Don't Abuse Call Centre Staff!

Over the next few days I will be blogging about call centre staff.  I will explain what they do, how they do it, and ways that you can help them to help you. 

Probably the greatest communicators in any area of the customer industry are those people who work in call centres and contact centres.  To explain the difference, call centres do nothing but place and answer phone calls whereas contact centres undertake additional tasks such as email and postal inquiries. 

A better name for contact centres may be communication centres.  Nevertheless I am going to refer to both centres as call centres.  Why, it is less letters to type and my two typing fingers are getting tired!  I will also refer to call centre employees as agents rather than representatives for the same reason.

Similar to the reasons why people are drawn to become crisis negotiators, the people who work in this industry are also drawn to work there.  They are naturally empathetic, have a desire to help others and for the most part are a communicative and friendly group of people.  They have a strong desire to help others. 

As we know, the main drivers of customer satisfaction regardless of the industry is that the entire service experience met the customer’s expectations, that the customer was treated fairly and that their individual circumstances were taken into account.  Customers appreciate staff who are competent, knowledgeable and kept their promise. 

Most importantly, the customer was treated with respect.  This last point is often hard to achieve with the more challenging (when you read the word challenging in my coming posts you can replace it with the word difficult if that works better for you) amongst us who sometimes get quite personal in our conversations when we don’t get what we want. 

Always remember, the person that you are yelling at on the other end of the phone is doing their very best to help you. It is not their fault that your machine broke down, that your internet doesn't work, that your satellite dish blew of the roof, or that your bank balance has gone into overdraft. They are there to help you not to hinder you. They have a set of rules that they have to abide by and will do everything in their power to assist you.

You might feel better by yelling at the agent. Imagine though how the agent feels when they went to work to help people and all that you did was abuse them for simply trying to help.

Change Your Thoughts.

I am not an expert in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) but I have used a few of these techniques to trick my brain into thinking positively about a negative event thus reducing the emotional reaction each time these thoughts of the negative event arrive in my head.

NLP provides an understanding of the mental and cognitive processes behind our behaviour to certain situations.  We can reprogram our brain using these techniques.  By changing the way we think about a situation we can change our emotional reaction and our perception as a result.  So how does that work?

Inside our brain is the amygdala which is responsible for our emotions.  When someone attacks us for example, the amygdala sends a signal to alert our emergency response mechanisms so that we can fight or flee.  The amygdala is attached to our hippocampus, this part of our brain stores our long-term memory.  So, when we have a bad event the amygdala alerts our response functions and at the same time the bad memory is stored for future reference with a marker.

This is the brain's way of protecting us so that if a similar event happens in the future we are ready for it.  The hippocampus and amygdala have worked in tandem to burn or 'brand' that bad memory into our brain. 

Taking the example of someone attacking us, every time you have some kind of a reminder or connection to that attack you will also have an emotional reaction.  The connection to the attack could be a smell, a sound, a sight, or just a random thought of the attack.  When you are reminded of the attack, the hippocampus alerts the amygdala and you have the same emotional reaction as you had when the attack first occurred.   

While you can never completely remove this bad memory, you can lessen the subsequent emotional reaction each time the thought of the attack comes into your head.  In your mind, take an image of that negative event then put a picture frame around it.  Once you have the image inside the frame you then hang the framed image on a wall.  Now stand back and look at the picture again.  It is now a harmless picture. Our brain has been tricked into thinking the event never actually occurred.  You may have to do this several times to embed the effect. 

There are many other useful NLP techniques, Dr Google can show you more of them. 

Let's Talk.

We are getting so busy, everything is moving faster, things are instantaneous, our head is spinning with information, our brain is working in overdrive - and that is just in the first hour of each day.

Because of this continuous fast pace, we often forget to stop for a moment and talk. I did that once, I was too busy to stop and talk to my mother who asked me to sit and have a cup of tea with her. "Too busy Mum", I yelled back while driving away. My mother died from a stroke before I got back and had that cup of tea. A true story, and the beginning of my slide into a terrible part of my life.

Did that get your attention? I was too busy: working long hours solving crimes at work, studying for university degrees (three of them), building an extension on my house, on-call as a police negotiator, and maintaining a high level of physical fitness. Why not, there is 24 hours in a day I used to tell myself.

Sleep, that's for old people. Food, two hamburgers a day is enough. Exercise, I ran everywhere. That's all we need to survive isn't it? Maslow said that our important needs are food, water, and shelter followed by safety and security. I was a cop with a good job, a nice home, a loving family, a great car, the best food available. I had all bases covered.

However, I didn't read all of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I wish that I had. Above safety and security is 'socialisation'. That is the need for us to talk, to interact, to share, to be part of a community, to stop for a moment and talk. Talking is about many things. It’s about learning the art of: communication, of social skills, of manners, of laughing, of forgetting about your worries for a few minutes.

When was the last time you said "I'm too busy to stop and talk".

Just Get On With It Will You.

Our attention span has shortened. There it is, I said it. Someone had to. It is no longer appropriate to hold long meetings, lengthy conversations, or training sessions over four hours in duration.

Advances in technology have shortened our attention span: no longer do we have to wait for the evening news, search through encyclopaedias for information, or wait for the mail to be delivered to get that notification. Everything is at our finger tips, this is the age of instant everything.

Is it a shame, you bet. Can we change it, nope. How should we control it, by getting on with it. Join the race or get left behind.

For those of you who aren't as old as me, advertisements on television used to be two minutes long. They were more like a movie and we used to have a game where we would guess the ad as soon as it came on to make them more enjoyable to watch. Now, ads are 15 to 30 seconds duration. A video 'sting' for a media broadcast is no more than 10 seconds long.  

When I am presenting to an audience, I know that I have to get their attention in the first few minutes otherwise brains will start to switch off. The traditional bell-curve method of presenting just won't do it anymore. I know that if I have a message, I have to get it out early. 

A way of delivering a long message is to use a reverse bell curve. In the first minute or so give the audience something that will grab their attention and hold it for as long as possible. A big bold statement. You cannot hold people's attention forever so fill the middle with information that isn't quite as important. Then, have a big ending that will deliver your key message. 

We only ever remember the beginning and end of a conversation, meeting, or speech. Why, because we are more focussed at these times. At the beginning we want to know a person's name and what they have to say. Then our brain wanders off to other things until the words "just before I finish" at which time we come back to the conversation, meeting, or speech.

The KISS principle has been around since the 1960s, how many of us actually use it I wonder. This is a way of maintaining interest in the middle bit of your message. We don't want to know how clever you are, we want to know how clever we are so put your message into plain words so that we 'get it', so we understand what you are saying.

In short, and sorry that I took so long to get there, just get on with it.

Look At Things Differently

Followers would have noticed my recent posts have been a bit 'different' lately. My overarching point of them all is that we have to now look differently at the way we recruit, train, coach, lead, and manage. 

Recruitment - There was a time when we submitted a CV, was short-listed, underwent an interview, and then either got the job or had to look for another. Now there are companies who conduct e-Screeing using state of the art technology to self-select recruits. No longer is there the need to run assessment centres, this is completed on-line.

Training - Unless you run a varied training package you are no longer meeting the needs of your employees. We have three generations of trainees, each requiring different techniques to address their varying learning needs.  If you have used the same training package for the last 10 years, it is obsolete and may be one reason why your new staff do not perform as well as they could.

Coaching - It is no longer valid to use the same coaches that you have always used unless they have been up-skilled in the last year or so. When was the last time you thought about matching age with age for your coaches? You cannot expect a baby-boomer to fully engage with a millennial unless the BB has been trained at engaging with these new learners. 

Leaders - I have already covered this topic off in earlier posts so I won't repeat them here. Suffice to say, look at how you lead and if it fits one of the four models then you need to change. 

Managers - These are to forgotten ones, the powerhouse of your organisation. For the last few years all of our energy has gone into ways of being a great leader while the managers quietly went about their role steering the ship. The role of a manager hasn't changed, the way in which we manage must now dos so. Job-sharing, FEO, flexible rosters, working from home, day-care facilities, all are now employment practices required to run a successful business.

When was the last time you looked at your organisations practices? If you haven't changed the way in which you recruit, train, coach, lead, and manage within the last five years then chances are you are lagging behind your competitors.