The following is a guest post from Susan Hash, editor of Contact Center Pipeline.

How much time has your executive team spent on the contact center floor? Not simply a quick walk-through, but actually taking the time to plug in with an agent to listen to customer calls? If execs really want to know what a quality customer experience sounds and feels like, spending time in the contact center will allow them to experience what your customers are feeling and thinking about your organization, as well as what frontline customer service staff go through on a daily basis.

In addition to senior executives, encouraging department leaders across the organization to spend time in the center is a great way to provide them with first-hand knowledge of what goes on within this critical touchpoint on the customer journey—and often the only interface a customer will have with an organization.

Some customer-centric organizations make it an essential activity for new leaders. At ING Direct, department leaders spend a month in the contact center jacking in with agents and listening to calls—and even handling customer complaints. They not only develop a better understanding of the frontline agent’s job, they realize how their own processes impact the contact center, and ultimately, the customer experience.

It doesn’t need to be a month-long commitment to have an effect. The contact center leadership team at Unilever found that a well-planned open house could make a significant impact. Various brand teams were invited into the center for an afternoon. The teams were given an overview of the types of information the center collected and how the frontline agents interacted with callers. Each brand team was asked to discuss the new products being released with the frontline agents so that they could offer their suggestions and ideas (an incredibly valuable resource!).

After the open house, contact center leadership followed up with the various departments to reinforce the idea that the center was willing and able to do more to support each area in improving their performance through customized reports and customer data.

Encourage the Entire Organization to Walk in the Customer’s Shoes

At BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, the Customer Experience team created a very unique activity designed to help non-customer-facing functions develop a better understanding of the customer service advocate’s role, and to understand how what they do impacts what happens in the contact center. They set up a call-listening room next to the employee cafeteria.

Customer Experience staff stood outside the room encouraging employees to come in and listen for at least five minutes. Once inside, employees were given popcorn and a free set of BlueCross earbuds. They watched a slide presentation that provided compelling call statistics, and then plugged in to listen to five actual customer calls, which were scrubbed of personal information.

Calls were selected that demonstrated the importance of other functions. For instance, since the site includes the organization’s Information Systems campus, the team included one call where the system went down and the CSA wasn’t able to access the customer’s information. Many IS employees were shocked to learn how their work impacted the center’s ability to serve customers. Overall, the staff found the demonstration powerful, and most ended up staying for the entire 20-minute presentation.

Set Up a Listening Post

Make it convenient for unit leaders and execs to spend time in the center by setting up a permanent listening post. “A listening post is a workstation in the contact center that is always manned with a strong agent and has an extra chair and headset available for anyone who wants to sit and observe call handling,” says contact center consultant Jay Minnucci, president of Service Agility.

An alternative to live listening: Provide peers and execs with access to a library of recorded calls. Classify the calls into categories that will be relevant to different internal functions, Minnucci adds, “such as ‘slow computer response’ to describe calls where agents had to suffer through long response times between screen changes.”

Wisconsin Physician’s Service used a similar technique to help marketing and sales groups understand customers’ reactions to advertising and informational materials. Following the release of a promotional mailer for a new product, contact center leadership scheduled a meeting with marketing and sales to listen to recorded calls so that the two groups could learn what customers understood, what they didn’t, and what led to more questions. The ability to hear what actual customers thought about the mailer and what their questions were was an eye-opener for the other departments.

Providing senior execs, department heads and employees across functions with the opportunity to experience first-hand customers’ emotions, expectations and feedback can help to translate customer experience vision statements into beliefs, behaviors and practices across levels and functions. It can also help to build a solid foundation for delivering an exceptional end-to-end customer experience.

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The following is a guest post from Susan Hash, Editor of Contact Center Pipeline.

Every contact center leader understands the link between employee engagement and customer satisfaction. In centers that pride themselves on maintaining high levels of engagement, common themes include clear, frequent communication from leaders about goals and expectations, active involvement in process changes and being empowered to do the job.

How do you cultivate a customer-centric mindset among frontline employees? The following are proven practices that have appeared in the pages of Contact Center Pipeline over the years.

Give Agents a Closer View of the Customer

Frontline contact center staff may be in contact with customers every day, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they know what the customer is experiencing. Some companies help to provide agents with that perspective by allowing them to accompany sales staff on customer site visits. Agents get a chance to see what happens on the customer’s end—how customers are using the company’s products and what issues they might be experiencing—to gain a better understanding of their perspective.

This is a practice that can work for centers in a variety of sectors. As Jay Minnucci, founder of contact center consulting firm Service Agility, points out: “If you have retail stores, agents should have a chance to work in them. If you have focus groups with customers, agents should have the opportunity to be involved (even if only observing). If you have a product or service that a consumer can use, every agent should get it for free (or at least at reduced cost). For the relatively minor expense of some time off the phone, the payback is more compassion, greater understanding and a higher level of engagement.”

At Memorial Health System, employees attend empathy training that explains the different types of patients that staff will come into contact with, their specific health issues and what they may be experiencing. Managers reinforce the training by posting “empathy boards” in all of the backstage areas, like break rooms and storage areas. The empathy boards include photos of a patient type discussed in training (but not an actual patient), along with key points about their situations. It serves as an ongoing reminder of the patient’s voice.

Transparent Communication Builds Trust

Having open discussions about the organization’s goals and the ROI associated with the customer experience is an effective way to help frontline staff understand the impact their work has on the company’s success. Jon Koelling, director of customer care at Intuit, says that clear and meaningful communication is an essential activity in his center. The organization’s goals and progress toward those goals is discussed in quarterly touchpoint meetings, as well as in traditional team meetings, via email updates and during biweekly pre-shift meetings.

Ask for Their Feedback

Engagement tends to be high in centers where frontline staff’s opinion and feedback is valued. Take Nicor National, for example, where management places a priority on frequently soliciting employee feedback.

To keep a pulse on the workplace mood and the impact of management decisions on the culture, Nicor National implemented a Voice of Employee (VOE) program, which uses online VOE tools to collect unsolicited questions, suggestions and concerns from staff. Employees can log into the tool whenever they want to ask a question, make a suggestion, offer a comment or bring up a concern. They can also take an online survey that asks for their feedback to statements like: “Nicor National values my relationship”; “The company really cares about me”; and “The company invests in my success.”

On a monthly basis, the company also conducts a benchmarking survey using the VOE tool. In addition, culture surveys, or “pulse checks,” are sent out to random groups of employees on a regular basis. Their responses make up an employee engagement index, which is tracked on a weekly and monthly basis to help management to identify trends.

Face-to-face time with employees is also important. Management firmly believes that personal contact and involvement provides a complete culture, and employee feedback is collected through monthly roundtables and daily management walkarounds.

At SciQuest, an initiative called “the buddy system,” pairs product development professionals with customer support reps for new product releases. As the product development team goes through the process of designing and developing new features, they get feedback from the CSR on how customers might view the functionality, or to identify any gaps that might cause issues with particular customer configurations or the way that they use the application.

Involve them in the Processes

There is nothing more frustrating and demotivating than working in an environment where you have no input into how your work is done. Agent councils are an effective way to get frontline staff involved in process improvement. Typically, agent councils meet as a group to discuss the items that they want to present to the contact center leader. They then form subcommittees to oversee those issues and report on progress to the council and to the leadership team.

Agent councils at Comerica have tackled issues like attendance policies, agent motivation, call center production goals and incentives. A bonus: When agents take on a self-governing role, they become more aware of how the business operates and the reasons behind certain decisions and policies.

Show Appreciation

Taking the time to show frontline agents how much they’re valued is a critical role for the center management team—or should be. Jill Houghland, Senior Operations Manager at InterCall, points out that management can’t always impact significant daily change on agents’ pay or time off, so they need to find different ways to show appreciation. Besides collecting their feedback through various methods and making them feel like they’re a part of the process, “We also bring them in for brown-bag lunches and have conversations to understand what they go through on a daily basis, and what ideas they have that we might be able to implement to make their jobs easier,” she says.

Practical pointer: Make sure that your team huddles don’t focus solely on updates and changes. End on a positive note by asking agents what went well on the previous shift and why, what they were proudest of that day or week—emphasize the things that are going well.

For more information on Contact Center Pipeline, visit their website.

The post Engage Frontline Staff in Delivering Customer-Centric Goals appeared first on Execs In The Know.

“Joining the Advisory Board of Execs In The Know was a conscious decision to be involved with likeminded senior executives, who have the same drive, determination and motivation that we have, in delivering authentic customer engagement through hospitality,” said LeAnne Crocker. “Both internal and external customer social communication connections help us do what is right, at the right time, in the right place.”

“Delivering a remarkable customer experience is an increasingly important part of every business,” said Scott Shute. “I’m pleased to work with this distinguished team of thought leaders who are interested in helping their companies, and industry at large, become more customer centric.”

The Execs In The Know Advisory Board is a group of the top executives in customer care, from many of today’s prominent brands, across various industry verticals. Together, they work to advance the conversation, on the multichannel Connected Consumer. They identify gaps, key strategies, and trends that ultimately enhance the Execs In The Know – Customer Response Summits, workshops, and content. They are the cornerstone of the Execs In The Know community and strengthen it through their involvement in various events, webinars, content pieces, philanthropic activities, and meetings.

Newly Elected Board Members:

LeAnne Crocker, Director- Global Reservation Operations Design and Learning Communications, Hyatt
Scott Shute, Vice President of Global Customer Operations, LinkedIn

Existing Board Members:

Janet Bailey, Director, Customer Contact Operations Global & Americas Operations, Starbucks
Jeff Camp, Vice President, Call Center Operations, TXU Energy
Tim Hickler, VP WW Customer Service, Amazon
Michael Martin, Senior Vice-President Channel Optimization, CIBC Retail & Business Banking
Kathryn McGavick, Corporate Vice President, Customer Support, Outerwall
Sally McMahon, Vice President Channel Management, SiriusXM
Lisa Oswald, Senior Vice President, Customer Service, Travelzoo Inc.
Philip Petescia, Vice President CRM & Customer Care Post-Sales Support & Promotions, Sony Electronics
Andrew Pine, Vice President, Customer Relations, Porsche Cars North America
Razia Richter, Senior Vice President Chief Customer Officer, Petco
Ginna Sauerwein, Managing Director, FedEx TechConnect Western Region

To learn more about the Execs In The Know Advisory Board, visit https://execsintheknow.com/about-us/advisory-board/

About Execs in the Know
For over 15 years, Execs in the Know has built a reputation of excellence in the Customer Management Industry and a worldwide community of over 50,000 Customer Experience Professionals. Execs in the Know connects people to engaging industry content, thought leadership, current trends, peer-to-peer collaboration, networking, and industry employment opportunities. Examples of this can be seen at their Customer Response Summit events, roadshows, webinars, workshops, Blog Talk Radio segments, Industry Benchmarking Series, blogs, thought papers, and social communities.

To learn more about Execs in the Know, visit www.execsintheknow.com. For more information on their Customer Management Recruitment Solutions, visit www.justcareers.com.

Media Contact
Alyssa Pitura
Director of Marketing and Brand Experience
alyssa@execsintheknow.com
www.execsintheknow.com
@ExecsInTheKnow

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