In the previous post we spoke about how a contact center interaction can essentially make or break relationships with customers and/or potential prospects. We spoke about how many call centers whether on shore, near shore or off shore need to improve their game both through infrastructure as well as processes and personnel.
We touched on the concept that millennials working in call centers today are feeling the pressure of management on one side and customers on the other. They are looking to earn an honest living and are looking to do just enough to maintain their position and earn a paycheck.
Being that these representatives are the face of the company, we surely expect maximum effort and genuine desire from our agents on every contact whether by phone, chat or email. So how can we achieve this ideal? How do we motivate the age group that seems to be unmotivated?
At GuateCall, our Central American contact center in Guatemala, we believe that our people need to be inspired and motivated by a higher purpose. A higher paycheck is obviously a great place to start and the bigger the pay the more motivation it brings. The question becomes is it the sustainable type of motivation that looks to benefit, not just the “I”, but our customer and our customer’s customer?
We found that a key element in meeting and exceeding our customer’s expectations is by applying the three Beliefs. These beliefs are at the core of our training and are constantly referred to throughout the call center. They have become part of the culture of our company.
The Three Beliefs are:
–Belief in the Concept
-Belief in the System
-Belief in Yourself
Today we will be discussing the first belief, Belief in the Concept. A typical customer trains our trainers on their company, what they do, how they do it, how long they’ve been doing it and all their systems and processes. These trainings are obviously a key to understanding our customer’s needs and how to accomplish the tasks necessary. When these trainings are completed and we establish GuateCall’s trainings to our employees, we have our trainers and managers look at the customer and figure out the “why”. The “why” this company is needed and what purpose do they serve? How they benefit the life of their customers and what makes them a “needed” part of the customer’s life?
Once this is figured out, sometimes it could be a bit challenging ;-), we apply these ideas to our training and our Quality Assurance. We also create interactive training sessions that allow our trainees as well as our seasoned agents to come up with their own ideas as to why this company is needed by their clients. They also come up with new benefits that maybe have not been thought of before. We then consistently remind our team about them. These reminders could come from a team lead mentioning it on the floor, a QA analyst messaging the team or just a quick who has a new benefit they’d like to share with the team message. (Many times those get rewarded with a treat or a round of applause.)
It’s crucial to get a strong buy in from the agents about who they represent and their importance to society. The key to making this a core belief for the agent is the consistency in which it is discussed. All ideas are great, but could be easily put in the back of the agents mind if not brought up consistently.
Our next Belief system is the Belief in the System. This will be discussed in a future post so please look for it on www.guatecall.com .
This article was written by Perry Silber, COO of GuateCall. GuateCall is a Near-shore contact center provider of multi-channel bilingual English and Spanish services located In Guatemala, Central America. Whether through voice or chat, we can provide superior services to your organization. If you would like to learn more about GuateCall and Call Center services in Latin America, please reach out to me at 713-474-2222 or by e-mail perry@guatecall.com.
