Author: Kim Vey

A lot of call centres experience peak call volumes around this time of year, especially if they’re supporting the retail sector, and with inclement weather hitting right now people are stressed with driving, shopping, baking and trying to get everything done before the holidays start.

Sometimes our customers can be a little impatient and conversations aren’t always the most pleasant as we deal with shipping issues, out of stock items, billing errors or the myriad of other reasons for their calls, and this can be a negative experience for our agents. Recognizing that high call volumes and stressed customers can turn a good day bad is something we really need to be aware of. So what can we do?

Spending time on the floor is even more important now – sitting in and listening to calls, asking how their day’s going, asking about holiday plans and recognizing their efforts goes a long way. Thanks to the readers who sent me in ideas of some fun things to do in call centres over the next few weeks.

1. Celebrate traditions – get your agents to share some of their holiday and family traditions. Write them up on coloured paper and post them on a holiday themed bulletin board. Your at home agents can easily participate by emailing their stories to you.
2. Theme days are always fun – dressing in red or green and giving out ballots to everyone who participates.
3. Have an ugly sweater day and award a prize for the tackiest sweater
4. Holiday hat day – prizes for the best decorated holiday hat
5. Have agents decorate their workstations – and yes, you can give away prizes for that too. At-home agents can decorate their home office and send in their photos. Post these on the holiday board
6. Have the management team walk around the centre and deliver hot chocolate and gingerbread cookies
7. Play some reindeer games – Set up some fun holiday themed games in your lunch/break rooms – play some holiday tunes and relax

I’m sure there are lots more great ideas out there – feel free to comment or email them to me directly. Just keep in mind – simple and fun. No one needs extra stress trying to plan complicated activities at this time of year!

So this weeks rule (#7) – Celebrate the season by keeping things fun and stress-free in your call centre

And we’re still building our list of 100 quick and cheap ways to Reward and Recognize in the Call Centre so help me add to the list by submitting feedback – or emailing me at kimvey@rogers.com

Once we get to 100 – I’ll post the entire list right here and you can start using all the great ideas people have shared

Feedback or comments: Tell me about how you’re celebrating the season in your call centre.

Recognize the bad stuff too! How to make the good words even more meaningful for Reward and Recognition in your Call Centres

A friend emailed me the other day and suggested that we could make our words even more meaningful by effectively dealing with issues and concerns. He said ‘Even if you deliver recognition perfectly, it will quickly lose its value if you let performance issues/concerns slide. Some managers make the mistake of ignoring issues if overall team performance is on target.”

I mused on that for awhile, over a cup of morning coffee, and thought about a time where I witnessed this happen. One of my Team Managers had a team that was performing very well with respect to their key performance indicators – meeting their productivity and sales targets, and achieving good customer service scores. This manager was very good at delivering rah, rah messages in their team meeting, providing pizza parties for team success, pumping up the team with cheers, etc. It was apparent, however, that some team members were not pulling their weight and were riding on the success of a few strong team members. The stronger team members were starting to get disillusioned and were not quite as motivated as they had been, and the manager was perplexed. Had he not treated them all to pizza and pop? Framed certificates for team performance for the kudos wall? Celebrated team stats in huddles? Yes, he had done all that – but not all the team members were doing their part, and the ones who were carrying the team were getting tired of performance issues being swept under the carpet. Why should Susan, who achieved only 50% of her sales target, get the same rewards as Peter, who overachieved at 122%? Why should the 11 people who met their productivity target be treated the same as those 7 people who did not achieve it? One sure fire way to demotivate your call centre reps is to lump them all together when it comes to recognizing results – both in a positive or negative way. It’s just as important to have the tough conversations!

So this weeks rule (#6) – Don’t forget to have the tough conversations or the great conversations won’t mean anything!

Some quick and easy ideas for Reward and Recognition in your Call Centres

And we’re adding to our list of 100….thanks for the suggestions!

Let’s build a list of 100 quick and cheap ways to Reward and Recognize in the Call Centre

Help me add to this list by submitting feedback – or emailing me at kimvey@rogers.com

5. Take calls for an hour for your rep. This can have a double benefit – the team sees the manager out on the floor and their peer gets an hour off the phone. This is also a great way to mentor your reps and teach best practices.

6. Create a wall of fame where you post new reps photos and a short bio. This is a great way to ‘recognize’ new employees joining the team

7. Mini first aid kit – with a note “thanks for taking care of our clients today’

8. An incentive for you readers this week – send in an idea and you could win a prize!

And remember, once we get to 100 – I’ll post the entire list right here and you can start using all the great ideas people have shared

Feedback or comments: Share your ideas for low/no cost rewards and recognition in your call centres

We can’t place enough value on the face to face interactions we have with our call centre staff. Making it a daily habit to ‘walk-about’ is a great one to establish early on when you’re leading a team. But ‘positive reinforcement’ comments can be double edged and you may be perceived as being ‘fake’ if you are spreading compliments around like cheap cigars.

Phrases like ‘great call there John’ or ‘way to make that sale Jenny’ don’t have much value to a call centre rep and provide very little satisfaction.

So what should I say?

First, telling them they had a great call is ok – but then go that extra step and tell them why it was a great call from your perspective. This is a hard habit to form, and I admit it takes practice – but it’s so worthwhile, and you’ll see that people take notice when you do it properly –and look forward to your comments.

Here are some examples:

“That was a great call you just had John, and I especially liked the way you acknowledged that Joanne (the client) was frustrated with the error we made, and that you offered to credit her shipping on the next one. It really shows that you were listening and cared about making the situation right’

“Hey Jenny – amazing job on that call, and what a great way to position that new product. Highlighting those special features was very smart –and made the client take a keen interest in the product. I’m going to share that with the whole team if you don’t mind”

See the difference – tell them why you are impressed, don’t just tell them you’re impressed.

Some quick and easy ideas for Reward and Recognition in your Call Centres

1. A roll of lifesavers with a tag “You’ve been a lifesaver for our clients today” (you can even personalize with an example of what they did to make it even more meaningful)
2. A package of mints – “Your customer service skills are worth a mint to us”
3. A Mars bar – “Your quality is out of this world”
4. A client commendation board where customer comments are posted with the call centre reps photo
5. ……what’s your idea?

Let’s build a list of 100 quick and cheap ways to Reward and Recognize in the Call Centre. Once we get to 100 – I’ll post the entire list right here and you can start using all the great ideas people have shared

Help me add to this list by submitting feedback – or emailing me at kimvey@rogers.com

So this week – Rule #5 Make the comment you make meaningful – tell them why!

Feedback or comments: Share your ideas for low/no cost rewards and recognition in your call centres

If you are a call centre leader, and your centre has a well structured program which is administered by a designated person, your job is half done. Usually the ceremonies are all booked and planned, you just have to show up, hand out the certificates, gift cards, prizes…maybe say a few words, but basically – it’s done.

What’s not so easy is the ‘stuff’ you need to do that no one else can do for you – the one on one recognition, the personal touch, the verbal thank you. Sometimes these types of recognition are the most important to people. Let’s try this out:

Julie, a call centre agent in your company, is having a bad morning – kids got up late, no lunches were made, she had to stop and get gas on the way to work, nearly late, spilled her coffee – I’ve had one of those mornings and they can set you up pretty nicely for the day (and not in a good way). Julie starts her shift with a couple really frustrating calls and thinks to herself – can this day get any worse? You (her team leader) look at her stats report from the previous day, and she’s had great sales results. You walk over right then and there and give her the high five – “Great job on your sales yesterday Julie – that’s why you’re so valuable to us here at XYZ. You provide great service to our clients and we appreciate it”. Imagine how those 28 words, which didn’t cost anything, didn’t require streamers, balloons or certificates, no gift cards or prizes – imagine how they impact Julie. If I was Julie here – I’d probably be taking a deep breath and mentally starting my day over again with a fresh attitude.

Sounds easy right? Sad to say that this is one of the hardest things to teach new team leaders and managers – the importance of on-the-spot, unplanned, unrehearsed recognition. I was terrible at it (I’ll admit it) and I realized that everything else seemed more important in a day – answering emails, attending meetings, whatever. I decided that I needed a daily reminder and so I put it into my calendar. Every morning – a reminder would pop up at 8:45 reminding me to recognize at least 1 person that day. The bad news is that it took me awhile to make it a habit, I’d hit snooze on the reminder several times during the day when I got busy and by the time I had time, it was time to go home. The good news is that I did eventually make it a habit and I really enjoyed the time I would spend on the floor, talking to reps and giving some verbal recognition. It also helped me to get to know the reps better, and learn all their names! The pluses in my plan were more than I had hoped for.

So this week – Rule #4 – Make the unplanned – planned. Add a daily reminder to your calendar to walk the floor and make someone’s day just a little bit better by acknowledging the work they do. It’s not an easy job and sometimes a little thank you goes a long way.

Feedback or comments: How do you teach your leaders (yourself) to do the daily thank you?

I’m currently doing research for a book on reward and recognition in call centres – what’s new, some fresh ideas, what motivates reps these days, etc and preliminary results show that 100% of the companies surveyed so far have some type of program. I thought it might be interesting to share some preliminary results with you today.

Does your company have a formal reward and recognition program? 100% said yes they do.

Asking the agents – do rewards and recognition motivate you to achieve your targets?

Yes

74%

No

17%

Somewhat

9%

I asked what kinds of rewards/recognition do not motivate you?

All kinds motivate me	83%	Taxable benefit gift cards	19%
Certificates	0.5%	Inconsistent or non-recognition	1.50%

Results are also available by generation and show that the 1981-2000 group are most concerned with the taxable benefit issue, and prefer money and time off to trinkets, gadgets and prizes.

I asked the leaders who completed the survey if they felt the program motivated the reps and 100% said yes (which is inconsistent with what the the reps responded). They told me they reward the standard metrics, including productivity, quality, attendance and sales. Some also rewarded teamwork by giving reps time off for participating in community events. They also commented that there was no formal recognition for the leaders. This is one area where a lot of companies could use some focus, especially at the direct supervisor/team lead level.

If you’re interested in participating in the survey – it’s still open (until the end of November). I need agents and leaders to participate. I will be sharing back all the summarized results with anyone who completes it. All results will be kept confidential and no contact names, contact information or company names will be shared. Just hit the feedback button at the bottom of the article and include your email address, or you can email me directly at kimvey@rogers.com. This weeks’ rule? Rule #3 When you are designing a reward and/or recognition program for your centre, make sure you include your leaders. Recognize them in front of their peers and the teams they lead. Reward them for the % of agents they have meeting their metrics. Rewarding them in this way, as opposed to the team with the highest productivity, or the highest quality, ensures that you are rewarding teams where more people are achieving the goals, and the success of the team is not resting on the shoulders of a few superstars.

Thanks for reading, and remember to contact me about the survey. It’s only a few questions and you’ll end up getting back some great information for your own centres.

Call centers are now a mainstream tool for providing customer service to a very large audience. As a co-host of the Customer Service blog, I’m going to share some useful ideas about how to maximize the performance of your call centers.

So what can I tell you about it? I hope to be able to share some best practices that I’ve come across over the years, as well as some tools and tips to help you get the most out of your own programs. I’m hoping to help you design new, fun, innovative and effective recognition programs for your call centers, and to get you to share some of your great ideas as well. With all the different generations we now how in our centers, it’s more important than ever to understand what’s going to work to motivate our agents to succeed.

When my two daughters were very young, we used to frequent a restaurant that offered kids a prize at the end of their meal. It was an actual ‘treasure chest’ full of small, inexpensive, fun items to choose from. They would ooh and aah over the chest, sometimes taking more time to select their prizes than the waitress had patience for. The best thing about this treasure chest was that they could choose what they wanted – whether it was a yo-yo, a princess tiara, baseball cards or a slinky. They both had very different tastes and always chose something unique. When I look at some companies plans, the one thing they seem to forget is that people want to be able to choose their own rewards. Not everyone is motivated in the same way and we need to keep that in mind when we are looking at the rewards, and even the way in which we recognize people. Tickets to a baseball game might be the perfect choice for one agent, but a terrible one for someone else. Balloons and streamers and certificates might make someone’s day, but it might embarrass someone else who likes to keep a low profile.

Rule #1:

Make sure your program can meet the needs of all the recipients.

Tool #1:

Here is a link to a form you can use (or modify) to find out what you should put in your ‘treasure chest’ to make sure your agents ooh and aah too. The form can help you better understand how your agents want to be recognized and what’s important to them as individuals. We used a red metal toolbox purchased from a hardware store, and the team decorated it to look like a pirates treasure chest. This just added to the fun.

Feedback please

What have you done to personalize programs in your centers? What tools have you used to ensure your rewards and recognition were appropriate for the people receiving them?

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Kim Vey has over 20 years of experience as manager of front-line staff and management professionals to achieve strong results in performance, including in call-center customer service. She can be reached via email or LinkedIn.