It’s been a great 2011 at CCC as we teamed up with our members to help them address a year’s worth of challenges. We’ve already looked forward and shared our predictions for what 2012 will hold for service organizations, so here is a look back at our best research published in the past year. We’re hoping this list will help you refocus your priorities for the New Year and aid in your planning for a successful 2012!

• The Next Frontier of Rep Performance—when we heard from our members that rep performance was stalling despite continued investments in talent, we decided to take a closer look at what drives performance in the service organization today. What did we find? While traditional skill sets are still important, most reps were missing a crucial piece of the rep performance puzzle—one that has more than twice the impact on performance as any other factor. We call this set of skills and behaviors the Control Quotient (CQ), which quantifies a rep’s ability to exercise ownership over their day-to-day work, as well as to remain in control over themselves in stressful situations. In today’s quality-driven world, CQ is the number one lever that companies can pull to boost performance in their frontline. Read More »

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 »

“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 »

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 »

CCC conducted a frontline staff skills survey as part of our major research initiative for this year.  As you can imagine, not every interesting data point makes its way into the final product.  Here’s a look at what was left on the “cutting room floor” in our third of three posts in this series (view posts one and two).

In reviewing PwC’s 11^th Annual Global CEO Survey, we at CCC observed that 30% of CEOs are focusing on “better penetration of existing markets,” above all other business growth opportunities.  Our key takeaway from that data point is that if this is what our CEOs care about, shouldn’t we in the service organization care about it as much as they do, if not more?  To that end, CCC has dedicated a lot of research to the topic of customer loyalty to specifically identify what drives it from a service organization perspective.

The reason I wanted to highlight this information in this post is because our latest staff survey data shows how frequently service organization leaders speak to their staff about customer loyalty today.  Surprisingly, loyalty it’s not the most frequently cited topic; rather customer satisfaction appears to be a pervasive force. Read More »

Senior executives who are effective at talent management generate up to 7% more revenue than their less dedicated peers.  Unfortunately, more than 80% of executives are either uncommitted to talent management, ineffective at it, or worse—both. 

Talent management, though, is not a matter of skill (most executives have the business skills necessary) or time (effective executives and ineffective executives spend roughly the same amount of time on talent management): the issue is focus.  Executives should approach talent management strategically—managing key talent like a corporate asset that is developed and deployed in support of business objectives. 

Becoming a Talent Champion outlines five key activities executives should focus on in place of day-to-day staff management, including building the high potential bench, holding the senior team accountable for talent outcomes, and owning the organization’s talent strategy.  To learn more, download a complimentary copy of this new publication or order the eBook.

CCC Members, check out our best talent management tools and insights in our Talent Management Topic Center, including:

• Building the Next Generation of Contact Center Talent
• Rep Performance: The Next Performance Boost
• Frontline Staff Skills Survey

By Corey Stout

There is plenty of buzz around the upcoming 65^th birthday for our beloved Baby Boomers. And it’s not just that stores need to start stocking up on cake mix and candles – companies need to start preparing themselves to anticipate more employees retiring.

Kirsten has been blogging on hiring retirees to fill the gaps left by retirees (no that is not a typo!).

Read More »

Like many of the young professionals my age, I work in a cubicle.  This isn’t an ideal situation, but at least it gives me an incentive to work up to an office some day.  Given the limitations of working in a cubicle, I’ve been forced to make the most of the space I’ve been allotted.  I don’t take it completely for granted, though, because I likely have more space than most customer service representatives (reps, on average, have 40% less space than other functions provide).

It is thus important to make the most of what you’re provided, so here are some strategies I would recommend to improve the use of space within your organization and enable reps to perform their best: Read More »

I’d like to share some information related to one of the most unique research questions I’ve fielded across the last six years of working with CCC members.  Specifically, one of our Canadian members was building a proposal to institute a “clean desk” policy that would require contact center staff to eat lunch anywhere other than their desks.  Considering that 75% of office workers eat lunch at their desks two or three times a week, and nearly 50% do so every day, this member had her work cut out for her. 

This prompted a brief search on secondary literature, and, wow, we were surprised by the data we found.  Since we are in the peak of flu season (according to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control), I thought it would be appropriate to re-surface insights we found:

Health/Safety Risks—there are a number of very disturbing statistics that may give you pause the next time you lunch at your desk or even reach for the phone:

• 75% of office workers eat lunch at their desks two or three times a week, and nearly 50% do so every day.  One in three workers eats breakfast at their desks as well.
• Only 24% of workers always clean their desks before eating at them, and 20% of workers never clean their desks.
• The typical desk has 100 times as much bacteria as the typical kitchen table.
• The typical desk has 400 times as much bacteria as the typical office toilet seat (20,961 germs per square inch on a desk vs. 49 germs per square inch on a toilet seat).  Think about it…most office restrooms are cleaned at least daily.  When did you last wipe down your desk?  I’ll bet it wasn’t this morning.
• The telephone (more than 25,000 germs per square inch), keyboard, and computer mouse tend to have more bacteria than the desk, yet 60% of survey respondents do not clean these items more than once a month.
• Germs found in studies included both viruses (causes of colds and flu) and bacteria (causes of strep throat and pneumonia, among other illnesses). Read More »