treat your agents well: service thrives on engaged employees · losing a great contributor and...

Treat Your Agents Well: Service Thrives on

Engaged Employees

WHITE PAPER

1.877.GO.PARATUREwww.parature.com

TREAT YOUR AGENTS WELL:SERVICE THRIVES ON ENGAGED EMPLOYEES

WHITE PAPER

Page 1

Treat Your Agents Well: Service Thrives on Engaged Employees

From the Top: Titles, Training, and Trust

Stop circling the subject of agent morale and take steps to shore it up. You’ve got to identify your top performers and lock them down. Experts weigh in on the best incen-tives to motivate your front-line workforce and make them true champions of your company and brand.

The customer service industry talks endlessly about the importance of retaining agents and the costs associated with losing them, yet the word “career” rarely comes up. Perhaps it’s because some C-level executives continue to believe that contact centers are inherently turnover factories whose churn is a natural outcome of the function they perform. Research drives their conviction: A recent survey conducted by BenchmarkPortal reveals that the annual agent turnover rates across all industries is 23% in the Ameri-cas and up to 10% higher in other areas of the world.

What these executives fail to consider is that their dated support-center-as-cost-center views — and the insu�cient budgets they subsequently allocate for customer service delivery — perpetuate this cycle. Granted, in certain organizations, particularly in service-outsourcing companies that compete for contracts based on price per seat, high turnover will likely remain the norm. But the conventional wisdom that customer service positions are inevitably relegated to serving as low-value, low-paying layovers on the way to something better has changed. A leading driver in this shift is the recognition that customer service has a direct impact on corporate brand and top-line revenues. Ensuring that impact is positive requires employee engagement programs designed to make service jobs a viable career option.

To improve your turnover rates, develop high-performing agents, and deliver a quality service experience to your customers, check out these recommendations by service experts geared to help you motivate, reward and engage your front-line workforce. Because budgets for training and technologies vary dramati-cally by organizations and industries, our experts o�er advice for implementing a variety of employee engagement programs, ranging from low-tech to high-tech options:

Titles matter. Service organizations typically give their �rst-level managers the title “supervisor,” which casts them in the negatively perceived role of overseers. Bruce Bel�ore, CEO of BenchmarkPortal, recommends that service leaders create titles for these managers that re�ect the functions they should be performing as agent leads. Titles such as “agent advisors” and “agent advocates” much more aptly de�ne the proper role of a team manager, he says.

“If the agent team manager goes from being a ‘supervisor’ — which automatically has a certain connotation — to being an advocate or advisor and assumes all the attributes those

“Support leaders often pro-mote their best individual contributors without assess-ing their leadership capabili-ties.”

- Christopher Mulligan, CEO, TalentKeepers



WHITE PAPER

titles suggest, the organizational dynamic immediately changes,” Bel�ore says. A primary responsibility of this new breed of leader, he says, is to “develop, advise and advocate to get the best possible performance from the individual agent and the team.”

Page 2

An engaged agent is a better agent, much more geared toward high perfor-mance. “An engaged service employee is more moti-vated to make discretionary e�orts — they take that extra call or chat session and try more solutions before they escalate a con-tact,” says Christopher Mulli-gan, CEO, TalentKeepers. He cites four engagement attributes that rank high on agents’ needs list and tips for meeting these needs:

•Credible leadership: Agents want to work for managers they see as knowledgeable, skilled, accessible, and compas-sionate. Try to assess lead-ership potential during onboarding or performance reviews, and consider allowing employees who demonstrate this potential to job-shadow managers, or give them some informal team lead tasks.

What Service Employees Want:

The engine that puts the muscle behind new title initiatives and the upgraded management function they re�ect is targeted training that transforms the image of managers as number-tracking disciplinarians to leaders who excel at training, mentoring, coaching, and improving the job satisfaction and performance of their direct reports. Among the problems these multifaceted training programs rectify is a common mistake that service executives make when �lling supervi-sory positions. While it’s not surprising that many supervisors are former agents who earn promotions based on strong service perfor-mance, executives continue to make the huge mistake of automati-cally expecting them to know how to manage people simply because they were good agents.

“Support leaders often promote their best individual contributors without assessing their leadership capabilities, so they often end up losing a great contributor and getting a low-performing supervisor,” says Christopher Mulligan, CEO, TalentKeepers.

“With proper training that’s aligned with the service strategy and tasks performed by their agents, agent advisors become turbo-chargers for good performance in the contact center,” says Bel�ore. Among the skills these programs teach managers are the ability to train direct reports, strong communications skills, and how to foster an open-door policy that gains agent trust and creates a mentor relationship rather than a disciplinary one. The programs also ensure managers have the skills needed to clearly outline what’s expected of agents in their interactions with customers and the kinds of metrics they must achieve. After outlining these targets, agent advisors then serve as role models that enable their teams to achieve goals and objectives.

If the old adage that “agents don’t leave jobs; they leave managers” is true, it’s a compelling argument for developing these training programs, says Keith Dawson, an analyst with Ovum. These managers may not set policies but they’re charged with scheduling, contact evaluation, and ensuring the right agents are handling the right contacts, so they’re the �rst line of response for personnel issues — a managerial role they’re often not ready to shoulder. “There’s often a sizeable gap between new supervisors’ capabilities and the position they’ve been promoted to — leadership needs to address that with training that covers management skills, positive reinforcement meth-ods and when to employ them, and other techniques that improve employee satisfaction.”



WHITE PAPER

•Support of co-workers: When agents feel part of a good team, they perform better individually and are more open to coaching and mentoring. Overall team performance climbs as well.

•A job within a high-performing company: People want to work for a winner, and raise their game if they feel the com-pany is doing well.

•Job and career satisfaction: Agents want the opportu-nity to leverage their strengths and have a de�ned path to achieve their career goals. These may change as the worker matures and they gain experience, but organiza-tions that manage to strengths, review individual goals, and o�er career-path options signi�cantly increase their chances of retaining their best workers.

While the development of positive reinforcement skills may not seem relevant in the metrics-driven environment of service organizations, it forces managers to identify speci�c agent attributes they can then reference to impact performance. According to JoAnna Brandi, founder of customer service consultancy JoAnna Brandi & Company, high-performing service organizations use positive reinforcement, recognition, and similar productivity drivers �ve times more often than they use negative enforcement techniques.

“Managers have traditionally been taught that they have to manage their teams by addressing weaknesses, but they’re more e�ective if they show they’re aware of their employees’ strengths — agents appreciate acknowledgement that their work is valued,” says Brandi. And be speci�c: managers should provide concrete examples of things agents do that add value to the organization, she says. While it takes time to learn an individual’s strong points, good managers identify them so they can show agents they recognize what makes them shine.

Brandi cites Gallup studies that reveal some eye-opening bene�ts of this approach: When managers recognize, praise, and manage to speci�c individual strengths in their teams, employee performance increases by 32.4%. Conversely, when they emphasize weaknesses, performance drops 26.8%.

Strengths emphasis — when it’s perceived as sincere —directly corre-lates to employee engagement. In a Gallup survey of management techniques, 61% of employees whose managers primarily emphasized their strengths said they were engaged in their work, with just 1% saying they were “actively disengaged.” In teams whose managers primarily focused on weaknesses, 45% of employees reported being engaged, and nearly one quarter — 22% — said they were actively disengaged.

Page 3

To Pay or Not to Pay: Whatever You Do, Follow-Through

Beyond psychological motivation, service organizations employ a wide range of incentives, rewards, and morale-building tools to increase employee engagement and retention. These vary based on such factors as industry, budget, labor regulations, and economic climate. Some programs are integrated in ongoing operations while others are one-o� programs rolled-out to boost short-term performance cycles. They include traditional pay-for-performance incentives and cash equivalents such as gift cards, non-cash rewards including merchandise, and a wide array of intangible incentives in cases where spending isn’t feasible. Increasingly, incentives include skills training and professional development opportunities.



WHITE PAPER

Page 4

For larger organizations that can a�ord to implement pay-for-performance incentive programs, it’s critical that upper management execute them in such a way that agents and supervisors respect and understand the targets they must hit to achieve compensation, says Bel�ore. They should only implement these programs if they have accurate reporting systems that allow managers to determine that agents meet what Bel�ore refers to as the “Ps and Qs” metrics — “presence,“ quality,” and “quantity” — used to determine when additional pay is warranted.

• Presence metrics: These metrics rely on systems that track attendance and adherence to schedules to prove agents are present and performing assigned tasks.

• Quality metrics: These metrics relate to customer satisfaction. Determining quality performance requires the capture of large quantities of reliable, statistically meaningful feedback on an agent’s soft and hard skills. The most reliable method of measuring quality — particularly on the soft skills needed to create a positive and satisfying connection with the customer — is via post-contact customer satisfaction surveys. Hard skills — which refer to a rep’s ability to follow policies and provide accurate information — are scored using information captured by internal quality monitoring tools and personnel.

Percentage of Organizations Citing Negative ImpactSource: Talentkeepers, 2011



WHITE PAPER

Page 5

• Quantity metrics: If a service rep meets monthly presence and quality requirements, they’re eligible for �nancial incentives based on meeting quantity metrics. If, for example, reps lower their average handle time while meeting presence and quality metrics, their performance rates pay incentives.

These programs empower agents by giving them control over their own compensation, says Bel�ore. “We’ve seen that average contact handle time can be reduced without compromising quality, and in large support organizations, reducing handling times by 5% can save the company millions of dollars. For every percentage decrease, there’s money saved — that’s additional money that the company can share with its support employees,” says Bel�ore. Because agent advisors earn �nancial incentives based on agent perfor-mance, they’re encouraged to closely collaborate with their teams to meet incentive benchmarks. These programs strengthen the relationship between agents and advisors, because good advisors enable agents to earn more by helping them �ne-tune performance.

However, while pay-for-performance incentives can be a valuable tool, they’re complex to implement and should be explored thoroughly prior to deployment, says Bel�ore. “It’s imperative that the information gathered be reliable or it loses credibility and the incentive programs fail. You need good technology, a well-designed rollout, and strong follow-through.” Further, management has to deal with disagree-ments over more-subjective performance aspects, such as soft skills, which tend to be the most contentious area in pay-based incentive programs that rely solely on internal quality monitors. Soft-skills scoring based primarily on direct customer feedback ensures accuracy and circumvents these issues.

Support organizations that can’t implement sophisticated pay-for-performance programs or even scaled-down �nancial rewards have to be much more creative, says Brandi. “It’s nice to have a line item on the budget for, say, celebrations, but there’s usually very little money in the budget for that kind of activity.” But a little creativity can go a long way, she says. Beyond practicing positive reinforcement, support leaders can come up with some very e�ective non-�nancial incentives for increasing performance.

These might come in the form of increased status and perks, such as the opportunity to request scheduling times, have the �rst crack at holiday leave, and the chance to occasionally work from home under the right circumstances.

One practice that Brandi recommends managers adopt is allowing agents the opportunity to get away from their desks and the associated stress of interacting with customers. Agents can help develop a new customer service initiative, or

To attract top talent and keep it in-house requires e�ective pro�le development programs. Pro�le development is particu-larly critical for support centers experiencing very high turnover, or those that require reps pos-sessing certain skills needed to deliver high-level service in particular industries, says Bruce Bel�ore, CEO, BenchmarkPortal.

To realize the potential of pro�le development, organizations may opt to leverage the skills of industrial psychologists or service delivery experts. Among their activities, these experts develop the ideal agent pro�le for the service organization by reviewing the agents already on sta�, analyzing their tasks, and identifying the ones who are performing at the highest levels. They then develop pre-employment testing based on

What Service Employees Want:



WHITE PAPER

Page 6

the pro�le-screening process they created by observing the best- and worst-performing agents and identifying optimal agent characteristics.

“Your goal as a leader isn’t to keep everybody — it’s to Iden-tify your best-performing agents and lock them down,” says Keith Dawson, an analyst at Ovum. You likewise identify mid-level performers with the potential to excel and give them incentives to move up, as well as poor performers or disinclined work-ers who don’t merit further investment and intercept them before they become an issue. “Better hiring pipelines created by leveraging industrial psychol-ogy techniques and onboarding practices are circumventing common hiring mistakes,” Dawson says.

“Good pro�le development requires some time and invest-ment because it’s designed to bring the people onboard who can best help you meet your goals and objectives,” says Bel-�ore. “My advice: hire carefully so you can �re less.”

work on a team project in another department. They can train and mentor other employees based on their speci�c skill-set. If their company sponsors community outreach e�orts, they can participate in a community service initiative or even spearhead their own. She cites one organization whose leaders hold brain-storming workshops where agent teams compete to create the best non-monetary incentive, and reward them by implement the winning idea. They can further reward the winning team with, for example, a much-needed afternoon o�.

“E�orts that highlight appreciation are huge to engagement and retention,” says Brandi. “Show you consider an agent an important contributor to your success through their customer service prowess by providing them with opportunities to con-tribute to the organization in other ways.”

Bel�ore agrees that creating opportunities that give support reps time away from �elding customer contacts can be an extremely e�ective technique for the service organization. Some executives take a collective approach by holding monthly meetings that require attendance by agents and direct supervi-sors, where executives give credit by naming the teams and individuals with the best monthly metrics and letting them choose various prizes. Another e�ective tactic he’s seen is where executives turn the management of the monthly meeting over to advisors and agents, so it’s not a top-down exercise, but driven by the employees most directly impacted by day-to-day customer service issues.

Targeting Talent, Mapping Careers

Of the numerous incentives designed to increase performance and employee engagement, high on the list of agents are career-pathing options that provide assurance that they can have a gratifying career in customer service or even in other areas of the business.

Executives seeking to create professional contact centers are roll-outing a number of development incentives based on employee demand, according to Mulligan. They’re o�ering

enhanced training and certi�cations to employees that demonstrate particular technical skills. They establish tiered structures with increasing levels of compensation through which employees progress by demonstrating the ability to handle more contacts, master multiple channels, and take on additional responsibilities while still meeting performance metrics.



WHITE PAPER

“These organizational incentives show incoming agents that strong performance results in a variety of tangible rewards as well as the opportunity to expand their career options. Clearly de�ned paths to advancement go a long way toward helping the organization retain top talent so they can develop a high-functioning profes-sional service organization,” says Mulligan.

Because there’s clearly a pyramid in support organizations that can’t support the upward mobility of every employee, the key today is for service leaders to take a more organic approach to career-building, says Dawson. “Ask yourself, ‘If this person is excelling in the support center, what else can they do within the company?’ For the organization that emphasizes incentives in the form of skills development, career-pathing becomes more than just advancing from agent to higher-level agent to supervisor. It enables people to grow in the job by making the agent position not a terminal point but a chance to have a rewarding career with the organization.”

Page 7

While Dawson believes the incentive landscape will always be about money and cash equivalents, it’s also increasingly about having opportunities for enhanced skills training and earning the right to take on other responsibilities. These kinds of rewards are exponentially important as the support center becomes more connected to other parts of the business, handles a growing number of contact channels, and manages more intricate transactions. “As environmental complexity inside the contact center grows, so does the skill-set required to become an excellent agent. The ability to develop programs to retain the person who excels in this environment has become critical,” Dawson says.

In fact, the growing complexity of the agent/customer interaction is probably the most important variable today in identifying top service representatives, says Dawson. As mobile and social channels join IVR and online self-service to siphon o� easier questions, the issues that make their way to the support center are much more complex. This dynamic, Dawson says, puts a premium on certain types of skills. “You’re not just training agents on the mechanics of operating their platforms or creating self-service content — you’re teaching them problem-solving skills, corporate policies, and the dynamics of the larger business. As they develop these kinds of skills, it positions them to take on di�erent roles.” When the time comes to promote them to a managerial position, they’re far better equipped because they understand not only how service delivery impacts customer satisfaction, but they’re gained skills that make them attractive to other business units as well.

“Smart executives know that some of their best people will end up migrating to other parts of the enterprise,” says Bel�ore. “Rather than �ghting it, make it part of your career-pathing strategy by allowing them to intern with other departments in the enterprise if the option is available.” Organizations are starting to adopt the attitude that this approach is critical to the morale of established employees as well as a strong recruiting tool. By taking the further step of creating informal “alumni networks,” service centers raise their pro�le within the enterprise and have advocates dispersed throughout key departments, increasing intradepartmental commu-nications that promotes understanding of the importance of customer service and remove the barriers that historically isolate service organizations from other departments.

“Service executives are �nally recognizing the advantages of having former agents working throughout the enterprise,” Bel�ore adds. “These former service employees understand your issues better than anyone else and can be key advocates for better alignment of departments responsible for the customer experience.”

“Your goal as a leader is to Identify your best-performing agents and lock them down.”

—Keith Dawson, analyst, Ovum

© Copyright 2011 Parature, Inc.All rights reserved. Various trademarks held by their respective ownersv05/11

ABOUT PARATUREParature is the industry’s leading

provider of cloud-based customer

engagement solutions and is used to

support over 25 million end users

worldwide. Parature empowers

customer service organizations to

monitor, manage, resolve and respond

to a high volume of service issues

across multiple communication

channels, including the growing

number of service-related

conversations that are happening every

day within social media channels. With

more than a decade of experience,

Parature delivers support and social

media engagement and management

solutions to mid-size and enterprise

organizations across a wide variety of

industries. Parature is among Inc.

Magazine’s Top 100 Fastest Growing

Private Software Companies and is the

recipient of numerous product,

technology, and leadership awards.

Parature is used by some of the world’s

most innovative organizations, federal

agencies and companies, including

Rosetta Stone, Evernote,

SuccessFactors and Threadless.

Parature is headquartered in Vienna,

Virginia. For more information, visit

www.parature.com. our Facebook page

at www.facebook.com/parature or

follow @parature on Twitter.

HEADQUARTERS16325-B Dulles Technology Dr.

Herndon, VA 20171 USA

Phone: 703.564.7758

Fax: 703.564.7757

www.parature.com

treat your agents well: service thrives on engaged employees · losing a great contributor and...

Documents