Call Center Job Tips

It's important that your customer service representatives respond appropriately to your customer's emotional needs, as well as getting the process steps correct, but it is equally critical representatives maintain their emotional composure.

Obviously the airlines are not known for great service. With a few notable exceptions, the airline industry is an embarrassing throwback to the comfort and amenities characteristic of cattle cars, stalls removed to cram more people in, shuttling workers back and forth across the dust bowel.

We can take a lesson from them for our own service, even if the lesson is: Don't do this!

Near the end of a bumpy flight from New York to London a British Air flight attendant noticed an elderly lady who did not have her seat belt fastened. The overhead announcements were ringing out, “Please fasten your seat belts and return your seats to their full and upright position. We'll be landing in a few minutes.”

The young gentleman pointed up toward the speakers and gently reminded the woman, “Please fasten your seat belt ma'am. We'll be landing momentarily.”
There seemed to be a language issue or a hearing issue or an age issue, the woman fumbled anxiously with the belt, but could not accomplish that reassuring click.

The flight attendant assumed it was a compliance issue and said, much more loudly, and much closer to her face, “Fasten your seat belt!”

More fumbling, but no progress. The attendant grabbed the ends of the belt and smashed them together around the woman's lap while the PA announced with even more urgency, “Flight attendants, take your seats for immediate landing.”

Despite the fevered mashing and bashing the seat belt would not click into place. The belt may have been jammed, or broken, or twisted, but the flight attendant quickly became red in the face, clawing at the belt and pawing at the woman's mid-section, trying to force the belt into place.

At this point the woman was protesting and pulling at the belt while the attendant was urgently pushing and the announcement was now at full blast, “Flight attendants, take your seats immediately, there is an imminent threat that your spinal cord will be snapped in two places if you're still standing in the aisle during the next six seconds.”

Flight attendants are a brave lot, dedicated to service, professionals, generally. They happily give their lives for their passengers, assisting the least capable off the plane in emergencies, despite grave risk to their person. Like firemen, albeit with drinks and snack crackers in hand, they patrol the aisles, protecting their charges from danger.

Except this time.

Enraged to a purplish hue, the young man, threw down the seat belt, stood up straight and screamed at the elderly woman, “Well, Just Die then!” and dashed up the aisle to scramble into the three-point harness on his jump seat.

The plane landed with a feather touch and no one died, despite best wishes to the contrary. This was, however, not a great day for air safety or customer service.

It is critical that we teach our customer service representatives techniques for handling the emotional component of these interactions. They need to be able to respond to the customer's emotions and their own. Without techniques to release the extreme tension of an “emergency” situation there may be an unfortunate release of that tension against the customer.

Extensive research at global brand leaders validates a basic truth about contact centers: the emotional content of the service interaction is as critical as the problem resolution. Extraordinary levels of customer loyalty are only achieved when the customer's need for both emotional resonance and procedural redress are successfully balanced.

Customers rate each element of a contact separately and maintain a clear distinction between the procedural aspects of the call and how emotionally tuned in was the customer service representative. Both of these elements must be handled successfully to get the greatest lift in customer satisfaction and loyalty.

A simple example will help explain the importance of this concept for centers that aspire to world class levels of customer interaction.

A customer might call in to report a lost or stolen credit card. The service representative can handle the call perfectly, professionally, and accurately, but if they fail to listen for and acknowledge the emotional state of the card holder they miss an opportunity to strengthen the company's relationship with that customer. It is important to listen to the customer carefully and modulate the response to stay under the customer's emotional level, but respond to the expressed or implied need. Often a simple, “I'm sorry to hear that, let me help you replace that card right away and ensure no charges are incurred.” sends an appropriate message.

Note that there are three elements to this response. The representative acknowledges the emotional need by saying “I'm sorry.” Then reassurance is provided and a clear expectation of rapid resolution is set, “let me help you replace that card right way.” The final piece of the response extends the promise from the company that the customer's trust is justified, “ensure no charges are incurred.”

Every transaction, particularly those involving high stress situations, like a lost card, must be handled accurately, effectively, and empathetically. Too many contact centers focus on the procedural aspects, but do not teach their representatives the importance of emotional resonance. This extra bit of awareness can mean the difference between a merely excellent center and one that achieves world class levels of customer loyalty.

Here is a great way for your call center to provide training during tight times.

With the current state of the US economy including financial bailouts from the federal government, stock market plummeting, and high unemployment rates, the pressure on businesses to be more productive with less resources has skyrocketed. Operating more efficiently and cost-effectively has become the current corporate mantra.

During this volatile economic situation, more businesses are faced with the challenges of maximizing employee performance and increased productivity. One way in which businesses can achieve operational excellence while continuing to cut costs is to invest in web-based employee development and training.

This current trend in e-learning continues to defy the challenges facing corporate America today. Through the continual investment in employee development, businesses are able to accelerate business growth and differentiate themselves from the competition.

How can investing in Web-based learning for employees contribute to a company's bottom line? Web-based learning provides employees the opportunity to enhance their core skills and competencies while providing employers with a cost-effective means to improving employee productivity. With Web-based learning programs, employees are able to take courses in the convenience of their office or home - resulting in minimal loss of productivity, money saved in travel, time out of the office and more.

Perhaps the most important benefit for businesses is Web-based learning provides employees the opportunity to learn in a more productive manner while enabling them to begin contributing to the productivity and profitability of the business in a faster method over traditional learning. New hires are now capable of contributing to a company's bottom line in a more concise manner.

When searching for an online learning resource, be sure to look for one that provides an interactive, real time learning atmosphere. This type of learning allows learners to interact directly with the instructors for a more enhanced learning experience.

This is one call center group that doen't get much attention- the outbound collection teams.

In collecting money from delinquent accounts receivable accounts there is right way of doing it if we want our collection efforts to be successful. We want to practice what I call the three “P's”: We want to be Professional, Pleasant, and Persistent.

1. Professional. Collecting money legally is what being professional is all about. It means that we must be familiar with federal and state collection laws. Federal laws like the Fair Debt Collection Act and the Fair Credit Reporting Act. And for health care providers the Health Insurance Portability Act (HIPPAA) as it applies to obtaining payment for health care.

State collection laws vary state by state. And you should not only be familiar with the laws of your state but also the laws of the state where your debtor resides. However, I can tell you after presenting collection seminars in all 50 U.S. states, the principles of collection law are the same in all states.

2. Pleasant. The interesting thing about collection law is what is legal is usually what is effective in collecting money. And what is illegal is usually ineffective and you would not want to do it even if you could.

What I mean by that is hard ball, aggressive collection techniques don't work. I realize that a lot of collectors use them, but they are not effective.

There are some things you can do that may help you coerce payment from your debtors. Like turning them over for collections. Or taking them to court. Or reporting them to a credit reporting agency according to the Fair Credit Reporting Act. But when all is said and done debtors will pay the creditors they want to pay.

And they will tend to pay the ones who are being pleasant with them — creditors who are trying to see it from the debtor's point of view. Stephen Covey, the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, says the fifth habit of highly effective people is they seek first to understand before they are understood. So if you will seek first to understand it from the debtor's perspective, it puts you in a much better position to be understood yourself.

Debtors also tend to pay creditors who are trying to get the problem solved. So I urge you to never think of yourself as a collector. Instead, think of yourself as a problem solver. If you can get your debtor to think of you as a problem solver you will collect a lot more money.

I'll give you an example. When I was collecting money I used to say things like this: “Bill, you have been a customer of ours for several years now. During that time we have mutually benefited from our relationship. I know together when can get this problem solved.”

Do you see what I did? I first established some common ground with the customer. In my case a business relationship of some standing. In your case it may be you both like gardening. It does not matter what the common ground is. But when you can establish it, it is a good idea to do so.

Then I reminded the customer that we have both benefited from our relationship; not just me but the customer as well. If we don't remind our customers of that, they forget it. They do benefit as well.

And then I used that to segue into setting myself up as a problem solver by simply saying, “I know together we can get this problem solved.” Now the debtor is no longer thinking of me as a collector. He is thinking of me as a problem solver. We are no longer adversaries. We are working on the same side of the table to try to get the problem solved.

3. Persistent. And the third “P” is we want to be persistent. It means that after the initial contact with the debtor is made, we must keep additional contacts on strict schedule. And it means we must have a good follow-up system. I'll address the issue of effective follow-up systems in a future article.

So remember that debtors pay the creditors they want to pay. And they will usually pay the creditors who are practicing the three P's: Professional, Pleasant, and Persistent.

The other day I answered a question about working with outsource partners. The guy who asked the question complained that he had been trying to find reliable outsourcing partners but the level of responsiveness he got was ways below his expectations. He was asking what the reasonable level of responsiveness is. Here is what I answered him:

When you outsource, always give a deadline of at least a week before your actual deadline. And of course - don't tell them about the one-week reserve. Most of the people whom you outsource to work on several projects simultaneously and one of the most difficult things for them is to fit everybody in their schedule. Because of that, urgent projects or projects that must be finished by a particular date become of higher priority for your outsourcing partner and he or she concentrates mainly on this project.

It is vital that you state your expectations in the very beginning. So, the first thing you should clear is if your outsourcing partner has the time for your project or not and if he or she can take you as a client.

If the answers to both questions are yes, then you can start negotiating the turnaround time for the project. They will tell you when they will be able to finish it.

However, if you want to be sure that you both speak the same language, ask again. For instance, you can say: “If we start the project on Monday, it'll be done by XYZ date. Am I right?” If they say yes, this means that you have achieved their commitment to finish the project by a particular date.

After that I usually give as a first project a non-time sensitive one. This way I am testing the waters and get the feeling what it is like to work with them.

Another important question you need to ask is about their preferred ways to communicate. The choices are many - telephone, email, instant messaging. If they prefer instant messaging, which is the IM client they use most - Skype, MSN, Yahoo or something else? You can also ask them about their business hours and how many hours a day they are online.

Different people work at different times. For instance, some of the webmasters I know work only at night because then they are most productive. Other webmasters work in the daytime.

Work hours are really important and you need to clarify this in advance. If you have a vital question to ask them and they work mainly at night, you will be trying in vain to reach them during normal business hours.

Another trick I use when working with outsourcing partners is to eliminate all the quesswork for them. I don't know if many other people do it but I really like it and it works for me because it makes our cooperation more effective.

For instance, when I have outsourced the creation of a website, I browse a lot and find many sites I like. Then I show them to the webmaster, so that he can use them as reference while creating my site.

I pick up five to ten sites and tell the webmaster what I like in each site - i.e. the colors, the fonts, the layout, etc. I provide many examples to illustrate my point.

You might object that this all takes you a lot of time. That's right, but this is the way to eliminate the guesswork and to cut the unnecessary communication. When you present sites you like, this helps your outsourcing partner to get an idea of what you want and this makes it easier for him or her to create exactly what you want. This approach saves both tons of money and a lot of time and that's why it has been working for me without failure.

I have already stated that the most important issues you need to clarify are managing your expectations and getting commitment (including clarifying the time frame) from your partner. Another very important issue is to discover the best way for communication and the best time to do it.

It is also very important that your first project with any outsourcing partner is not time-sensitive. Remember, the first project is like a test. If you feel your partnership is not working the way you expect it, don't start another project because if you do, this will be a mistake.

Very often the process of finding responsive outsourcing partners is based on trial and error. You might have to try many providers till you find The One. Once you find somebody you enjoy working with, rest assured - you can use them for as many projects as you have!