Consumers aren’t the only ones who may be overspending their bank accounts. A growing body of research from our sister program for Corporate Communicators (CEC) suggests that repeated organizational shuffling across the past few years may have exhausted the “Engagement Capital” many business leaders have to work with (think of engagement capital as the degree of optimism an employee holds about past, present, and future events at their company).

Simply put, many of us are pushing internal changes through on disgruntled workforces that no longer have the stomach for it. We are morale-ly bankrupt.

Here are some of the facts…

First, more than half of our reps have probably experienced multiple, major changes in the past year – such as a new manager, a different role, a merger with another company, a new sales process, or a restructured team.  (This doesn’t even account for smaller changes.  For example, 81% of organizations we recently polled changed their QA scorecards at least twice last year!)

Second, these changes are stressful, and stress costs money. In fact, more than 60% of employees say that their level of workplace stress has increased in the past two years, and this may be creating an overall drag of as much as 9% on performance.

But why is the stress of change having such a debilitating impact?  After all, change happens right? Staff should be able to deal with it. But it turns out that it’s not so much the magnitude, but rather the frequency of change that is a problem. Read More »

As we’ve continued to explore “The Next Frontier in Rep Performance” we’ve been asking customer service executives around the world that very tough question — straight up — do you trust the people who work for you?

But wait. Don’t answer. Not quite yet.

Cause it turns out that it’s not your answer that counts.

Yes, it’s true that according to a global CCC survey, 56% of companies say they “sometimes” trust their employees.  44% say they “always” do. Exactly 0% say they “never” trust their people.

But here’s the thing. You can say you trust your employees all you want (and we’re not suggesting for a moment that you don’t) but what matters far more is how your employees would respond. And there’s clear evidence that they don’t feel trusted.

And how can you blame them? If we’re being honest, the entire corporate world has been built on the general assumption that employees CAN’T be trusted: Read More »

The latest trend in learning and development?  Incorporating videogame techniques into the workplace (i.e.,“gamification”) for training and other often menial tasks.

Companies like IBM, SAP, and Deloitte all have used gaming technology to better engage employees in training and data entry and make the tasks seem less tedious and more resonant.

What they have found is that winning virtual badges (indicating an advance to the next level) and interacting in entertaining landscapes and backgrounds (unsurprisingly) actually is far more engaging (for millennials and boomers) than sitting in a classroom for hours on end listening to someone.  And in some studies, videogames even yield better knowledge retention (some research finds that if learning is not put into action within 2 weeks, staff lose that knowledge).

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I’m not ashamed to admit it (although I probably should be!) — during my school-age years, whenever I was forced to read some piece of classic literature, my first thought was always, “Lemme see if there’s a movie based on this book, cause I’d rather watch THAT instead of reading some stupid book.”

While that may have seemed like a clever strategy at age 12, as I reflect back today at age (insert higher number here) it’s obvious that as Mrs. Bierbauer often said, it turns out “I was only cheating myself.”

And so, while I may never fully appreciate the subtleties and nuances of Madame Bovary and Pride and Prejudice I do at least remember one story from the movie version of Tom Sawyer that keeps coming back to me as a lesson we should all apply in managing big Customer Service teams:

The best ideas are the ones that people come up with themselves — although sometimes we have to create the occasion FOR them to come up with those ideas. Read More »

“You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective. Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success – or are they holding you back?”
~         W. Clement Stone

Do you want to work in an environment where your leadership trusts you to make decisions, where you have a clear vision of how your daily activity impacts the organization’s goals & where you’re encouraged to share ideas with your peers without a watchful eye peering down on your every move?  Of course you do!

And your frontline staff does, too.  Unfortunately though, as Mr. Stone poses in the quote above, many organizations are holding their frontline staff back because of the environmental conditions that are in place.  And these environmental conditions are creating an outcome that no one wants: employee disengagement. Read More »

Monday, October 3^rd, kicks off Customer Service Week 2011, an occasion for service organizations to celebrate the work they do and the people who serve and support customers.

Last year, we shared a few creative ideas on how companies can show their appreciation for staff during Customer Service Week—these include friendly contests, giveaways, off-site trips, and other group activities throughout the week. Most companies schedule one or two events each day throughout the week with a goal of boosting employee morale and reaffirming the important role that employees play in the success of the service and support organization.

But while the focus of Customer Service Week has traditionally been the service employees themselves, some companies view the celebration as an occasion to recognize customers, as well. And with many organizations facing increased budget pressure this year, a greater focus on the customer can be one way to create a fun, meaningful week of celebration—without breaking the bank. Read More »

Water cooler chats.  Break room talks.  Over-the-wall convos.  These are the traditional ways that our frontline staff interacts with one another.  And while these meetings provide great opportunities for our staff to share ideas & improvement opportunities, unless lunch & break times coincide with each other, staff members tend to interact with the same peers over and over.  And the increasing popularity of remote workforce, not to mention multi-site organizations, has narrowed the field for peer interactions even more.  Shouldn’t we, as executive leaders, be providing more opportunities for these kinds of interactions, not fewer?

The answer is yes, and here’s why and (as important) how:

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In unstable economic times, it has become especially important for financial services companies to focus more attention on serving their customers.

Given the unique issues that customer service professionals in the Financial Services industry face – including customer privacy and financial risk regulations – it can be difficult to know what CCC resources would be most helpful.

Wondering what others in your industry are reading? Here is a list of the CCC resources that your industry peers are downloading most often.

Top 3 CCC Resources for Financial Services Customer Service Professionals

1. Engineering a Low-Effort Customer Experience

What it is: A popular CCC download, this research outlines the most effective, up-to-date strategies for customer effort reduction.  In today’s competitive banking landscape, differentiating the customer experience may be a great way to win and retain customers.

Why your peers use it:

• To understand the sources of customer effort.
• To identify ways to reduce both the objective and subjective sides of effort.
• To coach frontline reps to employ techniques to reduce “in-the-moment” customer effort.

You might also be interested in: The Customer Effort Score – a customer experience metric that accounts for ease of customer interaction during a service request. CCC research has found that this is the most accurate measure of loyalty in a service organization.  Read More »

What profession(s) can help those of us in Customer Service learn the most about how to improve our performance?  Who should we be observing and modeling ourselves after?

Of course, we should always be looking at other people in customer service — in different fields and business models — and see how they do what they do.

(I worked in the airline business for many years, and was always astounded at how little interest there was in ever comparing our service model with other customer service industries like hospitality, food-and-beverage or retail — no wonder the airline business is in such horrible shape — most airlines only benchmark against other airlines!)

But is there anything can we learn from other professions?  I mean, if you’re not in the business of serving customers, then whadda we in CS care what you do?

That seems like a logical position.  Or at least I thought so, until CCC uncovered some surprising research as part of our new study, “The Next Frontier of Rep Performance.” What we’ve been learning is that one HUGE key to customer service performance is for reps to have the ability to bounce back from a negative or emotionally-challenging experience with one customer, and then be able to start fresh (just seconds later) with the next customer.

Most reps tend to carry the negative “baggage” of a bad experience with them — either right into the next call with the next customer, or for that baggage to eventually wear them down, creating a sense of burnout that degrades performance.

So, how could a rep learn to “fully engage” with one customer, but to cleanly “disengage” after a bad experience?  The answer lies by looking outside our own profession — and to learn from people who have to deal with VERY challenging emotional issues every day.

Nurses. Read More »

It’s no secret that today’s workplace environment is very different than it was even a year ago—many staff are working in roles that are beneath their qualifications, many wages still have not recovered to previous levels, and many staff continue to defer retirement.

In fact the changes are so significant and long-lasting that companies that once saw these trends as temporary are now embracing these changes as permanent.  And of course service and support organizations have not been immune to these changes.

Among the most major changes is the new influx of younger generations into the workplace.  With them come different expectations, motivations, preferences, and styles, leaving many organizations at a loss for how to effectively manage and motivate these staff.

But given the economic climate, older demographics also have changed their perceptions and expectations of the workplace environment, creating a complex management situation for many organizations.

In fact, organizations today are not just coping with managing the demands of individual demographics, but how the demographics interact with each other, too.  Suddenly retention, engagement, and team dynamics are quite complex, calling into question tried and true engagement and management strategies.

Read More »