Clear calls faster with effective listening

There is a logical connection between effective listening and speedy call resolution. Yet many agents, even the motivated ones, can sometimes miss a trick here. Carolyn Blunt tells us why….

When calls are either high in volume or repetitive in nature there can be a tendency to rush through the standard questions, flick through the system screens at lightning speed and end the call. It may even appear that the call has been closed and that your team does not need any help to close calls even faster.

If customer and caller satisfaction ratings are high and call volumes are as predicted then you may feel that all is well. However, there may be calls in the stack that are actually repeat calls because the resolution has been given in haste, on autopilot and, in fact, was not the correct resolution.

There may be callers who have reluctantly agreed that the call can be closed but who are still harbouring feelings of dissatisfaction, and this may or may not be reflected in customer satisfaction ratings, feedback or complaint volumes.

So what to do next?

Unfortunately there is no magic formula. Effective listening requires:

1. FOCUS – Give the caller your undivided attention

Try to minimise distractions in the call centre. For example, if staff are permitted to have magazines or newspapers at breaks or on their desks during ‘quiet’ times of the day these can still be causing a distraction if they remain in their line of vision whilst on the telephone.

2. FIDDLE – Use your hands

The telephone requires us to use our auditory senses but fails to stimulate our visual or kinaesthetic (touch, movement, feelings) senses. Often if the person has a preference for visual this under-utilised sense may seek engagement elsewhere (e.g. the colourful photograph on the cover of a celebrity gossip magazine becomes an alluring distraction!) Instead encourage note taking – this allows all the senses to be engaged and forces the listener to concentrate and process what is being said. Even doodling on a notepad is channelling those senses and enables concentration for some people. Consider providing stress toys such as koosh balls, tangles or bendy men for people to fiddle with whilst listening to callers. This is particularly helpful when dealing with difficult callers who need to ‘vent’ at your agents.

3. FILTER – Reduce background noise

The contact centre environment can be extremely noisy. To listen effectively we need to be able to filter out the background noise. Offer the option of double headsets (two earpieces instead of the standard single one) to allow agents to tune in to callers fully. [Using sound baffles in the call centre and also using noise cancelling headsets can help - Editor]

4. FEEDBACK – Give feedback and coach the performance of all agents regularly

The ability to play back recorded calls is ideal to illustrate where an agent may not be demonstrating the fundamentals of effective listening (see below).

• Keep a note of where they have listened effectively and coach for improvement (see our free coaching form on the Real Results website).
• If there are agents that other people in the contact centre find consistently loud and, as a result, distracting, regular feedback and coaching is a must.
• Consider rotating seats and positions in the contact centre to keep people alert and avoid deep-seated frustrations or resentments brewing.
• As a leader or manager it may be helpful to keep any agents that might be disruptive seated nearer to you.

5. FLOW – Keep the call flowing effectively

Show the caller that you are listening to them by using effective signposting throughout the call. Every call should have a clear beginning, middle and end.

The beginning should include a warm, informative greeting and an invitation to the caller to give the reason for calling. The agent should then signpost what will happen next, what information they will need and what the likely outcome will be (especially if it is unlikely to be resolved by the end of the call).

Using plenty of checking questions (Is that ok with you? Do you have that information to hand?) and giving an indication of how long the process will take (E.g. this will take about 5/10/20 minutes, is that ok with you?) are very useful to keep the caller calm and communicating clearly. Letting the caller know that the call is coming to an end is critical to clearing calls quickly and effectively.

Phrases such as ‘before we finish is there anything else you need to ask?’ or ‘would you like to double check any of the information I’ve given you before we close?’ or ‘now that we are at the end of the call would you like me to summarise what will happen next’, etc.

There is a good argument for avoiding ‘Is there anything else I can help you with today?’ at the end of the call as the caller may bring up something that could have been dealt with more easily earlier on, or that affects the solution you have just given. If this is a useful question consider asking it at the start of the call when the caller first outlines their reason for calling: ‘I’ve made a note of that and we will look it into that now. Before we begin is there anything else you might want us to deal with today?’

6. FUNDAMENTALS – Don’t interrupt the caller

The basics of effective listening are obvious: not interrupting, summarising back effectively and giving the right amounts and types of verbal nods, but these are often easier said than done. Train agents to wait a full second before responding to make sure the caller has finished what they were saying and doesn’t then feel interrupted. Practise summarising back in training and coaching sessions by giving them an amount of verbal information and asking them to pick out the key points and reflect them back. Verbal nods are essential on the telephone to encourage the caller and reassure them that you are listening. Using repetitive sounds just gives a dismissive impression so train agents to use a variety (aha, yes, ok, I see, mmm).

Make yourself a role model

Finally, ensure you are a good role model for effective listening. Give your colleagues your full attention when they speak to you and practise questioning and summarising techniques to encourage the habit. If you have a natural tendency to interrupt try to control it. You can do this easily on the telephone by simply jotting down the thought that popped in to your head and waiting till it’s your turn. The other person will be able to express themselves more quickly and easily so you will get to the crux of the real issues faster and with better rapport.

The “Hard Times” customer retention guide

One common question we are often asked is: ‘Isn’t everyone cutting back on training at the moment?’ The answer is ‘No!’ It costs, on average, five times more to attract a new customer than it does to retain an existing one. In hard times we need to focus on our existing customers.

Here is our customer retention guide for hard times. Focus on their experience and make it the best it can be

Holding onto your existing customers by delivering a great product or service experience (i.e. better than your competitors) is what will assist your organisation in surviving the recession.

Get the training right

Now is the worst possible time to cut back on training your advisors to deliver excellent customer service and here’s why.

Start with product knowledge

Firstly, be certain that your advisors are properly trained in product/service and systems knowledge to avoid giving your customers a frustrating telephone experience. Consider making some test calls yourself; it can be quite enlightening!

Use rapport building

Train advisors in rapport building and the principles of sound customer service. There are lots of tips on rapport on the Call Centre Helper website or visit the Members Area of www.real-results.co.uk

Sell benefits, not just features

Be sure that they can properly sell the benefits of what your organisation is offering (not just list the features) to persuade new customers to come on board and existing customers to stay with you. This will ensure that even if your product or service is more expensive than your competitors, or is a ‘luxury’ item prime for ‘cut back’, your advisors will be able to explain why the investment is a good one and influence decision making. Quality advice and service still has its value.

Check your analytics

Check that your analytics and reporting system is giving you a robust analysis of customer satisfaction. What are the surveys saying? Review this information with your teams on a regular basis and brainstorm how to continuously improve customer service.

Look for quick win ideas

Consider holding competitions and prizes for the best ideas. We find that those closest to the customers often know best what is needed; and these solutions may be inexpensive to implement.

Give agents the freedom to solve customer queries

Consider whether your advisors are given enough freedom to solve customer queries and complaints. There is nothing that will anger a customer more than being told they need to wait three days until the manager is back from holiday before they can get the answer they are seeking. True empowerment means that your staff are given the means to carry out what they think necessary to keep their customer satisfied.

The Director of Customer Service at a leading mobile telephone company told me of a situation when a customer telephoned to complain that his mobile telephone wasn’t working, just as he was about to fly off on holiday. The advisor took the details of where he was flying to and the hotel he was staying at and by the time he arrived there the replacement handset was presented to him when he checked in. The advisor who made that happen didn’t need to secure agreement with anyone, she simply got on with her job and delighted that customer.

Resolve complaints effectively

All advisors should be allowed to resolve complaints effectively – research shows that when a complaint is resolved well the customer is even more loyal than before they complained, as certainly was the case with the customer in that example.

If giving your advisors a free rein on customer service worries you then explore why. Would they really ‘go mad’ with a complaint resolution budget? Discuss the ideas and explore some ground rules. For example, each advisor reports on what they have used from this budget and why at a team meeting. Alternatively, strategies such as ‘whatever is left in the budget is used towards the Christmas party’ can be effective in encouraging a sensible approach.

Why are customers leaving?

If you know that customers are already leaving your business, find out why and address the need. We all know that dissatisfied customers tell more people than satisfied ones and negative word of mouth will not assist your customer retention targets. Every week Gordon Ramsay points out to failing restaurateurs why their business isn’t working. To TV viewers the answers are glaringly obvious: high prices, poor quality and an inefficient operation. We all need to think about survival, rather than fat profit for at least the next 12 months.

Value relationships with repeat customers

Do value the relationships that advisors have with repeat customers. Often customers follow people, so retaining your staff and keeping their motivation up can be just as important as keeping customers happy. Giving reassurance and praise on a regular basis is free and will buoy spirits.

Invest in training

Investing in training them will also reassure and motivate and improve the quality of customer service delivery. Resolving gaps in knowledge with training can be done in short two-hour workshops that fit in with less busy times of the week.

Explore multi-skilling

If staff are feeling happy and secure there is more chance of customers feeling the same. Consider multi-skilling advisors to be able to deal with broader and deeper areas. This will give them more interesting roles and allow more customer issues to be resolved on the spot. The customer experience will feel slicker and safer when the caller is not being passed and transferred around. The idea of multi-skilling in a recession also supports the old contact centre issue of balancing customer service (which requires plenty of available advisors in order to avoid long queues) and efficiency (which requires good utilisation of available advisors). For a previous article on balancing customer service and efficiency, see http://www.callcentrehelper.com/how-to-balance-customer-service-with-efficiency-1690.htm

There may be areas of your organisation where costs can be reduced, but in hard times customer service delivery should never be one of them

Motivation through a Kick in the Ass

Here is an idea that still holds water…..The psychologist Fred Herzberg argued that it is possible to generate ‘movement’ (i.e. getting someone to do something) through what he called KITA management – Kick in the Ass.

Fred Herzberg was one of the most influential names in business management. His 1968 publication One More Time, How Do You Motivate Employees? has sold more than 1.2 million reprints.

Motivation, or movement?

He classified KITAs into positive and negative, a bribe or a threat!

• Positive KITAs = rewards, bonuses, praise
• Negative KITAs = restricted pay, disciplinary action, criticism

What Herzberg recognised was that there is a difference between getting people to do things, and people wanting to do things.

Getting people to do things through KITA management creates movement.

What if we want people to do something again? We have to give another KITA!

Of course, both types of KITA create movement. But movement is not motivation. Motivation comes from within the call centre employee. This is why bonus systems rarely create long-term personal loyalty to organisations, and critical cultures result in high staff turnover rates.

The employee who wants to achieve is motivated. As human beings we are all driven by an urge to achieve. It’s the way we are psychologically and genetically wired. The challenge in a call centre environment is to provide a working culture in which employees can aspire to meaningful and tangible ‘achievement’.

Goals of Significance

Alfred Adler, the prominent psychologist, recognised that humans work most effectively when they have a goal or ambition they are striving for.

This is the basis of Adlerian therapy, a discipline of behaviour therapy that helps people by encouraging them to map out achievable and stretching goals to give purpose and drive. Adler described it as ‘future-oriented striving toward a Goal of Significance’.

The goal for any success-focused call centre manager is to create opportunities for employees to have ‘a Goal of Significance’ to strive for. Adler’s ideas on teleology suggest that we design a goal so that a team may be directed toward a final result.

What are the ‘Goals of Significance’ for you and your team members? Maybe they include call volumes, first-time resolution rates, average handling times, wrap times, customer satisfaction ratings, service-level targets, conversion rates, sales targets, etc? These performance criteria can be celebrated (or ‘mourned’) collectively and relatively easily at a team level. Call centres’ electronic wallboards often provide information on performance against some of these indices, providing a constant update on how well the team is performing.

But what about the individual employee? How can he or she become motivated to ‘do a good job’?

Feeling good

I have spent the past nine years helping businesses staffed by customer-facing employees, including contact centres, to recognise the importance of ego. By ‘ego’ I don’t mean the vacuous over-inflated opinion of oneself sometimes associated with the word. I mean the confidence and self-assuredness to know that you are good at your profession, that you are ‘able’ and talented in your vocation.

When employees feel good about themselves, and when their ego is strong, successful performance has the habit of reinforcing confidence and professionalism. It creates an upward spiral of ambition. When people feel confident they are more open to stretching themselves even further, to become even better.

The global B2C brands I work with recognise the value of ego strengthening as a means of helping people consider how they could become even better in their role.

By using a structured set of performance criteria it is possible to identify and measure the specific parts of a call centre employee’s activity that are going well, and where they could operate in a different way, perhaps ‘even better’ than they do now.

By establishing a set of ambitions, measured through recorded calls, it is possible to build up a personal “Goal of Significance” that is meaningful for the team member. The “Goal of Significance” will include a series of mini ambitions about excellence to be maintained, and a few performance issues that the team member is striving to make even better.

Celebrating existing excellence is important

Team leaders and managers need to help call centre employees recognise the specifics of their excellence, through coaching.

Too often team leaders and managers resort to lazy ‘chocolate praise’ in the form of a “well done” which, like chocolate, provides an immediate short-term buzz, but is unsustainable because the team member is unclear about what specifically they did that made their performance so good.

For example, the structure of a successful inbound call might include some or all of the following elements:

1. Welcome and rapport build
2. Understand customer needs
3. Good questioning
4. Offer solution options
5. Gain agreement on next steps (including conversion if appropriate)
6. Reaffirm rapport
7. Close the call
8. Time invested

It helps if you can add a definition to each of the elements to ensure clarity of meaning.

For example, what does ‘good questioning’ mean? A decent definition might be:

Good Questioning

The team member must ask at least three open questions regarding the caller’s enquiry, at least one of which should be followed up with a ‘probe’ question.

Motivation from Within

Old Fred was right, people at work will ‘move’ when given a KITA, but they won’t perform because they want to. They perform because they have to. By contrast, if you can help your people to develop their own “Goals of Significance” you will create personal teleological ambition and motivation from within.

That’s true motivation.

Handling difficult customers

An angry customer calls your organisation with a complaint and starts shouting. So what do you do?

Christine Knott looks at how a simple technique called Transactional Analysis (TA) can help.

First a little theory.

Transactional Analysis (TA) focuses on the interaction between two or more people. By understanding how we communicate, Eric Bearne, the founder of TA, discovered that changing the interaction was a way of solving emotional issues that could hinder a positive outcome to a conversation.

Bearne, a psychoanalytic-trained psychiatrist, believed in making a commitment to “curing” his patients rather than just understanding them. TA describes how people are structured psychologically. It uses a simple Parent-Adult-Child model to do this which indicates that, at any given time, a person manifests their personality through a mixture of behaviours which fall into one of the three categories, Parent, Adult or Child, known as Ego states.

Parent ego state: represents the occasions when during conversations we respond in a manner that copies the behaviours and actions of parental or influential figures from our lifetime. Can you recall instances when you’ve heard yourself thinking ‘I sound just like my mother/father/teacher’? You are reflecting and copying their behaviour.

For example, during a conversation a person may display anger by shouting at someone because they learnt from an early age that when the parent shouts the child takes notice.

Adult ego state: represents the occasions when during conversations we draw on our lifetime of experiences as an adult to guide us objectively to a positive outcome. When we are in our Adult state we see, hear and respond to people as they really are, and have an understanding of why they are reacting as they do, rather than accepting at face value the way they choose to communicate.

For example, if during a telephone call our organisation is criticised we would respond with a calm, logical response which aimed at reducing or removing the emotion from the discussion in order to resolve issues in a logical and factual manner. We would adopt this state having learnt throughout our lifetime that shouting, sulking, answering back or other emotional states will detract from our ability to reach a solution, and extend the time needed to reach it.

Child ego state: represents the occasions when during conversations we revert to behaving, feeling and thinking similarly to how we did in childhood.

For example, during a conversation a person who receives criticism may react as they did in their childhood when they were reprimanded. This reaction may take on an emotional form, crying, sulking, answering back or perhaps feeling ashamed or angry.

When we adopt an ego state it is generally through an immediate and unconscious reaction, based on how we responded to a similar situation during our early formative years.

So let’s look at the example we started with. An angry customer calls your organisation with a complaint. The customer has adopted the Parental state, learning from an early age that when their parents shouted at them, they took notice and felt bad and did all they could to make amends. By mimicking what they learnt and shouting at you they are banking on you taking notice of them, feeling bad and making amends, probably by way of an apology, refund, replacement or compensation.
So what do you do?

You have also had childhood learning and your childhood learning may have taken one of the following routes:

1) you responded to someone shouting at you by shouting back
2) you responded to someone shouting at you in the same way as your caller did as a child by feeling bad and doing all you could to make amends
3) you responded to someone shouting at you in an adult manner, by remaining calm, and using facts and logic to achieve a harmonious outcome for everyone.

If you respond with route 1 you will surprise your customer, they aren’t expecting that sort of response as their past learning has taught them that you would take notice, feel bad and make amends. Their next response is to try again this time, shouting even louder and continuing to do so until they get the response they were looking for and expected. When this doesn’t happen they may ask for a manager to try with someone else. Eventually, if they continue to get the route 1 response, they ‘burn out’ and either end the call defeated or hang up in frustration.

If you respond with route 2 your customer will get the reaction they expected and move to a position of control. They will retain the Parent ego state until they have achieved the outcome that they wanted from the call.

By responding with routes 1 or 2 it is possible that the outcome might not be suitable to your organisation. The customer might not have the correct facts, he might be ‘trying it on’, or he might have good reason to be angry. Whatever his justification, whilst you are both operating in Parent ego states, as in route 1, or Parent and Child states, as in route 2, you are not in a position to negotiate and bring the conversation to a positive conclusion for all parties. The result is either an outcome where the customer is happy but your organisation is working at a loss, or an outcome that leads to a dissatisfied and even angrier customer, which could potentially damage the reputation of your organisation.

If you respond with route 3 you will be drawing on all your experiences of handling a Parental ego state and reaching a resolution that is fair and just. You may have to negotiate to achieve a suitable outcome for both parties but negotiation can only take place when both callers are acting from their Adult ego states.

No doubt the training and guidance you have received for dealing with difficult customers is based on maintaining an Adult state.

Initially it is suggested that you:

1) Listen to your caller’s issues and apologise, whether it’s your fault or not. It may not come easily to you but an apology is the first step to resolving the issue in an Adult state. “I’m sorry you feel this way…”

2) Sit tight until they have finished complaining. Prior to making the call your customer will no doubt have practised what they intended to say, and no amount of interrupting will stop them from saying it! To react in either of these ways will prolong the point of resolution.

3) Once your customer realises you are not going to respond in the way they anticipated they will start to move from Parent state to Adult state, when the logic of the current situation is realised. They will have nothing left to say and there will be no need to repeat anything because you have demonstrated that you have listened to them, and taken on board their reasons for being angry and upset.

4) Once you are sure they have finished their ‘script’ you can address any points that need clarification. Communicating in Adult state will require you at to ask questions so that you can fully understand all the facts.

5) Once you are in possession of all the facts you are in a position to resolve the situation. Entering the conversation in Adult state and maintaining it will have a positive effect on your caller. Initially they may adopt a Parent state but if you choose not to respond in Parent or even Child state you will encourage them to move to Adult mode too.

To demonstrate and embed the learning and demonstrate understanding of Eric Bearne’s Transactional Analysis try the following exercise.

Exercise 1. Identify the state

1. Prepare a pack of cards for each group of three or more in your session

2. Each pack of cards should include

• 3 state cards, one printed ‘adult’, one printed ‘parent’ and the third printed ‘child’.
• 6 cards each printed with a typical customer complaint.

3. Hand a set of cards to each group.

4. Explain the task

• Person 1 to select one of the customer complaint cards and one of the state cards
• Person 1 relays the customer complaint to person 2 (or the rest of the group) in the style of the state printed on the card they selected.
• Example: relay the complaint of a direct debit being taken from their account twice in one month causing bank charges, in a ‘child state’.

5. Person 2 responds adopting any state they choose.

6. Person 3 or other members of the group will act as observers and give feedback at the end of the session. Their feedback must include:

• The state person 1 adopted to relay their complaint, was it adult, parent or child?
• The state person 2 adopted to respond, was it adult, parent or child?
• Feedback on how the states adopted by person 2 affected the outcome, and what could have been done differently to ensure a positive result of the complaint

7. Keep the sessions light-hearted and fun whilst ensuring that the learning points from your course are displayed and understood.

8. Repeat the exercise, ensuring everyone plays the role of observer in order to consider how best to resolve complaints.

How to design a call centre training programme

It is not unusual for agents to ‘learn the ropes’ by listening in to calls, often for days at a time. The problem is that the trainee can get ‘bored’ and switch off completely.

Carolyn Blunt explores how to put together a call centre training programme that works.

Different learning styles

We all favour learning in one or two of four different ways or ‘learning styles’ (Honey & Mumford 1992):

ACTIVIST: Someone who learns through ‘doing’, being hands on (most likely to switch off if sitting listening and passively observing for long periods).

PRAGMATIST: Someone who learns and accepts information when they see how it applies practically, e.g. given a test system to play around on or practising role play. Make real links between what you are doing in the training and how this applies back at work.

THEORIST: Someone who likes to know the bigger picture and needs the credibility of information to be established. Let them know the knock-on effect of their work – where does it fit in the service chain? And give them information and data about customers, suppliers and the organisation. They also value discussion and debate and need to know that the training is structured and flows in a logical way.

REFLECTOR: Someone who needs quiet time to assimilate the information that they have received. They need to ‘mull it over’ and process it for themselves. Sometimes may appear ‘quiet’ or ‘disinterested’ but actually a lot of valuable thinking is taking place. A training programme should build in time for this.

Training should therefore be well designed in order to account for all these preferences. Unless you put all trainees through a learning styles questionnaire there is no way of knowing what mix of styles are in any one training group; so it is best practice to allow for all four. These means that training for all levels of employee should have some activity, discussion, practice and review.

Get creative

Get creative and design the session to achieve the objectives, taking into account the resources available (e.g. how many people can be released at a time, the training room size, resources available).
Training design can be fresh and creative at very little cost. In the book we explain our plate-spinning listening-skill activity that replicates the contact centre environment by representing the customer and the IT system in a fun way. We also use music, colour, anagrams, jigsaws and other tools to ‘bring the learning to life’ and make it memorable.

Involve me, not show me

Confucius is reputed to have said: “Tell me and I will forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I will understand.” This underpins the theory of ‘Accelerated Learning’ which is the idea that when we engage both hemispheres of our neo-cortex (or frontal brain) we can take in more information. The left hemisphere is known to favour logic and language while the right favours colour and imagery. By appealing to all the senses we can ‘speed up’ or accelerate the learning process and help information to be pushed into long-term memory.

Many of us will have been on dull training courses that we can now no longer remember what was covered on or what we learned and that brought us no real result. By using accelerated learning principles and the concepts of individual learning styles, training can be made enjoyable and effective at the same time!

Evaluate the results

The best training also needs to have a robust evaluation system in place. This is one part of training practice that can often be overlooked but is crucial to gaining senior support and having people ‘value’ the training. Measure performance before and after training. Gather feedback from delegates immediately following a training session but also 3 months and 6 months afterwards to ensure that learning has been ‘transferred’ back to the desk.

Monitor statistical performance such as call quality scores and customer scorecards. If financial benefits can be found that can be directly attributed to training then this is the holy grail for trainers! Look for extra sales, reduced complaints, lower attrition, etc. This data allows you to prove the value of releasing people and spending time and money on training in a language that senior management teams understand and cannot dispute.

The trainees’ manager is also a critical part of this process and regular dialogue between the leadership and training teams is important. Individual training logs and personal development plans should be updated with training attended and this information needs to be reviewed as part of the appraisal and 1:1 process.

If something is not working in a training course, change it! Training modules should not be left alone simply because no one has complained. Keep adapting them to keep them fresh for both the delegates and for the trainer who is delivering. At least once a year the training module should have a complete review.

The fundamentals of best practice in call centre training are explored in more depth in the recently published ‘Call Centre Training Handbook’.

How do I - train my team without a budget

There is no escaping the reality that the credit crunch has led to budget cuts. The vast majority of businesses are looking to cut overheads, and one of the first things to go are those expenditures which appear to be ‘nice to have’.

Gwenllian Williams provides ideas for training your team when the budget has been cut….

Unfortunately, the training that is seen as essential by managers is often regarded as a ‘nice to have’ by many finance directors. Hence, many businesses are seeing training budget cuts of 20-40% and all training reduced to technical or essential process training. This leaves managers with a dilemma. Training is essential for driving capability, motivation, team working and generation of ideas. So how do you achieve this with no money to spend?

Step One: Define the skills you need to develop in your team

If anything, your team will need more skills in a downturn than in a booming economy. However, you will need to think about the specific skill set they will need to drive your business through the coming tough year. Typically, businesses under pressure need to get as close as possible to their client and to deliver customer service like they never have before.

This will mean ensuring your team are as good as they can possibly be in:

• Customer care skills
• Communication
• Service delivery – and all the technical skills they need for this
• Team working

Depending on the business of your call centre, they may also need training in:

• Managing stressed customers
• Managing difficult conversations
• Sales in a downturn

Step Two: Define the skills you already have in your team

Every team will have one or two people who are particularly good at one thing. This may be a technical aspect of the work you do – or it may be a way of working, managing time, and dealing with clients – anything. These people are your potential stand-in trainers. With a bit of encouragement and coaching they will be able to transfer some of their skills to others in the team. From your list of development needs, decide who in the team can be tasked with developing what. If your team members are not used to training, it is often best to ask people to work in pairs. Set them the task of running a one-hour training course for the team on their given skill, point them in the direction of your training department for support and give them time to do their own research.

Step Three: Get creative in sourcing training materials

Ideas for course content are available from many sources. Even the very best of trainers get an idea and then develop it. Not much is completely new. Ideas, models, concepts and articles are available from many sources. As a start, try:

• Internet research – many consultancies and experts put models and ideas on their websites. In addition, they will have articles and case studies for you to read and get your creative juices going.
• The bookshop – a good bookshop will have a range of books on all kinds of business skills, from sales to time management and project management. A small budget of £75.00 will get you a host of books on which to base short courses. The trick is to choose easy-to-read books with plenty of illustrations (graphs and models, not cartoons!) and checklists. You can use all of these as long as you cite the reference. Do not feel you are cheating – this is a classic trainer approach – ‘get a book and create a course’.
• Past courses – many businesses have been running all types of training for the past five years when budgets were flush. No doubt there is course content in desks and on shelves all over your building. While trainers will, quite rightly, object to you plagiarising their materials and will protect them through copyright, glancing through a course will give you all kinds of ideas.
• Go to your training department – trainers and the bookshelves here will have all manner of materials. Also, in-house trainers will be able to help you set the objectives for a course, decide how to approach the subject and help you generate exercises and discussion points.

Step Four: Design your training

While training design is a real skill, most managers can easily put together a useful short training course. If you have never run training before keep to the following principles:

• Short and punchy is better than a long lecture
• Keep slides minimal – both in number and content
• Have your group discussions pre-designed along with any exercises. Make sure all the logistics and exercise groups have been fully thought through
• Have all your facilities organised – Flip charts, paper, pens, etc.
• Make the training energetic – think of ways of getting people off their seats and moving around

One of the easiest approaches is the master class model. This is where the trainer puts up a model, an idea or a list of challenges and then facilitates a group or team discussion to talk through, share ideas and define solutions. Examples of master classes the author has helped managers to set up are:

Sales training: the team was presented with a model of sales excellence taken from a colleague’s experience and then split into mini teams. Each was given a key part of the model. Each mini team had to do an analysis of how the team “stacked up” on this aspect of the sales model and then present it back on a flip chart. The second half of the course was a group think-tank to define one single team action to improve each part of the sales cycle.

Difficult customers: The team was tasked with generating five mini case studies of nasty customers. The most experienced team members then demonstrated how to deal with such customers through role plays in which they acted as call centre staff while other team members portrayed the difficult customer. They played the role plays back to back on chairs to simulate phone conversations. After each role play the team leader led a discussion of what worked and what did not. From this the team created a ‘How to’ list of managing difficult customers.

Team working: The manager used a simple business skill book to generate some slides on excellent team work. The team then generated five case studies on tough situations they faced in the business which challenged them as a team. The master class then focused on team discussions on how they could apply team-work principles when facing such situations. In short, they created a list of principles and agreed actions for a team-work strategy. At the end of the financial year they were awarded ‘Team of the Year by their business. The course cost £10.99. £7.99 for the book and £3.00 for the glass of wine the manager bought me while he picked my brains for ideas!

Step Five: Give it a go

Set up your training and be very honest with your team that this is training on a shoe-string. Set your objectives at the start of the session and set out your ground rules. The ground rules in this situation are that everybody is expected to participate, make the most of it, put forward ideas and deliver solutions not complaints. At the end of the session get your team or delegates to give you feedback. Remember, they are your best design advisors. Then follow this through to the next training. You will find it gets easier and becomes more fun. Good luck!

Warm up to cold calling – 3 strategies for success

For many years I hated selling. I would rather have done anything but cold calling; even though I know this is a proven tool for developing new business. In this article Carolyn Blunt shares 3 strategies for success.The chances are if you call enough people someone will buy from you. Working it into a numbers game was one of the techniques that eventually helped me to get motivated. Once I realised that on average in my industry, 1 in 100 calls resulted in a sale I could look at the list of names and numbers to call and know that in there one would be my earner for the day. I became so enthused about developing business through the telephone that I was able to pass on some of that enthusiasm to others who also hated it.

Make a good first impression

The voice is made up of five key elements, and understanding how these create a first impression is vital. If the volume of your voice is too quiet you will sound passive and lacking in confidence. If the volume of your voice is too loud it creates an impression of dominance and aggression. If energy is lacking from the voice then people will find you (and your product or service!) lacking in credibility. If you are unable to get fired up with enthusiasm for your own product or service your prospective customer won’t be able to either!

Over the telephone you do not have the ability to express emotion through facial expressions or body language. Your tone of voice is more important than ever. Speaking clearly and pacing your speed is vital to get the message over and to avoid irritating the other person. Pay attention to the pace and volume of the person you are speaking with. If they speak a little more quietly and slowly than you naturally do, slightly alter elements of your tone of voice to match theirs. This will create rapport: it sends the subliminal message that ‘I’m like you’. Since we know that ‘people like people who are similar to them’ it makes sense to create a good rapport. People are more likely to buy from people they like and trust.

My father (a locker salesman!) pays attention to people’s accents on the telephone. He has lived and worked all over the UK and can pinpoint an accent to a radius of 30 miles. His icebreaker on the telephone is to say ‘You sound like you’ve spent time in…Aberdeen/Newcastle/Peterborough’. He gets his prospect talking about themselves (which we all like to do!) and then shares a complimentary fact he knows about their area –‘I was there about two years ago, the castle/shopping/nightlife was great!’

You might not be a whiz at spotting accents like my father, but you could ask a question like ‘You have a nice accent, whereabouts are you from?’ Successful sales people ask more questions than the less successful ones!

Ask questions, find out what problems they have and make your product or service the solution

I was taken aback the other day when chatting to someone I had just met and without any obvious association or link she suddenly asked ‘Do you use Aloe Vera?’ I was a bit confused. We had just been talking about my recent house purchase. ‘Do you mean for cleaning?’ I asked (trying to see the link between my new house and Aloe Vera!). ‘No, for yourself, I sell it you see…’ and off she went into a boring pitch that I had no interest in. My desire to continue a friendship with her plummeted. Her desperation to make a sale was evident and this made me feel used and targeted. Also if she was pushing her product with this evident desperation the association that I made was that it couldn’t be very popular or good.

I do not stay awake at night thinking ‘I wonder where I can buy some Aloe Vera juice’. I do, however, stay awake thinking, ‘I have an important training course to deliver tomorrow and I have a huge spot on my chin – again. I wonder what I could do to improve my skin?’ If my ‘friend’ had asked questions about what I do for living she could have then asked ‘So appearance is quite important for that job?’ A good leading question, and I would have replied, ‘Yes, definitely. If I don’t feel I look presentable it undermines my confidence in front of a room full of people’. She could then have naturally introduced her product: ‘I sell this product that makes your skin and hair glow…’ Then she would have had my attention.

Fight the fatigue

Nobody likes rejection. On our training courses I am constantly asked how to avoid being rejected; but there is no magic method of avoiding the blunt ‘No thanks, not interested’. Cold calling is about establishing prospective customers and there will be a process of elimination to go through – it is not possible to sell to everyone so don’t beat yourself up! You might tire of hearing ‘No’ and your pride may be a bit hurt but that’s the worst that will happen. When that sale finally does come in it will be worth it and your confidence levels will rise. Fight the fatigue and hang in there! Do not let your disappointment show in your voice – especially when you leave a voicemail message.

Keep your energy levels upbeat by smiling into the telephone and sitting upright in your chair to project your voice. Give the person a compelling reason to call you back – a phrase such as ‘I have some information on… (a competitor) that may be of interest’ or ‘I noticed you exhibited at… and would like to check something with you’. Avoid the tired old phrases like ‘My name is… and I’m calling from…’. These will switch the listener off before you even begin. Instead try ‘I don’t know if what we do would be of interest to you, can I ask you a couple of quick questions?’

Set yourself realistic goals to achieve on the telephone. Do not put off making those calls. Get stuck in – you’ll be glad you did!

10 questions to ask yourself before starting recruitment

As a call centre manager, recruiting people into your organisation is one of the most important things you will do. Fail to get this right and the chances are that you will have under-performing people, demotivation and high turnover. This is hugely costly in terms of further recruitment, training and poor service or lost sales. However, many recruitment campaigns are still ill-conceived, poorly planned and under-resourced.

Having benchmarked and implemented recruitment best practice in call centres for the last 12 years, I suggest you ask yourself the following 10 questions before you embark on any campaign.

1. Do you really understand who it is that you are looking for?

Write down the core competencies and skills set required for the particular role (this will vary significantly between the different types of jobs in a call centre) and then design your process around identifying people with these attributes.

2. Does your advertising really attract suitable candidates?

Many companies fail at this first hurdle by trying to be too creative with the advert or over-emphasising non-competency-based criteria. For instance, many adverts are designed to promote what a fantastic place the company is to work at, or how great the benefits are, at the expense of saying what the job involves and the skills required to undertake it successfully.

3. Are you using the most appropriate media?

Different media will attract different audiences and it is important to understand the demographics of the ideal person you are seeking, and at least spend part of your advertising budget on trying to attract them. For instance, different newspapers may have different readership profiles, as will radio stations and the Internet. Plan your campaign carefully and always record where your best responses come from so that you can use it again in the future. [Don’t forget to check out the Call Centre Helper jobs pages - Ed]

4. Who is going to be involved, and have you got the resource to do this properly?

Hopefully, there aren’t any call centres out there who are not undertaking telephone interviews as part of the recruitment process. This is the most important part of the whole process, but can be hugely resource hungry and so is an area that is often cut back. To gain the best results you must answer calls from candidates as they come in and to achieve this on a campaign to recruit 10 people will require four people on the phone, at least nine hours a day, for the first two days. This can be scaled back over the next three days but still requires up to three people. Calling people back from Ansaphone messages or from CVs is not ideal and will most likely cause you to reduce the available candidates responding by 30% or more.

There is then a second interview and the assessment centre, when you will need at least two and five people, respectively.
It is this resource that many companies do not have, but is critical to the success of the campaign. Solutions to this problem may be to enlist the help of external companies or use some of the team leaders from the contact centre, but if you do the latter, be aware they will be away from their teams for a long period of time. Bear in mind that this whole process should take no longer than six working days, so the short-term pain will be worth the long-term gain.

5. How many telephone interviews are you going to have?

Recruitment best practice is to have two. The first will be almost solely focused on testing the candidates’ communication skills, and those that are successful here will pass through to a second stage which focuses on more job-specific requirements (e.g. sales or customer service skills/experience, qualifications, career ambitions, understanding of the role, etc.). The second telephone interview has a huge impact on the future loyalty of recruits. You may well lose some good candidates here, but don’t worry, they are probably the ones who would have left fairly soon after starting in any case.

6. Are you going to run Assessment Centres?

You will only maximise success if you carefully measure each candidate against the core competencies and skills required for the job. These need to be cross checked in a number of different scenarios. This cannot be done through simply having a face-to-face interview.

7. What will the Assessment Centre involve?

Accepting that the objective of the assessment centre is to assess each candidate against the skills required to undertake the job successfully, a number of exercises should be used to do this. Ideally this will involve group and teamwork exercises, telephone role-play, including data entry, numerical and verbal reasoning tests and a face-to-face interview. There should also be an opportunity to view the environment where they will be working if successful.

8. Have you got a qualitative assessment system to score the interviews?

There is no point undertaking telephone interviews and running assessment centres if you are not going to score the exercises fairly and consistently. It is a sad fact that too many companies still rely too much on gut feel. The first step is to decide exactly what you need to measure, design the whole recruitment process around that, and then draw up a scoring system which will measure each candidate against exactly the same scoring criteria.

9. Do the people undertaking assessment have the necessary skills?

Develop a scoring system that has rigid instructions on how to score. This should make the process objective rather than subjective. Everybody who is involved in the telephone interviews or on the assessment centres will then need to be trained in using this model. Ideally you will have somebody available to audit the scores at assessment, and telephone interviews should be listened to and checked as well. It simply will not work to pull somebody in from the call centre who has no experience of the process you are using, and the scoring associated with it; in fact it will flaw the whole system.

10. Have you stuck rigidly to this process, regardless of cost or resource involved?

If you follow this process to the letter you will get higher quality recruits and lower staff turnover (provided your call centre is properly managed!). Each time you cut a corner or miss out a part of the process it will diminish your results; I have seen this so many times that I guarantee it to be true. Whatever the cost of the process, it will be far cheaper than recruiting unsuitable people or having high levels of staff turnover.

What is Customer Experience Management - CEM

Within the business world, one thing constantly under debate is how to acquire, retain and support customers.

Richard Snow tells us why Customer Experience Management (CEM) is so important.

Research completed by Ventana Research shows that many companies cite “product quality” and “price” as the two things mostly likely to influence customers’ feelings about their company and their propensity to remain loyal and make additional purchases.

For several years CRM (Customer Relationship Management) was promoted as the panacea to achieve this, but recently this has come into question. Firstly because there are so many tales of CRM initiatives that have not delivered, and secondly because in a web-enabled world, people are now questioning whether customers actually want a relationship with their suppliers.

CRM is rapidly being replaced by “Customer Experience Management (CEM)”

The problem is that depending on who you talk to, CEM can mean many different things.

Here are some different ‘definitions’ of CEM

• having a 360-degree view of customers to support marketing and sales decisions
• business process change
• reducing queuing times
• routing calls in a contact centre to the best agent to handle a call
• better structured customer self-service
• a unified desktop that supports agents as they handle calls

We believe it is a combination of all these, but with a particular purpose in mind. That purpose, quite simply, is to ensure that every customer interaction is handled as efficiently as possible but in a way that is most likely to result in an outcome that is positive for both the customer and the company.

Our research shows that for many companies efficiency is the top priority and generally that equates to diverting more calls to automated systems - IVR, web-based self service, automated e-mail responses - without taking into account the context of the interaction or the customer’s preferences.

More mature companies begin by taking account of the customer’s preference and then make real-time decisions as to the best means of satisfying the customer’s immediate requirement, e.g. a platinum customer might normally be routed directly to a specific agent, but for something as simple as paying a regular bill then an automated solution might be just as appropriate.

Unified desktop

When handling calls, mature companies have implemented a unified desktop system that makes it much simpler for an agent to access all the applications and information they need from one single desktop. However, the most mature companies have gone one step further and replaced the agent’s user interface with one that mirrors more closely the flow of different call types, hides access to systems by automatically pushing or pulling data depending on the customer’s profile and pre-defined rules, and the context of the interaction, changing the information provided to the agent and in some circumstances recommending the next best action. Each of these steps not only reduces average call handling times but increases the effectiveness of the agent and thus improves the likely outcome of the interaction.

Self service not reducing volumes

Another area where companies have looked to improve their efficiency is by deflecting more calls to web-based self service. However, our research shows that in just over half of companies this has not had the desired effect because the majority of visits to the website still end up with the customer calling the contact centre, either because the site is hard to use or it simply contains errors. Mature companies have begun to address this by making their sites more intuitive to use by deploying natural-language-based scripts and Q&A sessions that recognise the customer and alter the flow and responses accordingly.

Influencing the outcome of interactions

Our research shows that companies believe that influencing the outcome of interactions is achieved by two primary methods; routing interactions to the right agent, and personalising responses and information as the interaction is occurring.

Both require real-time access to a source of up-to-date customer information that includes all previous interactions (giving the context of the current interaction), event data such as birthdays, customer feedback information that indicates the likely demeanour and preferences of the customer, and profile data so where possible the customer does not have to re-enter data they have already supplied.

The real key is to use information to personalise how the interaction is handled, as it is being handled. This might take the form of more individualised responses from an agent as information is pushed to them by a “smart” desktop, changing the flow and responses on web-based self service, smarter IVR menus, or something as simple as auto-built but personalised responses to e-mails.

Personalising each interaction

The essence of customer experience management is personalising each interaction as it occurs, with a view to positively influencing the outcome. Although there is no guarantee that a good experience will make a customer stay loyal and buy again, it significantly raises the probability that they will.

To enable companies to monitor the success of their CEM initiatives, we further recommend they take a serious look at their key performance indicators.

Traditional measures should be retained:

• average handling time
• customer satisfaction
• net promoter scores

These should be supplemented with outcome measures:

• new net business by customer segment and channel
• net life-time customer values

Measures such as these will enable companies to judge the success of their interaction handling processes and point them to where they can improve the customer experience

Coaching in the call centre

Peter Laurie reports on 7 Quick Steps to agent coaching.With the best will in the world, agent coaching sometimes is neglected in the pursuit of answering ringing phones, achieving volume targets and many other tasks that agents are expected to do in a working day. For an outsider looking in it’s easy to think of Covey’s time management principles and various telephone coaching models that could improve what often can look like a disorganised stampede of call centre activity.

The fact is that if agents are not trained, mentored and coached effectively then lack of motivation, performance and quality generally result in a decrease in revenue-generating customers as they finally give up, tell all who will listen what a bad experience they have had and go to do battle elsewhere.

So how do you make a difference and build a team of motivated skilful agents in 15 mins flat?

Keep it simple yet effective with the 7 step coaching staircase:

1. Do your research; it makes sense that before you can attempt a useful coaching session with your agents you need to know where their strengths and potential areas of development are. Therefore I would suggest you listen to a selection of the calls of at least three of your agents before holding a coaching session.

2. Do not listen to calls in succession – pick a few from different time slots to get a variety of calls across a week.

3. Consider business peaks and troughs and pick the best time to take 15 minutes with your agent. Invite your agent into a quiet space, position the coaching process positively by explaining what the overall objectives are and discussing any incentives available. Then play back a call.

4. Ask your agent to take an objective view and give feedback on the call, pointing out strengths and potential areas for development. You will find that if you structure your sessions in this way your agent will be objectively critical towards their performance and bring up a number of areas that could be improved.

5. Build the agent’s ego a little by emphasising their strengths and then ask them to think of solutions they can implement to improve the area that needs attention. Use open questions and then silence to stimulate the agent’s creativity in thinking of potential solutions.

6. Once all potential solutions are on the table question your agent through the pros and cons of each potential solution to establish the viability of each and agree the best one to move forward with. This must then be committed to an action plan.

7. Work on only one action during one coaching session, putting multiple actions always dilutes a coaching session. Make it one action the agent can take quickly and commit strongly too. You can always come back and work on other areas later. A coaching plan without action is a cosy conversation; unfortunately cosy conversations, nice as they are, don’t help the bottom line.

Coaching is all about advancing step by step. Trying to jump to the top by putting all the steps into one coaching session will generally end in failure.

A small achievable step with high commitment ensures successes are regular and motivation high.

A special report has been written which contains useful tips and models that you can use to help you develop coaching within your teams.

To claim your free copy of this special report please contact Peter through the Power Partners website.

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