For contact centers to succeed in delivering incredible customer experiences (CXs), it is critical that they map out the employee journey, from recruitment to promotion. With a keen focus on the continuity of what is most important.
For example, when you recruit and train new hires, the duties and responsibilities should align with what was advertised: and what the applicants were screened for and ultimately what they will be measured on and developed towards.
Know what’s really important to your organization and ensure there is a consistent focus on it. Set these out in two-three of your most important goals.
If you are struggling to get this down to just a few things, consider the concept of “Outcomes” versus “Diagnostics.”
For example, if customer satisfaction (CSAT) and speed of answer are really important, consider that CSAT is an outcome driven by many things, including the diagnostic measure of speed of answer.
If you focus more on the diagnostic, you could hurt the outcome e.g., canceling coaching, going too high in occupancy, having no sympathy for an employee being legitimately late, etc. These can all cause short-term speed improvements but ultimately worse CSAT.
However, if you are laser-focused on CSAT, you would still care about speed but make balanced concessions with other important diagnostics.
Once you have your two-three most important goals, center your posting language around that (in addition to sharing challenges transparently).
Rather than say “you will be measured on speed and productivity” you can say “we are obsessed with great customer experiences, and we measure ourselves on the many things we need to do well in order to deliver on it.” Focus your interview, screening, training, nesting, scorecards, and coaching recognition and career mentoring programs around the same most important things.
Otherwise, there is a disconnect along the journey or worse, conflict. For example, “we want to make things right for the customer” but agents are measured on handle times and rigid QA (quality assurance) forms, and aren’t empowered to do that.
For in this very common scenario, these employees will leave or worse work unhappily, driving consequences that negatively impact the CX.
The Experience
In Part 1 of this article, let’s review an example that I witnessed at a well-known brand contact center, illustrating what happens all too often when there is a disconnect in the employee journey. Of course, the outcome could have been very different, which I will outline in Part 2.
It was a rainy Monday morning and the new contact center hires all piled into the training room: a little damp but still excited to start their new jobs.
Some knew the company well and loved the brand while others were excited by what they were told through the posting and interview process.
What were the new hires told? That this was not like other contact centers. This company puts customers and employees first. There was a visible glow to their enthusiasm that even their soggy shoes couldn’t dampen.
Week One. The first day was a bit of a slog: lots of HR paperwork, system profile setups, and some tech issues, etc. Some new hires flew through while others were struggling and feeling a bit stressed. Still, by the end of the day, they were still glimmering.
For the rest of the week, the new hires were taught a whole bunch of company history, systems, and product information. It came so naturally to many of them, but for those it didn’t, they really felt the pressure of holding up the class and some of them were visibly distraught. Job security woes were already setting in, and by the end of that week that glow started to fade for some.
Week Two. The new hires dove deeper into products with several self-study and online modules. Some of those who struggled in Week One were flying through Week Two while others were falling further behind. Many Week One stars also struggled with self-learning and by the end of Week Two, very few had that same sparkle they came in with on that rainy Monday.
So, it wasn’t really coaching but a communication of errors...with uncertain but stressful consequences.
Week Three. The contact center had the new hires working in test environments, shadowing experienced agents and role-playing.
But there were many issues with the test environment, so several new hires had very little time in the system as compared to others. Also, due to the center’s high turnover and poor service levels, this was quite a big class so there was only time for a few to experience facilitator guided role-play.
Moreover, although the new agents were being hired for the busy evening shift, the shadowing was with the less busy day shift where the calls were different from what they would be taking. And the shadowed calls, as a result, were not the same as the sample calls the trainer had played for them in training.
Week Four. The new agents were put on the phones. With their heads still spinning trying to retain all that knowledge learned, they quickly found that things are quite different for customers than how it was explained in training.
Training described things as they should be if things go to plan. The happy path. But these were not happy path callers. Plus, most of the product knowledge that the new agents were taught didn’t really come up on most calls and so it was quickly forgotten.
Also, though the agents were trained on the company’s systems, how they would navigate through them on the flow of specific issues while on the phones live was not well understood by them.
The Outcomes
Not surprisingly, these new agents were overwhelmed. Many of them had already started sending in resumes to other companies. Some didn’t even wait as they felt unemployment was more attractive.
During this time, these agents were being monitored heavily. Leaders were performing QAs and coaching them on the minor things they missed on the quality forms. Like “you didn’t say their name three times,” “you didn’t paraphrase,” and “you didn’t use the empathy statement.”
Even those agents who would get customer praise became disheartened when they were “coached” about their QA misses.
Not only were the topics of coaching disconnected at times from the customer’s feedback, but agents weren’t given time to prepare or reflect on their calls. They arrived at a coaching session, were handed a form with a low score, the leader recited all the mistakes, and set a target date to have them corrected.
So, it wasn’t really coaching but a communication of errors and a looming deadline set with uncertain but stressful consequences.
This all seemed so different than how the job was positioned, what the company said was important, and what they thought they were hired for.
The thinking at this stage is typically something like this:
“I thought I was going to be able to make an impact on this company’s success by really helping customers out.”
“I thought I was going to get the training, tools and support to feel confident and prepared.”
“I thought I was going to be able to bring my experience and judgement to the role.”
“I thought this was where I fit and would find this work gratifying, but it seems more like a bait-and-switch now that I am doing the job.”
Did the new hires’ experiences have to turn out this way? What would happen if we knew what was most important and stayed true to that consistently throughout the employee journey? Read Part 2 to find out.