Dear Santa,
Whew, this year has been a doozy, hasn’t it? As I reflect on 2020 and look forward to 2021, I want to take a moment to share with you my holiday wish list. I think I have been pretty good this year (no pouting and only a little crying), so anything you can do to make some (or all) of these five wishes come true would be great! I’ll be sure to leave you some cookies and milk for your trouble.
#1 Training and Skills Development 
I love my job, and I really want to continue to grow and advance in my career. Relevant training and coaching that helps me do the best job I can today, especially given the continued changes to my role, is at the top of my list, Santa. I also want to learn, grow, and prepare for the next phase of my career. So, I would love the opportunity to learn additional skills to better support my customers, while also giving me greater opportunities for advancement.
#2 Attendance and Scheduling Flexibility 
2020 has been an interesting year, especially with working from home so much of the time. And even those working from an actual center have had to work hard to navigate all the personal challenges due to the pandemic. It would be so appreciated to have more lenient attendance policies and/or flexible schedules. I realize we are here to meet our customers’ needs, but a little bit of flexibility would really help many of us. Speaking of working from home, once the world starts getting back to “normal,” it would be great to have the choice of either continuing to work from home or heading into the office – or even a mix of both.
#3 Systems Reliability and Support
As we continue to handle more complex customer issues, systems reliability is critical. It is difficult (and stressful) to try our best to help customers when our tools are slow, inaccurate, unreliable, or even altogether unavailable. And for those of us working from home indefinitely, it would be super if we could get stipends to improve our environment — things like more reliable Wi-Fi and a basic office setup make a huge difference in helping us provide excellent support for our customers.
#4 Policy, Process, and Technology Improvement
I am sure you know that as agents, we often bear the brunt of unfriendly customer policies. It would be great if some of the most painful policies were a wee bit more friendly to make it easier for us to help resolve customer issues. Related, it is sometimes difficult to find accurate and relevant information to best support customers, so tools that guide us to the right information would be quite helpful. Finally, since customers are using all kinds of ways to contact us, by the time they get to us, they have already tried several things … could you work on giving us the ability to see all their interactions and what they need before they get to us?
#5 Compensation and Promotion Opportunities
Last but not least, a pay increase would of course be fantastic! But I realize that’s not always the easiest thing to give. So perhaps you could arrange for me (and my role) to be evaluated to determine if I am being paid fairly (and comparably) for the work I do, especially given how much my role is changing. Also, if larger merit increases could be considered (based on performance, of course), along with more promotion and/or career advancement opportunities, this would just make my year!
Thank you, Santa, for taking the time to consider my holiday wish list! My company and colleagues have done a great job in 2020 and I sure appreciate the work everyone has put in to help us respond to the challenges and opportunities during this past year. Here’s to a successful 2021!
Season’s greetings,
Your Favorite Agent
Blog post, written by: Execs In The Know
