this often stressful industry, the HR team should take time to properly screen and train each employee. Since many call center employees enter this field for an immediate source of money after graduating from college, it’s wise that the HR team take time to be open and honest with each potential candidate about the nature of the job. Being honest with potential employees about what’s expected of them can help prevent high turnover and loss of revenue for the company. An experienced HR professional should be able to accurately choose candidates with the right personality and experience for the job, and their training program should give employees the skills they need to be successful in their new position.

5 Effective Ways to Measure the Quality of Your Customer Service

As every modern business knows, there is a strong correlation between success and customer service quality. If you fail to make an authentic connection with your customers, they will simply take their business elsewhere. There are numerous, simple ways to evaluate the effectiveness of your customer service approach. If you are a business owner who is interested in customer service quality monitoring, the five following quality assurance techniques below may be able to provide you with guidance. Look for Flaws or Shortcomings in Your Operation : At times, the quality of your customer service can be linked to an unnoticed flaw or shortcoming in your daily business operations. For example, if you own a restaurant, and your patrons frequently complain about not receiving their dishes on time, the issue could be traced to an incompetent server or cook. In general, remaining aware of your own weaknesses can help you constantly improve your level of customer service. Evaluate the Supply and Demand of Your Products : Supply and demand are a major component of economics and business, but did you know that this concept can also be used to evaluate the quality of your customer service. Satisfied consumers tend to purchase more products from the same company. Simply put, if you are noticing a considerable number of repeat customers or clients on a regular basis, your customer service approach is probably working. Of course, outside economic factors can be major contributors to your data, so you may want to combine this method with others in order to get the most comprehensive snapshot of customer satisfaction. Research the Competition : Many business owners neglect to research their competitors’ approach to customer service. If your competitors have an immensely higher rate of customer satisfaction, you may be able to learn from their techniques. Simply visit or call your competitors’ establishment yourself, or send an employee to see how their approach to customer service differs from yours. If you want the most reliable data, ask your competitors’ customers what they like about the company. Examine the Number of Complaints You Receive : It is impossible to satisfy every single customer, but you can use the number of complaints you receive as a measuring tool. Some people assume that if the number of irate customers decreases it means that the quality of your customer service has increased. This is a common fallacy that causes many unknowing business owners to send their disgruntled customers to a competitor. For the most accurate data, combine this method with others. Ask Customers Directly : Have you ever considered asking your customers for their opinion directly? If not, you may be missing out an opportunity to compile a massive amount of reliable data. Some business owners prefer to ask customers directly, while others encourage them to fill out surveys. If neither of these tactics sounds appealing to you, follow-up phone calls can also help you better understand customer opinions. A Step in the Right Direction If you are truly interested in improving the quality of your customer service, the five tips listed above can point you in the right direction. If you follow them, you will expand your customer base, increase revenue and develop deeper connections with existing customers. This blog was first published on LinkedIn

Five Steps That Can Help Leaders to Build Trust

Developing leadership qualities is essential for anyone running an organization, regardless of the business or activity. If the people with whom you work don’t trust you, it’s going to be nearly impossible to motivate them to achieve goals and accomplish the objectives you’ve set. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for employees to distrust their managers and supervisors. On the good side, if you’re one who leads others, there are some steps you can follow to gain the trust of those individuals and teams you direct. Do What You Say You’ll Do : Building employee trust starts with you keeping your promises and not committing to things you know you have no intention of doing of those things you know you don’t have the ability to do in the first place. Sometimes you might be tempted to accommodate an employee’s request or say yes to an idea, knowing full well the answer should have been no. Don’t be afraid to turn down an employee. The person will appreciate this more than if you say yes and then later break the promise. Tell the Truth : Related to the point above is the need to be completely honest. There’s no reason to mislead your employees or to beat around the bush. Sure, the truth can be hard to take sometimes, but at least your team members will know where they stand and what you expect of them. Similarly, when you’re honest, your employees will be truthful and upfront as well. This will help create an atmosphere where all parties can communicate openly without the worry that someone is holding something back. Treat Others Fairly : When it comes to leadership thoughts and awareness, it’s important for people in position of authority to realize there’s nothing wrong with being direct and blunt, as long as you’re fair in your remarks. Don’t point out other people’s flaws openly, and don’t do so unless the criticism is warranted and designed to help the person improve. Your employees need to know what you expect of them, but you don’t want them to resent you. Keep Your Door Open : Doing this figuratively and literally will build employee trust. Make sure your employees know they can approach you anytime with any concerns or problems. Listen to what they have to say and be sensitive to their needs. Be Mindful of Your Own Actions : From time to time, take inventory of yourself. Evaluate how you’re treating others and what your attitudes are. Building trust is vital, but it’s not as challenging as you might think. Put these steps into practice, and you’ll notice a difference in your workplace.

Four Key Interaction Tips to Welcome Your Customers

If you run a business— no matter what the industry or service may be— you understand the importance of building strong relationships with customers. Giving customers a good experience will keep them coming back to you again and again. In turn, this means growth and stability for your business. However, creating this trust with customers isn’t always as easy as it sounds. It all starts at the beginning from the moment you meet a customer or potential customer. Customer greetings and initial interactions will go a long way in determining their level of satisfaction and whether you’ll see them again. Give Them a Warm Greeting and Welcome If you want to provide excellent customer service, start doing it from the minute your customer walks through your doors or calls you on the phone. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes. How would you feel about the business if you weren’t greeted right away or if you didn’t almost immediately see someone smiling at you and asking what they can do for you? The greeting doesn’t have to be anything out-of-this world. Keep it simple but make it friendly. Find Out What They’re Looking For Depending on what your services are, the customer’s needs might not be obvious. Sometimes the customer will make this known, but often, you need to find out for yourself through thoughtful questions or observations. Simply ask how you can be of assistance or if they have any particular preferences that you can accommodate. Ask what you can do to help. Respond Appropriately This requires listening. Customer experience will not be positive if you can’t address needs and desires. When you ask what the person is looking for, be prepared to address those needs accordingly. If you are confused by anything they say or ask, get clarification. Also, where applicable and possible, give the customer a timeline of how long it will take for you to meet their requests. Check in and Follow Up When you go to a restaurant, you appreciate it when a server or manager comes to your table a few times during the meal to make sure everything is all right. The visit can and should be brief, but the follow-up is essential for good customer service. Once the customer has made his or her purchase and is leaving your establishment, ask if their needs were met and then invite them back. Customer experience will go a long way to determining the success of your business. Welcoming clients appropriately will lead to long-term, devoted customers.

4 Easy Steps to Check Your Call Center QA System Reliability

There’s a huge difference between having a quality assurance system and getting the most out of it. For Call center quality assurance to be effective, it has to be reliable, and center managers need to know how to check their quality processes to ensure that reliability is ongoing. Luckily, there are a few easy and sustainable call center QA program processes to help with this reliability. That way, your call center delivers more to its customers because your QA team is delivering more to the call center overall. Step One: Gap Assessment Knowing where you are and where you want to be allows you to break down the gap between those performance levels into steps that your employees can easily take. To get a baseline, start by comparing where your operations are at against what is generally accepted as standard operating procedure. Once there’s a solid measurement there, it is easier to set goals and to devise processes to bring those goals to fruition. To do that: Determine where your gaps occur and which processes create them. Devise a plan of action that avoids creating circumstances that lead to gaps. Put the plan into place to control for that situation. Measure any changes that occur to your overall call center performance. There might be numerous rounds of adjustment to make for each area where gaps are identified, both because incremental goals are easier to achieve and also because correctly identifying the best control for a process often takes a couple of pilot attempts before you lock in the best solution for your call center QA program. Step Two: Avoid Silo Processes Generally, businesses are more successful when their various departments and divisions pull together, because all of the various efforts throughout the company coordinate and synergize as the organization moves toward its goal. Practically, this can be more difficult to achieve, because larger companies often have departments or divisions that are spread widely enough to make close communication more difficult. The best way to combat this is by bringing together the various measurements and goals of call center management in different departments through the QA program, so that everyone is using everyone else’s data to ensure their quality controls are effective, without causing unintended consequences. This move also has the effect of streamlining the flow of information for call center quality assurance personnel, so they have access to the tools they need to be successful. Step Three: Measuring and Tracking Improvement Incremental improvement on a day to day basis is both more sustainable and more practical, in terms of meeting performance forecasts, than expecting a total overhaul. To promote this kind of growth, though, measuring and tracking performance is essential. That way, not only are you sure your new procedures are effective, you also gain the ability to address plateaus and surges, so your training and quality assurance continue to be effective. Step Four: Training for Every Day Improvement The last step in ensuring QA reliability is turning its processes and controls into actions that employees are able to monitor and use effectively. Disseminating information throughout the company, so that employees understand both the goals and processes of your QA program, is key to this. Employees who understand quality assurance goals are better able to report relevant developments to QA personnel, improving the flow of information and the reliability of the program overall. This blog was first published on LinkedIN

Quality Monitoring System: Think Beyond Dispute Resolution

Using new quality monitoring technologies in combination with quality analytics software is the key to empowering your customer service call center to move to the front of the industry. Where monitoring technology was once used for mainly training purposes and dispute resolution, new technologies that help with analyzing and understanding that data are providing solutions that allow companies to institute quality assurance programs in their customer service departments that match anything found in their manufacturing or service divisions. Analytics Software The key to the entire revolution in call center quality has been the growth of sophistication in analytics software. Modern quality analytics software is capable of guiding your business toward the best practices that lead to increased agent success, improving both individual performances and the department as a whole. This works because these programs are able to coordinate information coming from your quality monitoring technology in ways that allow the accurate measurement of: IVR use and abandonment Agent success rates Call lengths Queue waiting time lengths Customer satisfaction ratings By bringing all of these points of information together, your company can move beyond industry recommendations by monitoring the different elements that correlate to higher success for your agents, in your industry. That way, you know that your procedures are reflected by rising success rates and, when customer attitudes or needs shift, these data points also provide insight that helps you change with them. Monitoring and Metadata Part of the way that these new software packages work is by monitoring what is called metadata—the data that describes the call, rather than a recording of the actual call. This data is much more efficiently gathered by the system, allowing it to be easily sorted and analyzed. When combined with traditional monitoring that is used for training and dispute resolution, this provides multiple ways of interpreting information and gauging results and helps to map individual sites of evaluation onto the company’s larger outlook. Training and Support To get the most out of your quality monitoring technology and quality analytics software, the department also needs to commit to using the information. That means moving beyond reports and supporting employees with tools that help them hold to standards and deliver consistent performances while also understanding better ways to do things as they are learned. This usually means: Evaluation criteria with detailed feedback Calibration meetings to keep everyone on the same page Support and training resources that can be accessed alone or in formal settings Managerial support for employee questions When you bring the supports together, you get an infrastructure for disseminating the information learned from the data analytics, so that way you are able to continue improving your call enter even as it reaches your original objectives. This kind of responsive combination of management and technology also keeps your department versatile and ensures that you know enough to move with your customers. Conclusion Quality monitoring technology is nothing new, but its usefulness has traditionally been limited by the fact that it singles out individual instances. With new quality analytics software and updated technology, though, your company can put together a comprehensive heuristic program that will steer your customer service toward the top of the industry.

6 Secrets to Live Chat Efficiency

Once you’ve added live chat to your websites, don’t stop looking for ways to improve the customer experience. While there is no magic formula you can use to make everything about your business’ online presence perfect, here are some ways you can improve the efficiency of your company’s live web chat services. Establish Chat Priority : Establish a system that allows chats to be answered right away. That system should also have some kind of survey or a brief set of questions for customers to answer to ensure their chats are routed to the right agents. Chat agents that handle multiple chats should be able to establish priority to ensure that each one is handled efficiently and properly. Minimize Chat Times : Your agents may occasionally get a customer who has concerns that require them to engage longer than usual, but that doesn’t mean that all chats should take a long time to resolve. Implement measures to help your agents to minimize the amount of time it takes for them to address and resolve customers issues. Minimizing chat times can decrease response times and prevent long wait times. Live Web Chat Training is Important : The best chat agents are those who undergo regular training and are always looking for ways to improve. In your quest to achieve the perfect balance between live chat agent productivity and efficiency, you need to invest in your agents’ skills by providing training and support. Don’t expect them to automatically know what to do and how to respond to different types of customer scenarios. Doing so can be counterproductive to them and your organization. Train your agents to enhance their soft skills and you’ll see an improvement in their responses to customers and reduce the amount of time it takes them to resolve customer concerns. Integrate Web Chat into Your CRM : Your online chat team can become more efficient if you train them to capture customer information and update it as needed in your CRM. This makes it much easier for them to cater to the needs of your customers when they return at a later date for service or assistance. Canned Responses : Even if your agents are required to be able to type 100 wpm, canned responses can greatly reduce their response times. One of your goals may be to provide customers with a more personable experience, but it certainly doesn’t hurt for your agents to use canned responses. In fact, these responses can provide your agents with additional time to provide customers with the resolutions they seek. Workstation Setup : All of the shortcuts and canned responses in the world cannot reduce response time and increase agent productivity like having a dual monitor setup for each workstation. It’s easier on your agents’ eyes, their hands and facilitates a more immediate acknowledgment of customers to improve the overall efficiency of your organization’s live chat services. While the key to improving chat efficiency isn’t rocket science, it does require you to have a good chat solution. Etech Global Services recommends for you to periodically evaluate the tools, processes and agents you have in place so you can better determine their effectiveness and make improvements as needed. This blog was first published on LinkedIN

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