Customer Service Buzz

My favorite American football team, the Washington Redskins, is preparing to kick-off the 2010 season with a new coach, Mike Shanahan.  Mr. Shanahan was hired earlier this year to replace Jim Zorn, who was fired last year after coaching for only two seasons.  Mr. Zorn’s successful career as a player (he was a quarterback in the National Football League and threw for over 20,000 yards during his career), however, was not a very good predictor of his success as a coach: in two seasons as head coach the Redskins were an abysmal 12-20, including an embarrassing 4-12 last year.

How could a former player, someone who seemingly knows the game so well, fail miserably as a coach?  Well, like brokerage statements say: Past performance is not an indication of future success. Read More »

An article about remote reps caught my eye recently.  According to the article, remote reps amount to 7% of the total call center worker population in 2009, and the group is expected to grow by as much as 19% per year.  CCC’s data from its benchmarking database is strong as well, with about 13% of the companies surveyed using remote reps.

No doubt about it…and in case you’re still wondering…remote reps are here to stay.  Stories of “failed” programs are rare, and most companies have very positive experiences.  Commonly cited outcomes (when compared to brick and mortar operations) include:

• Better customer survey scores
• Higher productivity
• Lower turnover
• Environmentally friendly (This is a new one…we’ve recently heard some organizations publicize remote programs as a “green” initiative to cut the company’s carbon footprint—because fewer people are driving to work.)

CCC members, learn more about our remote rep research.

These benefits are great, but almost all of them are highly dependent on the reps you choose to staff the program.  If you hire the wrong type of rep, you’re investing time and resources into people likely to leave the job or, worse yet, stick around and be entirely unproductive.  When hiring remote reps, here are some things to consider: Read More »

At CCC we recently completed our annual performance reviews, and it’s gotten me thinking about talent.  More specifically, our high-potential talent and how to keep them around.  Sure, some folks tell me career options are limited in the service world – and there’s ‘healthy’ attrition of individuals who aren’t good fits.  But our top frontline staff, the ones who can just get it done – don’t we want to do everything in our power to keep them?

And the news from one of our sister programs, the Corporate Leadership Council (CLC), isn’t good.  In a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, their study of over 20,000 ‘emerging star’ employees found some startling facts:

• 1 in 3 high-potential employees are disengaged from their job – and are far less productive as a result
• 1 in 4 intends to leave their current company within the next year
• 1 in 5 see a misalignment between what the company wants and their own personal aspirations

Sound scary?  Well, it definitely got my attention.  And it got me thinking about what we can do to swing these statistics back in our favor. Read More »

It’s college graduation time, and that means the inspirational commencement speeches will start to circulate in the press—providing tips on everything from wearing sunscreen to pursuing your passions.  Most college grads will, I’m sure, feel confident their four years of studies have prepared them well for whatever life offers them.  

On the flip side, what about the folks who shunned the classroom for a  “real world” education?  Turns out that some of them have been pretty successful too.

Time Magazine recently published a list of the Top 10 College Dropouts, pointing out that several wildly successful individuals never got their diplomas.  Some names on the list are predictable: Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, to name two.  A few others were news to me: Tom Hanks left school to become a theater intern, and Harrison Ford abandoned his philosophy studies to try acting.

Certainly the reputations of these people makes one at least momentarily pause to reconsider the time and expense of higher education as a necessary component of success.  What is it about experiential, non-classroom learning that drives similar outcomes? Read More »

Big revenues and the CEO’s upcoming book release are winning Zappos loads of public press. Zappos doesn’t approach customer service like most organizations. In fact, the company makes it publically clear they have a culture that qualifies as more than just little bit quirky.

One of Zappos’s core principles is to promote employee and customer happiness. Of note on the employee side: Zappos values happy employees so much that at the end of new-hire training, trainees are offered $2,000+ to quit. Read More »

Have you ever wondered what makes your best frontline supervisors tick? Can it be boiled down to the same thing that makes for a great frontline rep?

Most companies assume that star reps will make great supervisors, and promote them accordingly. Unfortunately, while these reps are great at handling customer issues themselves, not all of them want to share their knowledge and develop staff – a key activity for supervisors.

CCC has found that one in three contact center supervisors don’t want to coach.  That’s right – nearly one-third of your supervisors actively avoid coaching and development activities.  These ‘reluctant’ supervisors can even harm team performance with the poor quality, unfocused coaching sessions that they are forced to conduct. Read More »