Yesterday, Envision hosted an online event with Dale Raduenz of Great Lakes titled "Is It Time For An Evaluation Form Makeover?" During the session, Dale and I discussed the evolution of the Great Lakes call evaluation form and call center best practices.

We polled the audience about their current evaluation forms. I'm pleased to report that 43.5% of the audience uses a mixture of foundation and finesse grading when evaluating skills. If we had taken this poll even a few years ago, I believe that the results would have been skewed towards more foundation skills grading.

The audience was also polled about the number of skills being evaluated today. Here are the results:

If you would like to learn more about the Web session, "Is It Time For An Evaluation Form Makeover?" you can download the slides here, and you can view the archived Web event here.

Post tags:  Dale Raduenz, Great Lakes, free Web event, call center, call evaluation, contact center networking, call center trends, call centre trends

Today's Call Center Quick Tip comes from Gail Workman:

Learning Library

How do you train your call center staff? Do you have any contact center tips that you would like to share?

Post tags: Gail Workman, call center training, call center, contact center

flickr photo courtesy of timetrax

Today, I came across another article about the relationship between employee experiences and customer experiences. In his article, Doug Meacham asks if you are giving your employees a great experience. Doug presents some compelling numbers around the cost of recruiting (versus the cost of keeping employees engaged and happy). He also outlines a few items that provide great employee experiences, like career pathing and frequent and honest feedback mechanisms. Here is the comment that I left on Doug's site as well:

In a retail environment store employees are not the only ones that deliver customer experiences.  Contact center employees have an even tougher job as they do not have that face to face opportunity and rely on a telephone or email conversation to convey to the customer that they value their business. 

 

Whether you are a store or contact center employee, here are some other ways to create great customer experiences:

• Recognize and thank employees for a job well done
• Talk to them about how their position makes a direct impact on the company and the customer
• Communicate with them frequently and honestly
• Ask for their opinion on how to improve customer service… after all, they are the direct link to the customer
• Provide them with the tools and training they need to be successful

As I have written in the past, I believe that there is a link between customer experiences and employee experiences. Happy employees definitely contribute positively to customer experiences.

Post tags: Doug Meacham, customer loyalty, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction

Today's Call Center Quick Tip comes from Kathie Zeier of SUPERVALU:

Quality Council

We have a Quality Enhancement council that reviews any quality concerns. Council members are made up of three CSRs, two operations specialists, two supervisors, knowledge team members, a training team member, and our operations managers. We are currently reviewing and rewriting the Call Evaluation Guidelines document to continually improve the process.

• Ask, Don't Tell by Joan Brennan of Weyerhauser 
• Bookmark Calls by Cammy McCafferty of Northwest Airlines
• Benchmark Your Best CSRs

Do you have any handy coaching tips? I'd love to hear some of your call center best practices as well!

Post tags: Kathie Zeier, SUPERVALU, Joan Brennan, Weyerhauser, Cammy McCafferty, Northwest Airlines, contact center agent, contact center effectiveness, call center, contact center, 

I've written in the past about the Employee/Customer Value Asset Chain, so when I came across an article today from Scott Deming titled "Brillant Branders: 5 Companies That Know the Importance of Customer Experience," I was compelled to write again. In his article, Deming speaks to brand promises, and how those promises effect customer experiences. Two of our customers are cited in the article, and this excerpt about Costco really inspired me:

"3. Costco

Through their excellent employee retention plan, Costco shows that providing the ultimate customer experience starts with treating your employees well. Costco is a general merchandise company that sells high quality, low-cost items from mayonnaise, to automobile tires, to crystal chandeliers. A crucial component of its success is employee loyalty, which translates to employee evangelism. In fact, Costco has the lowest employee turnover rate in retail.

The average wage for a Costco employee is more than 40% higher than its closest competitor, Sam’s Club. And the company provides excellent benefits, contributing to employee 401(k) plans after two years and providing health insurance to part-time employees after six months of employment. Employees say they want to work at Costco until retirement—a rare expression of employee satisfaction. Naturally, the effects of the company’s approach to employees ripple outward as Costco shoppers appreciate the fact that the low prices they enjoy do not come at the expense of workers’ wages and benefits."

The last line especially hit home, as those happy employees are the ones who shape the customer experiences. Once again, this is a great "real-world" example of the Employee/Customer Asset Chain in action: satisfied employees lead to satisfied customers.

Post tags: Scott Deming, Costco, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction

Today's Call Center Quick Tip comes from Joan Brennan of Weyerhaeuser:

Post tags: Joan Brennan, Weyerhaeuser, contact center agent, contact center effectiveness, call center, contact center

Today's Call Center Quick Tip comes from Cammy McCafferty of Northwest Airlines:

Post tags: Cammy McCafferty, Northwest Airlines, call center best practices, call center coaching, call center, contact center