tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-134282702024-03-13T17:56:53.121-04:00Call Center Steel Cage Death MatchA Call Center Manager's musings on 25 years of life in the call center.Cogitating Call Center Managerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09650049110626319751noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13428270.post-32173991847829277062010-11-10T11:56:00.003-05:002010-11-10T12:15:26.191-05:00Outsourcing To India - Been There, Done That, Would Consider it Again, Maybe<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_DkMKigIX1Qg/TNrI3-4iksI/AAAAAAAAAqM/BnQbbmM9424/s1600/New+Delhi.jpg" imageanchor="1" linkindex="15" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_DkMKigIX1Qg/TNrI3-4iksI/AAAAAAAAAqM/BnQbbmM9424/s320/New+Delhi.jpg" width="320" /></a>Time certainly flies when you're having fun. In about 2 and a half months I will have been at this company for 4 years (my last post was almost 3 and a half years ago). I ended up doing the outsourcing thing (a blended model of US agents and their outsourced counterparts in India) for about a year and a half, which was great because I got to go back to New Delhi/Noida for a second visit. But I ultimately terminated the partnership, which was quite a bummer since I really liked the people on the team, and the visits.<br />
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Funny thing is, I haven't seen the inside of a call center since my last visit to India in 2008 because all of my current agents are home-based. <br />
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Overall my experience with outsourcing was positive. The company we used was huge - locations all over India (something like 20 building alone in New Delhi/Noida) and in Europe, but they treated my small project with a ton of attention and effort. Yes, I'd say "effort" is the key word. The whole group worked very hard. Any criticisms or suggestions were acted on immediately. During my two visits there they fell over all themselves with hospitality and graciousness.<br />
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There were definitley a few problems though. The group was handling contacts that could basically be described as email (no phone), but the replies that the group had to compose had to be original, humorous at times, and have a kind of casual, upbeat tone. They weren't always successful with that. Understanding US cultural references was sometimes difficult, and their tone was sometimes stiff and awkward. But again, the effort was always there.<br />
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In the end I decided to go with strictly US home-based agents (for several reasons), but I will NEVER forget India or the people I met there. I really hope I make it back some day.Cogitating Call Center Managerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09650049110626319751noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13428270.post-6329113831804293112007-06-10T15:46:00.001-04:002007-06-10T16:13:53.667-04:00I made it to India<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_DkMKigIX1Qg/RmxVbJVM92I/AAAAAAAAAAM/qBO9NYULOUw/s1600-h/noida+pics+197.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_DkMKigIX1Qg/RmxVbJVM92I/AAAAAAAAAAM/qBO9NYULOUw/s320/noida+pics+197.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5074524804989384546" border="0" /></a><br />Friends, it has been a long time since I've posted. A few changes have come about.<br /><br />I finally made it to India. This past March I traveled to Delhi to train a group that is handling the part of the business that I oversee. I have finally seen an Indian call center from the inside out.<br /><br />I spent about 17 days there and let me tell you it was mind-blowing. Here's a picture of the Taj Mahal that I took. I'll be going back soon, but in the mean time will post some of my first-hand findings/views on outsourcing to India.<br /><br />The second big change/event I discovered when I turned to the Editor's Page of the latest edition of Call Center Magazine to find that Keith Dawson has split. This is not good news. It seemed to me that while he was Editorial Director the magazine finally became worthwhile (see my post on Call Center Literature/shiterature). CCSCDM will be keeping a close eye on this new development. Will Susan Hash make a hash-job of the project? Will CCM sink back to the status of a call center products catalog?<br /><br />And last, but not least, what the hell is Anonymous Cog up to?????Cogitating Call Center Managerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09650049110626319751noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13428270.post-1170485174453024772007-02-03T01:15:00.000-05:002007-06-10T15:45:30.299-04:00Epilogue - And Brand New BeginningNo picture to post on this entry, but some very good news (good news for me, at least. I know you could care less). I started a new job almost one month to the day that I got laid off. The interesting thing to me is that the job that I ultimately accepted (and which paid a little less but with a Director title) is not a traditional call center job (the other job would have been starting up a small call center and fulfillment operation). There are no inbound phone, email, click-to-chat, or IM contacts at this new place. There <em>are</em> inbound contacts - they're just not ordinary contacts. But the ordinary element about them is that they are subject to all the regular call center metrics and call center management techniques etc. In fact, we're running a test with a company in India to see if outsourcing is a viable option to handle some of these contacts. So I'll be spending some time soaking in the Ganges in March. Can't wait to blog and post some pictures. I've already ordered an updated copy of <em>Call Center Management On Fast Forward </em>since I hear that it addresses more email-related stuff that I might be able to apply to my particular situation. Anyway, if you've got any good call center tips, comments, observations, sure-fire schemes, or off-color jokes for me, email me at <a href="mailto:callcenterdeathmatch@hotmail.com">callcenterdeathmatch@hotmail.com</a>.Cogitating Call Center Managerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09650049110626319751noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13428270.post-1167669879077375382007-01-01T11:30:00.000-05:002007-01-02T09:42:14.743-05:00Game Over<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5702/1179/1600/410832/55cent.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5702/1179/200/909654/55cent.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Well that's it. I was laid off on Thursday along with everyone else in the call center. The HR person was very nice. I don't think she noticed the Abattoir sign or the Woody Allen photo. We had a party after she left, and it was a real barn-burner. We had beer, wings, and a pinata filled with candy and cigarettes. And things are looking pretty good job-wise. I'm pretty sure that I'll have a couple of offers by the end of the week. But I'm going to miss the old job quite a bit. I'm going to miss a couple of the people terribly. And someday I'll tell you what happened to the snack machine.Cogitating Call Center Managerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09650049110626319751noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13428270.post-1166819095027980272006-12-22T14:35:00.000-05:002007-03-07T22:53:55.808-05:00Preparing the Execution Chamber<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5702/1179/1600/889301/woody.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left;" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5702/1179/320/782929/woody.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Six days left - but only two business days! It's an odd feeling to know that this is the last Friday I'll ever sit at this desk.<br /><br />One of the good things about knowing well in advance that I'm going to be terminated is that I can set the stage where the terminations will be taking place. The person who will be letting all of us go is coming in from another part of the country and I have taken the liberty of modifying the room where it will all go down.<br /><br />First, I have made the room look as sparse and empty as possible. There is no computer and no phone, no plants - just three chairs around an empty desk. I don't want the Executioner to be able to rest his/her eyes on anything other than the termin-ee or a blank wall.<br /><br />Second, I have added two small things that will probably go unnoticed: above the door to the room I have hung a sign that says "The Abattoir" (it looks larger in the picture than it actually is). That's a fancy word for Slaughterhouse.<br /><br />I also hung a small picture of Woody Allen walking with Death from the movie Love & Death. Other than that the walls are bare. A little bit of gallows humor to help the agents through. <a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5702/1179/1600/44639/sign%20of%20things%20to%20come.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left;" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5702/1179/320/278160/sign%20of%20things%20to%20come.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Now, on to the contest. I guess I am not that surprised by the lack of entries in the CCSCDM contest. I don't want to come off as mean-spirited, but I think it has something to do with the prize. So I'm going to throw in two more items to sweeten the pot. The first is MY headset. Yes, CCCM was always prepared to jump into the fray if call volumes got out of control. So if you are the first one with the correct answer, you'll receive my Plantronics monaural headset. This item will be signed and is suitable for display. The second is the package of Pop Tarts from the snack machine. That's right, CCCM will apply his considerable strength to jar the Pop Tarts from their current resting place. If this doesn't get the contest ball rolling, I don't know what will. Maybe some more clues? Here's that email address again <a href="mailto:CallCenterDeathMatch@hotmail.com">CallCenterDeathMatch@hotmail.com</a>.Cogitating Call Center Managerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09650049110626319751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13428270.post-1166459326028728962006-12-18T11:26:00.000-05:002006-12-18T17:26:19.936-05:0010.5 Days to go - Interview Fever!<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5702/1179/1600/18234/interviewing.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5702/1179/320/293876/interviewing.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />No winners yet in the first annual CCSCDM contest. We've had quite a few submissions here, but everyone has been wide of the mark. I'm kidding, of course, because no one reads this except me, and my Brother-in-Arms <a href="http://callcenterpurgatory.blogspot.com/">Anonymous Cog </a>(and occasionally my wife if she's bored). So, no submissions yet.<br /><br />I have had several interviews over the past weeks and things are looking pretty good. And when I say "pretty good," I mean that I'm getting pretty good at pretending that December 28 will never arrive. One thing I love about interviewing is a phenomenon I call "Interview Fever". This is condition manifests itself in several ways (none of them good).<br /><br />Severe memory loss is the most common symptom for me. I call this the "Tabula Rasa", or Blank Slate phenomenon. In a recent interview I was trying to show what a know-it-all I am by citing a piece Keith Dawson did in which he mentions call centers in Egypt. As I began to launch into my convoluted answer to a question about offshoring, Interview Fever took hold and I could barely recall my mother's name, let alone Keith Dawson's. And the point of the article I was citing went flying from my mind. But I ploughed ahead and managed to garble, drool, and hem-and-haw my way through. My interviewer's expression plainly said "What was that all about? What do ancient Egyptians have to do with call centers?"<br /><br />Blurting out things that you know will not further your cause is another symptom of Interview Fever. I call this phenomenon "Ack!" - as in the sound a cat makes when it coughs up a furball. I once had a panel inteview for an inbound call center manager job - I sat around a table with about eight people and they each asked one question from a sheet, and then moved on to the next person. About an hour into the torture, one of the panel members asked me what my values were. My mind was mush at this point, and I struggled mightily with the answer, and after stammering out a few things, I said, "I don't know - peace, love and understanding? Ack!?" I definitely saw a couple of smirks as certain members of the panel reveled in my discomfort.<br /><br />A more insidious Interview Fever phenomenon is called "Elvis Has Left the Building". This occurs when the interviewer begins a rather complicated question and about 1/3 into the question (which will make or break the interview), I involuntarily begin to ponder some random mystery of the universe, or some random event from my life 20 years ago. Then I'll tune back in to the question just in time to catch the last sentence. So as I drift from wondering why Tommy Crumley punched Bobby O'Halloran in the eye in 7th grade French class, back to "...given those set of circumstances, how would you address that issue?", a dull panic sets in; I haven't heard the question, and it was so long that I couldn't possibly ask the interviewer to repeat it. At that point I have only one option: First I give the interviewer a full Tabula Rasa. Then I follow it with a resounding "Ack!". And that, my friends, is how I avoid the painfully embarassing predicament of being offered a job.Cogitating Call Center Managerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09650049110626319751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13428270.post-1166222150431400732006-12-15T17:29:00.000-05:002006-12-18T15:39:17.810-05:0013 Days Left - Contest Time! Great Prize!<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5702/1179/1600/877164/welcometothepen.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5702/1179/200/172168/welcometothepen.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Thirteen days left before we're shut down. I want to have the first annual Call Center Steel Cage Death Match contest. Here is the contest question and the prize:<br /><br />Guess what city Cogitating Call Center Manager works in? (prize: signed copy of "Not By the Seat of My Pants.." When I say 'signed', I mean signed by CCCM)<br /><br /><br />Here are the <em><strong>very</strong></em> obscure (i.e. Google won't help you here) clues:<br />----------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />33<br /><br />the Basement<br /><br />1630<br /><br />boat under train under car under plane<br /><br />----------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />So that's it. I originally had three questions, but given the short time we have left here, I decided to limit it to just the one.<br /><br />If you're as astutely Cogitating as <em>Cogitating Call Center Manager</em>, email your answer to <a href="mailto:callcenterdeathmatch@hotmail.com">callcenterdeathmatch@hotmail.com</a>. I'll respond if you are the first one with the correct answer and I'll send off your grand prize.<br /><br />By the way, this picture is not of my center (mine are the sepia-toned masterpieces). This looks more like it's in Pelican Bay (that <em>is</em> something you can Google).Cogitating Call Center Managerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09650049110626319751noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13428270.post-1166124064894384922006-12-14T14:08:00.000-05:002006-12-14T17:07:26.730-05:0014 Days Left - Someone stole the soap<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5702/1179/1600/929258/softsoap.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5702/1179/320/499510/softsoap.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Friends, I'll use a little nautical imagery to describe our situation ....the decks are awash, we can't bail fast enough and we're getting the life boats ready. We close in 14 days (9 business days not counting Christmas).<br /><br />Stanley, the 150-year-old company janitor, came up to my desk this morning and said "Someone stole the soap! I had a big jug of Softsoap to fill up the little dispensers in the bathrooms and its gone missing!" I looked at him blankly and shrugged my shoulders. He kept on, "I had a whole big container to fill up the little dispensers and it's gone!" "Stanley", I said, "I don't know what to tell you...." He said, "That's not the point, someone swiped the soap!" I have no idea what he expected me to do about it, but the way he was badgering me it seemed like he wanted me to launch a full investigation. He's always doing something like this. Last month it was about vacuum cleaner bags. So finally I said, "Stanley, we have 9 business days left here, we're being closed down. I don't care what happened to the Softsoap." He didn't like that response.Cogitating Call Center Managerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09650049110626319751noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13428270.post-1165606600630047452006-12-08T14:17:00.000-05:002006-12-08T23:26:24.200-05:0021 Days in Paradise Left<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5702/1179/1600/698477/NoSnacksForYou.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5702/1179/320/861136/NoSnacksForYou.jpg" border="0" /></a> Here's a picture of our snack machine. It's quite empty. That package of Pop Tarts in the lower right corner has been hanging like that for about 8 months. The guy who owns the machine, and who used to come and fill it up, vanished around that time, and nobody in the call center had his phone number. Someone here was talking to the building manager recently about the situation and the manager said "Oh, I think that guy died!"<br /><br />Mike 'N Ikes and Sky Bars probably have a shelf life of at least 10 years, but nobody is taking a chance on these. I have no idea what's going to happen to this machine after we're gone. Maybe we'll break it open for the cash to supplement our unemployment benefits.Cogitating Call Center Managerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09650049110626319751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13428270.post-1165505056756437012006-12-07T10:12:00.000-05:002006-12-07T15:29:45.046-05:0022 Days Left<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5702/1179/1600/643738/MonitorPile.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5702/1179/400/104266/MonitorPile.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />I was just checking out the call center blog links over there to the right. I put those up quite a while ago, but noticed that none of them are active anymore, so I changed the label to "Dead Call Center Blogs". I searched Blogger but can't find any active call center agent/supervisor/manager blogs at all.<br /><br />Anyway, 22 days left here. Deconstruction continues. Equipment is being piled up to be bubble-wrapped and shipped out.Cogitating Call Center Managerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09650049110626319751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13428270.post-1165414207314702412006-12-06T09:06:00.000-05:002006-12-06T15:49:39.653-05:0023 Days to Go<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5702/1179/1600/351634/headset.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5702/1179/400/190245/headset.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />So my wife did not like my last post - far too sappy, not my usual caustic self. I agree with her. I can almost hear the Chariots of Fire theme playing as I read over it. I can picture the call center staff running along a lonley beach with wistful, pained-but-proud expressions, as I, at the forefront, urge them on in our noble, yet doomed, endeavor.Cogitating Call Center Managerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09650049110626319751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13428270.post-1165259437224646932006-12-04T13:57:00.000-05:002006-12-04T15:15:55.400-05:00The Countdown<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5702/1179/1600/943366/theoldwasteland.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/5702/1179/400/318009/theoldwasteland.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />The countdown has begun. Cogitating Call Center Manager has 4 weeks left before the center is moved out of state. Most of the cubes have been stripped of their computers, the bubble wrap arrived today and everyone's home page has been updated to Monster.com.<br /><br />I have re-recorded our greetings, omitting "this call may be monitored...", because, to be honest, nobody here is going to monitor <em>anything</em> except their email job alerts.<br /><br />Not that we're going to let quality suffer. We're going to ride it out to the end in the same way always operated - a few customer quotes can describe it: "beyond the call of duty", "you have my business from now on", "refreshingly rare", "a great customer service organization".<br /><br />So, as Bill Murray said, I've got that going for me.Cogitating Call Center Managerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09650049110626319751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13428270.post-1160507969280098012006-10-10T14:55:00.000-04:002006-10-27T16:34:35.996-04:00Terminal Case<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5702/1179/1600/call_center_2.1.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5702/1179/320/call_center_2.1.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Well, it's been a good run. I've worked for the Company Which Dares Not Speak Its Name for three and a half years. And it was good. But the end is near. My call center is going to be closed down at the end of December and operations are being moved somewhere cheaper. It <em>was </em>a great job. Our company has offices all over the country, and we were off by ourselves in our own part of the country, in our own small call center, free to do our own thing. And we did our own thing well. More details on that later.<br /><br />What really makes this hard is that we are being kept in the dark about all of the details surrounding the closing. The corporate higher-ups don't even know that <em>I</em> know that it's going to happen. The corporate higher-ups, I am sure, have only a vague idea of who <em>I</em> am anyway. I have informed all of my agents, however, to give them a jump start on finding new jobs.<br /><br />The end has been in the wind for quite some time. Last year at this time, the company cut 10% of the staff across the country, and my boss was one of the victims. He found a new job in the same line of work and, as such, had access to enough information to be able to tip me off to our imminent demise a few weeks ago.<br /><br />The funny thing is that during that past year there has been a massive construction project going on around our building that has slowly been encroaching on our space. Our parking lot is a sea of dirt and mud, construction vehicles block all the parking spots, and the building shakes with vibrations from all the pile-driving. The front entrance was sealed-off a year ago, so we enter the building through the back. To top it off, all the other businesses in the building have gone. We can't help but see the whole thing as a metaphor for the demise of our call center.Cogitating Call Center Managerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09650049110626319751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13428270.post-1141063599642492142006-02-27T11:58:00.000-05:002006-02-27T15:05:22.146-05:00The Natives Getrestless<img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5702/1179/320/gethumanitesl.jpg" border="0" />Jeez, Paul English is getting crazy with this IVR stuff. I was tying to have a relaxing Sunday, complete with extra spicy Bloodies and the New York Times, and what do I stumble across? An article about him on page three. I remember a time when no one even knew what a call center was; now you can't even have a weekend off without reading about it.<br /><br />Anyway, the piece in the Times was about English's new website <a href="http://www.gethuman.com">gethuman.com</a>. He has amped up his IVR "cheat sheet" thing with a website described as "a consumer movement created to change the face of customer service. This free website is powered by over one million consumers, and the site is run by volunteers who demand high quality customer service." You can even buy gethuman bumper stickers, t-shirts, mouse pads, hats, coffee mugs, refrigerator magnets, sweatshirts and teddy bears.<br /><br />Anyway, what is gethuman? How do you pronounce it? Is it geth-u-man? Or is it ge-thuman? Just kidding. It's Get Human, it just looks funny when it's all jammed together.<br /><br />As much as I rail against a lot of call center "stuff", like scripts, and "retention" etc., I just can't get behind this Gethuman. It seems, on one hand, to be all about his hatred for IVRs, but then he includes a place to rate your customer service experience with any company you choose to. So is it poor customer service from phone agents that he has issue with, just IVRs, or both? I can't really tell, because the sweeping phrases like "consumer movement", "change the face of customer service", and "volunteers who demand high quality customer service" all sound like he has an issue the whole shebang.<br /><br />He's quoted in the Times article as saying "I am anti-arrogance. Why do the executives who run these call center think they can decide when I deserve to speak to a human being and when I don't." In the company rating section, he says "We would like to <em>reward</em> the companies you rate as having the best customer service, and to <em>punish</em> the companies with the worst customer service." Yikes! This guy has an axe to grind. 'Punish' the companies that get bad anonymous ratings? That sounds a little like the arrogance that he says he's against.<br /><br />Anyway, we here at Call Center Steel Cage Death Match will be keeping our eyes on this latest development because this <em>could</em> get out of hand. The million-strong Gethuman-ites might start to get crazy ideas - I'm thinking some type of militia thing where they show up at your call center door with flaming torches and pitchforks and baseball bats to beat your IVR into pieces and string up the call center manager. Yeah, we'll be watching this. Just to be safe though I think I'll get a couple of those gethuman bumper stickers and teddy bears. And thank God I don't have an IVR!Cogitating Call Center Managerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09650049110626319751noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13428270.post-1139518214833108522006-02-09T15:49:00.000-05:002006-11-30T18:57:59.586-05:00Profiles In Courage<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5702/1179/1600/robo2.0.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5702/1179/320/robo2.0.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />The title of this post may be lost on some folks - it (the title) is meant to get a little laugh (as are all my titles), but <em>not</em> at the expense of it subject(s), as its subjects are actual call center reps who work hard and take a lot of crap. It's also a bit long, so set the snooze button for 30 minutes.<br /><br />I had the brilliantly stupid idea of presenting real call center agents I know and their front-line perspective. I asked several of the reps who work in a certain inbound call center if I could take their picture and if they would provide a sentence that goes to the heart of their call center experience. I got one taker on the proposition.<br /><br />The photo is of Robo (not her real name, but a sobriquet of her own choosing. Full sobriquet: Robo Von Cop). I hired Robo over a year ago. Before working here, she worked on a vegetable farm. Here is Robo's one-sentence distillation of her call center experience: "Working in a call center is like watching your neighbor's kids - you have to listen to them whine; clean up their shit; and they think they can get away with anything."<br /><br />About Robo: She has a rather tough exterior that is belied by the gentle nature that she displays with customers. She curses and swears a blue streak in the office, but is <em>never </em>baited into arguing or acting unprofessionally with customers. Despite the conclusions you might draw from her quote, Robo is successful as a call center rep. Why is that? What experiences in Robo's past prepared her to be good at this? Was it working in a call center? She never did. Picking vegetables? No, although some of our customers definitely qualify as vegetables.<br /><br />I believe that the answer is that, in an inbound call center environment, <em>it takes all kinds.</em><br /><br />It is Robo's basic nature which allows her to succeed in the unique way she does. And I can point to another rep in the call center who is the 'Yin' to Robo's 'Yang' (please forgive the analogy, but it <em>is </em>apt), and who has her own gifts and talents that contribute to our center's success in other ways. Did I know this when I hired them? No. I had no budget for pre-screening software (I'm still using ICMI's TurtleSpeed for god's sake); all I had to go on when I hired all of them was "gut feeling", which has both succeeded <em>and</em> failed me in the past.<br /><br />This leads me to my philosophical definition of the metaphysical nature of the Inbound Call Center. My definition is comprised of a brief description of what I believe to be the two (yin & yang again) basic natures/components of inbound centers:<br /><br /><span style="color:#000099;"><strong>1: The True and Basic Nature of the Inbound Call Center Rep Experience</strong></span><br />Of all the components comprising the inbound call center and customer service (I'm going to stick to that outmoded phrase <em>Customer Service)</em> nothing is of greater importance than the human interaction. It all boils down to two people talking to each other.<br /><br />So, the crux of the job, from the reps perspective (and this, I believe, is the most important thing for a call center manager to meditate upon), is that the conversation is always one-sided and has one aim: one person (the customer) is always talking about <em>their </em>needs to the rep with the expectation of having the rep take care of/fix/listen to/address/give satisfaction/delight etc etc. to the customer.<br /><br />This is not bad or undesirable or unreasonable. But the true challenge of an inbound call center agent is being able to deal with this call after call. Some may read this and think, "Duh!" (pardon the expression, but it's a close cousin to "mental", an old Jr. High favorite of mine, along with "Boss!", "Wicked!" and "Avaya CMS reporting sucks!"), but it is as basic a tenet as the Buddha's that 'Life in call centers is suffering.' It is this aspect that should guide the hiring decisions in inbound centers (i.e. can you somehow make an assessment regarding the candidate's capacity for fielding pleas for help, or in Robo's words "cleaning up their shit" all day long). Robo is a good example of the Yin side of this equation: while her assessment of the job of inbound call center rep is less than sanguine, it does not color her customer interactions at all.<br /><br /><span style="color:#000099;"><strong>2: The True and Basic Nature of <em>Your </em>Experience</strong></span> <strong><span style="color:#000099;">and Responsibility</span></strong><br />When I say "Your" I mean "<strong>Customer</strong>", since we are all customers, and, in the yin and yang model of inbound call centers, you (I mean you who are reading this right now) are either, or, OR <em>both</em>.<br /><br />Technology will not replace humans' need and desire to speak to one of their own kind - i.e. not a machine - no matter how misogynist a person may get. We're a relatively new specie - the dinosaurs walked where our strip malls are for 130 million years - us hominids have only been developing for 2 million. The upshot is that we need each other to help each other in our daily transactions.<br /><br />We want to make a phone call, or send an email, and have a genuine human interaction in which a genuine human helps us out. We don't want to hear a script or hear a rehearsed lecture about company policy. We don't want a Venn diagram. We want the Yin to our Yang. We want the circle, the 'whole' that the Yin/Yang symbolizes. We want to sit across the table from someone like Robo, who genuinely try to do their best for the customer.<br /><br />But I believe, contrary to the 'have it your way' consumer culture that has become standard, that we (customers) have a responsibility to behave in the same manner that we expect from those who answer our calls. Making unreasonable demands, treating a call center rep poorly, using degrading and abusive language is not right or acceptable. Sometimes, the customer, contrary to 'have it your way' culture, is <em>not</em> right. You can read about the fallout from these kinds of customer interactions in several call center blogs where the recounting of customer interactions take on an adversarial flavor.<br /><br />In short, both the rep and the customer contribute something to a successful customer contact/interaction etc. Well, here ends my first installment, and probably my last, of Profiles In Courage, unless I get another volunteer.Cogitating Call Center Managerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09650049110626319751noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13428270.post-1138914471071403162006-02-02T16:05:00.000-05:002006-02-11T01:29:31.630-05:00Good Night Cube<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5702/1179/1600/good%20night%20cube.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5702/1179/320/good%20night%20cube.jpg" border="0" /></a> Every once in a while I run across a story of an Emergency/911 call center agent falling asleep on the job. There was one recently from Australia where the Emergency center agent (it was actually a supervisor) had admitted to having been out partying the night before, which caused the supervisor, according to the article, to pull up a La-Z-Boy and nod off during his shift. I read one about a 911 agent in Maryland who fell asleep while on a call with a distraught citizen who suspected a prowler had entered her house. Evidently you can hear the agent snoring on the tape of the call. When I read these stories I always chuckle knowingly to myself because <em>being a call center rep and falling asleep at your cube go hand in hand</em>: in three of the six centers in which I've worked, I have seen agents fall asleep quite a few times.<br /><br />I must offer this confession as well: I fell asleep once - <em>way back</em> when I was an agent, mind you, not the starched, buttoned-down professional that I am now. I remember the incident as if it was yesterday: I had been out partying the night before, and while I was on the phone with a customer the next morning, I nodded off as she was reading her credit card number to me. During my brief nap I dreamed that I was out partying again and that I had quit my call center job. I was gently awakened by the customer yelling "Hello?? Hello?? Are you still there?? Hello??" I assured the customer that, unfortunately, I was "still there".<br /><br />The real fun in an occurrence of this kind is catching the rep right in the middle of the nap - not to exact any any sort of Scrooge-like punishment for sleeping - but to get a look at the rep's expression of mortified embarrassment when they come-to and realize that their manager, supervisor, and peers are all enjoying the spectacle.<br /><br />In one call center that I managed, the supervisors would come into my office and alert me that we had an offender: "Cogitating Manager we've got a Sleeper!!! Ted Burns is out cold at his cube - he's <em>drooling</em>! Come quick!!" I'd snap out of my ACD report-induced stupor and rush to the rep's cube and pull up a chair beside him. In low tones I would call his/her name until their bleary eyes would struggle open as they slowly became conscious of where they were, what they had been doing, and of all the people who had witnessed it!!<br /><br />Most reps are truly penitent after being caught sleeping - they're apologetic and swear up and down that they won't do it again. But, I've had a few Sleepers who flat-out deny that they were sleeping at all - even with 4 or 5 witnesses, even though we all just saw the their woozy display of wiping the drool from their mouths with the latest memo and shutting their slack, sleep-limp jaw.<br /><br />So when I happen across one of these stories of a 911 rep falling asleep, all I can think is that I wish the poor bastard well - they're the only call center reps who'll ever make the news by falling asleep at their cube.<br /><br />And last, Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote:<br /><br /><div align="center">Oh sleep! It is a gentle thing,</div><div align="center">Beloved from pole to pole.</div><div align="center"></div><div align="center"></div><div align="left">Cogitating Call Center Manager writes:</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left"></div><div align="center">Oh sleep! It is a gentle thing,</div><div align="center">Beloved from cube to cube.</div><div align="center"></div><div align="right">Bonne Nuit</div>Cogitating Call Center Managerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09650049110626319751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13428270.post-1138301892180326202006-01-26T13:57:00.000-05:002006-02-12T15:20:19.116-05:00Post-firing Flotsam and Jetsam<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5702/1179/1600/dead%20call%20center%20rep.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5702/1179/320/dead%20call%20center%20rep.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />One of the interesting things about performing an extraction (i.e. terminating a call center rep) is the post-firing cube clean-up. I generally like to perform this task myself, much like a forensic scientist studying a crime scene for clues. In most cases the rep has taken any items they value (snapshots, favorite coffee mugs, etc), leaving behind the detritus of a failed call center career.<br /><br />Pennies: All of my post-firing cube clean-ups have involved picking up pennies from the desk drawers - sometimes there are quite a few, sometimes only three or four, sometimes they're stuck to the bottom of the drawer with dried coffee or other unidentifiable crud - but they're always there.<br /><br />Meeting notes: many times I find ratty, crud-stained note pads with old meeting notes. It's funny to see how the theme of a meeting gets a little warped in these notes. I'll read them and recognize the particular meeting they came from and what the dominant theme of the meeting was, but it won't really be reflected in the newly-departed rep's notes. Sometimes it's way off the mark and sometimes you can tell they were just writing random snatches of words from the meeting to appear attentive. One time I found meeting notes that were interspersed with the rep's furious rantings about her boyfriend. It went sort of like "Reduce the ACW time on regulary inquiry calls...Why is he such a fucking CHILD! I am full of HATE.... Large onsale to begin May 9...HATE..."<br /><br />Paystubs: so many times I find paystubs left behind.<br /><br />Dirt: Sometimes I feel more like a Hazmat team than a forensic scientist (or call center manager).Cogitating Call Center Managerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09650049110626319751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13428270.post-1137946103833619632006-01-22T10:48:00.000-05:002006-01-31T12:40:10.940-05:00Retention Detention<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5702/1179/1600/misery.1.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5702/1179/320/misery.1.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />So, as I mentioned I've escaped the lay-off grim reaper for the time being. I've been laid-off twice from call center jobs - Once in '91 and again in 2001. The last time it happend I was managing an inbound center with about 90 agents. The company was comprised of about 20 or so centers around the US and they decided to close mine and shift the projects to other places. I didn't really care at the time. We were an outsourcer with several clients - one project in particular was exceptionally miserable. That project was for a company that provided a certain service to a customers of a certain credit card company. Our job was to taking the calls from people who wanted to cancel the added-on service and try to convince them to keep it. That's called "retention". I can think of a couple of other words to describe it, but they're not polite. But basically, "retention" is when someone says "I don't want this service anymore, please cancel it now," and the call center rep is supposed to offer a "rebuttal" - that is, they cheefully inform the customer that they certainly can cancel that service but "Do you mind if I ask why you want to cancel today?" Then begins the parry and thrust of trying to get the customer to see the error of their cancelling ways and to keep the service. We had a script tree that the agents would follow based on the customer's reason to cancel. Sort of like opening moves on a chess game. Most of the reps hated this project - basically because it felt antithetical to the idea of customer service to them - i.e. the customer calls up with a request and it's your job to try to thwart that request. We had a certain "save" rate that we were supposed to hit. As I recall, I think we did OK, but a retention specialist from one of our other call center locations came in for a week to coach the reps to improve the save rate. She would sit with a rep for an hour or so and the rep's rate would go up. The specialist would cheerfully point out her success with the rep. The next day the rep's rate would drop and they'd complain to a supervisor that the project sucked, that the specialist sucked and stank of stale cigarettes, and beg to be taken off the project. We even had $ incentive in place. The reps didn't care. I hated it as well. Luckily, as this project was reaching a fevered pitch in terms of call volume and the reps' hatred for "retention", our office was closed, the project was dumped on some poor CSRs in the mid-west, and we all walked off into the sunset swearing we'd never come near anything close to "retention" ever again.Cogitating Call Center Managerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09650049110626319751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13428270.post-1135880941019405892005-12-29T13:12:00.000-05:002006-01-06T17:10:23.083-05:00A Close Shave<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5702/1179/1600/call_center_2.0.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5702/1179/320/call_center_2.0.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5702/1179/1600/call_center_2.jpg"></a>Whew! It has been a pretty nerve wracking holiday season: <strong>Cogitating Call Center Manager narrowly missed getting laid off!</strong><br /><br />Yes folks, even as I was braying on confidently in December about IVRs, I was witnessing multitudes in my company getting the axe. I even went on a few interviews in preparation for what looked almost inevitable.<br /><br />It was a real nail-biter, but I have survived to analyze ACD reports for another day.Cogitating Call Center Managerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09650049110626319751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13428270.post-1134064158796563532005-12-08T12:29:00.000-05:002006-01-26T17:14:40.483-05:00Angels with Dirty Faces<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5702/1179/1600/the%20wasteland.1.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5702/1179/320/the%20wasteland.0.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />So there's this debate regarding IVRs. It involves: 1) a blogger named Paul English (<a href="http://paulenglish.com">paulenglish.com</a>), who has thrown some gasoline on an old fire by publishing an "<a href="http://paulenglish.com/ivr">IVR cheat sheet</a>", and 2) <a href="http://angel.com">Angel.com</a>, a provider of IVR services. Mr English's "cheat sheet" is a list of 114 (as of today) major companies, their toll free numbers, and the steps to take to get to a live agent (in other words, How to Beat the IVR).<br /><br />A summary of the events is this: Mr English publishes the cheat sheet and attracts quite a few notices in the media, most of them very positive and adulatory. Angel.com gets irked by the sudden chorus of anti-IVR voices and posts its own "cheat sheet", which in essence, says that it's not the IVR, it is the incorrect use of the IVR that is to blame. But things haven't stopped there. There have been several salvos between Angel, the media, and Mr English. The latest is that Angel.com has "launched IVR University", which we should all be able to enroll in in early 2006 (whoopee! get your student loans now!).<br /><br />As mental (6th grade word for "crazy") as this all is, I agree with Angel.com - it's up to the company using the technology to either do it right or mess it up. And most companies mess it up. A clear and simple IVR definitely has a place (give me an hour and I'll think of an example). And a lot of Angel.com's services, as well as other IVR providers, fall outside of the type of IVR stuff that gave rise to Mr English's cheat sheet. Many of the services provided are <em>very</em> useful to that segment of the population whose misanthropic leanings make IVR a godsend, not to mention savings that are definitely passed on to the consumer. In light of all that, it seems odd to me that Angel.com would step in to the fray with the sort of school-marmish/Church Lady/lecturing attitude on their site: "The reality is that these systems have been around for quite some time, and aren't going away." Sounds like that should be followed by "...you little whippersnapper!".<br /><br />But viewing Mr English's cheat sheet in terms of Cheat Sheet v. Angel.com is misleading. The media melee (OK, maybe not quite a melee) following the posting of the cheat sheet makes one point clear: A lot of people <strong>hate</strong> IVR, (including me - the center I manage has no IVR). Notice how I said a lot of "people", not "customers". Now I can wade into the crux of the matter. It seems that so many in the Call Center field treat people as if they are an Alien Customer Specie to be studied - that is, they (meaning call center managers, directors, consultants, QA personnel etc) forget that <strong><em>customers/people </em></strong>are inseparable, and that trying to figure out what satisfies a customer (i.e. person) is no more complicated than asking <em><strong>themselves</strong></em> what they think is right.<br /><br />Take "tele-sales" scripts for example. I guarantee you that NOBODY likes <em>scripts</em> except ACTORS and misguided call center folks. And if you're shaking your head right now, then YOU'RE a misguided call center folk. And most importantly, <strong>customers/people</strong> hate scripts. They (meaning us, since we're all the same) can detect forced, canned bullsh*t a mile away. Here are a couple of examples:<br /><br />A greeting that sounds something like "Thank you for calling Catastrophic Bladderburst Inc, how may I provide you with superior service and unrelenting cross-selling and up-selling today?" Who likes this kind of greeting/garbage? Who? Who? Who? Nobody. It's fake, false, empty and makes the agent who has to say it 100 times a day angry.<br /><br />A closing that drives a fatal wedge through whatever good has transpired prior to the end of the call - for example, Joe Rep has just spent a good deal of time with you resolving a billing issue. Everything is cool, you know that he has solved your problem, and at the end he is forced to slip back into automaton mode and says: "Thank you again for calling, is there anything else that I can help you with today?" This is my favorite, because in most cases a closing like that is such a jarring conclusion - it almost negates any real conversation that has preceded it - you almost think that the rep has had a temporary memory lapse. You want to say, "Waddya mean Joe Rep? We've just been talking for ten minutes! If you could have helped me with anything else <strong>we already would have covered it!!" </strong>It just ruins the agent's flow and make the customer a little uncomfortable.<br /><br />But anyway, back to the point (all this call center talk is making me tired), all anyone has to do is ask themselves the questions: what makes sense in an IVR? In a "script"? In a greeting/closing? What would piss me off? What would make me think a company has its shit together? What would make me think a company was mental? (there's that word again). And we all know the answers - because when the call center manager takes his/her lunch break, and uses that time to call up their cable company to straighten something out, they are back in the role that we're ALL in: a regular person who happens to be a CUSTOMER, a customer who hates bullshit.Cogitating Call Center Managerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09650049110626319751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13428270.post-1131394811358278262005-11-07T15:08:00.000-05:002005-11-23T16:22:13.716-05:00Call Center Literature/Shiterature<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5702/1179/1600/callc66b.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5702/1179/200/callc66b.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />I feel that books and magazines on Call Centers fall into two broad categories:<br /><br />1) Literature - clear, helpful, useful, relevant stuff.<br /><br />2) Shiterature - lousy, poorly written, written as if addressed to 5-year-olds.<br /><br />When I started out in call centers there weren't many call center magazines, let alone call center books. I remember being the object of derision in one of my call center supervisor jobs in '93 when a call center rep saw an issue of <em>Call Center Magazine</em> on my desk. Once the rep laid eyes on the magazine, she looked from me to the magazine and back (several times), her face a mix of incredulity and supreme amusement. "There's actually a <em>magazine</em> about this crap??" she said. And as I began to nod, she howled with laughter and said "And you <em>read</em> it???", as if the title was really <em>Toilet Bowl Licker Magazine </em>instead of <em>Call Center Magazine</em>. I sheepishly replied "Yeah, I read it. It's got some good articles."<br /><br />Actually, at that time <em>Call Center Magazine</em> had <em>no</em> good articles. It was all ads for call center-related products. Now it's pretty good. Maybe it's because Keith Dawson is the Editorial Director. Dawson wrote the <em>Call Center Handbook</em>, but he doesn't appear to subscribe to the regular bullshit that you hear. An example from his monthly Editor's Page column Jan 2004 (and this is a priceless paragraph - it almost restored my ambivalent feelings about call centers):<br />"Customers don't want to be coddled. They have husbands, wives, and children for that. Any company that claims to 'love their customers' is underestimating the intelligence of those customers. They don't love their customers; they love the fact that the customers don't complain, keep coming back, spending money, telling their friends that the service doesn't suck. Customer relationship management is a myth - we have relationships with people in our lives; not with disembodied voices on the phone helping us clear up problems with a credit card."<br /><br />Hell yeah!<br /><br />Anyway, there are definitely a couple of books I'd put into the 'Literature' category: <em>Call Center Management On Fast Forward</em> by Brad Cleveland (who also now contributes to <em>Call Center Magazine</em>) and Julia Mayben, Bottom Line Call Center Management by David Butler, and any of the ICMI <em>Best of Call Center Management Review </em>books - <em>Call Center Agent Motivation and Compensation, Call Center Forecasting and Scheduling </em>etc. But let me stop here - I'm getting woozy. Call Center literature does that to me. I can't count the number of times I've woken up with a Brad Cleveland article stuck to the side of my face by sleep-induced drool.<br /><br />Now lets get on to the good stuff - the stuff that blogs were made for: the rant, the dissing, dishing, and making fun of something. I don't really like denigrating anyone, but I <em>am</em> anonymous, and feel its my duty to identify a standout book that falls into the 'Shiterature' category: <em>Not By The Seat Of My Pants. </em>There. Let that title sink in for a second........ <em>Not By The Seat of My Pants</em>. Here, I'll give you the whole title: <em>Not By The Seat Of My Pants: Leadership Lessons for the Call Center Supervisor.</em> But the name I prefer to call it is <em>Not Without My Pants! </em>(Kind of like that Sally Field movie from the early 90's) I'll refer to the book from here on in as <em>Not Without My Pants!</em> Because that 's the level of advice you'll pick up from this book. Sort of like "Rule number 1 to success in the Call Center: if you're going into the office, DON'T FORGET YOUR PANTS!".<br /><br /><em>Not Without My Pants!</em> is a narrative by a fictional person (we don't know if it's a man or woman) named Chris. Chris has just been promoted to Team Leader in his/her call center (I get the feeling Chris may be somewhat like 'Pat' from Saturday Night Live). Chris and all of his/her cohorts are like Stepford wives as they move like sub-middle management automatons through their day at the Call Center planning unending successions of meetings. Here are some choice quotes from the first 50 pages:<br /><br />"I slowly took a deep breath." page 3<br />"I took a deep breath." page 6<br />"I held my breath." page 15<br />"I held my breath again." page 15<br />"I took a deep breath." page 16<br />"I took a deep breath." page 26<br />"I took a deep breath." page 29<br />"I took another deep breath." page 29<br />"I...took a deep breath..." page 43<br /><br />It's interesting to note that by page 50 Chris has not yet passed out on the call center floor from hyperventilating. Anyway, just writing about this book is making me acutely aware of the precious minutes of my life ticking away and the need to do something worthwhile - and I'm gonna do it, and NOT WITHOUT MY PANTS! Actually, maybe it <em>should </em>be without my pants. THAT sounds worthwhile.<br /><br /><em></em><br /><br /><em></em>Cogitating Call Center Managerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09650049110626319751noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13428270.post-1121392353820863682005-07-14T21:48:00.000-04:002005-07-15T14:58:15.546-04:00Pins 'N Things<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5702/1179/1600/pin.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5702/1179/320/pin.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Why is it that the call center industry is particulary plagued by companies that hawk pins, t-shirts, stress balls, gew-gaws etc that either 1) attempt to increase the employee's self-image and self-confidence , or 2) adjure them to achieve ever greater heights of perfection?<br /><br />I won't mention company names, but every couple of months or so, I'll get a catalogue in the mail (addressed to Cranky Cogitating Call Center Manager) from one of these companies. It's filled to bursting with pictures of smiling, miserable CSR drones decked out in t-shirts with ridiculous customer service slogans ("Customer Service - Winning People/Winning Attitude"), stress balls emblazoned with moronic slogans (what's more mental than giving a rep a "stress ball" with some misguided slogan to be-all-they-can be while they're being chewed out on the phone) and 'fun' ideas like "Crazy Hat Day!" Crazy Hat Day? Who the Christ is buying into something like Crazy Hat Day? My 4-year old son has Crazy Hat Day at pre-school - those are the only people buying in to that. The overriding assumption is that the Call Center Manager is supposed to stock up on this crap, and dole it out to the CSRs to increase morale, productivity and 'excellence'.<br /><br />Why are we, the <strong>C</strong>all <strong>C</strong>enter <strong>C</strong>ulture <strong>P</strong>eople (CCCP) a ripe target for this trash? I'll tell you why. It's because many people, reps foremost, know that the CSR job sucks; it is a thankless, unrewarding, wretched thing. At the end of the day you walk off the call center floor (no real difference from the 'production floor' of a factory making widgets or disc brakes) with no sense of accomplishment other than having made it through another shit-storm. So some misguided entrepreneurs think that issuing a pin that proclaims "I make a difference!" to one of your CSRs is going to <em>make a difference</em>. Nope, not if the rep has half a piece of their cerebellum left. You know what I want to see? I want to see real testimonials from reps who have actually been uplifted by these trinkets. Because if I see a geographical correlation, then I'll start a Call Center in that very place where the CSRs are digging this crap. And I'll rename it "Moronville".<br /><br />Dole out this dross to increase productivity and excellence??!! See the reference to Moronville above.<br /><br />But I keep getting these catalogues. So who's buying this stuff? Who's having this rubbish thrust upon them? These companies are staying in business, so <em>someone</em> is buying. But who? Where are these call centers and these CSRs? If you know, let <em>me</em> know.<br /><br />And a word of advice to my fellow Call Center Managers - a Customer Service Excellence Pin is just another sharp object...Cogitating Call Center Managerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09650049110626319751noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13428270.post-1120600996591439202005-07-05T17:58:00.000-04:002006-01-25T22:54:47.070-05:00The Old Ball & Chain<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5702/1179/1600/call-center.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left;" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5702/1179/200/call-center.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />I recently fielded an escalated call that didn’t end so well. Toward the end of this call, at the customer’s request, I had conferenced in a vendor with whom the customer (who, actually wasn’t, technically, a customer at all), was having an issue. When the vendor was unable to assist the caller either, the customer, whose ire had by this point had been fanned into a full 5-alarm blaze, aimed a few parting shots at both of us. For me, the Call Center Manger, this quasi-customer had the following benediction: “I hope you’re happy when they move your job to India!!” I was about to shoot back, “I should BE so LUCKY!!!”, however his comment prompted me to fall into a reverie, a Call Center Cogitation, if you will, on the issue of call center outsourcing.<br /><br />Outsourcing in the Call Center world is now a well-known, discussed and written-about subject. The words have now entered the popular lexicon, and exposed our legions of dedicated Misfit Toys (see “Type Casting”) to a host of new imprecations from our well-meaning customers.<br /><br />Knowing the call center world as I do, having been steeped in it for over 20 years, I began to wonder why various Human Rights organizations have not raised a great cry over the exporting of Call Centers and call center culture other nations, some of them “developing” nations? Why is there not a clarion alarm being sounded when ads are run in Call Center mags touting the benefits of Guatemala? I mean, doesn’t everyone know what this will ultimately DO to the indigenous cultures, to the very fabric of their existence? Can't people see what it has done to <em>us</em>??!! As Marlon Brando said in Apocolypse Now, “...the horror!”<br /><br />I am kidding of course, because I can easily explain the reason behind India’s embracing of Call Centers. It’s simple. Buddhism originated in India. A basic tenet of Buddhism is that “Life is Suffering.” A basic tenet of Call Centers is “To work in Call Center is Suffering”. Thus, a perfect union between call centers and Buddhism. I haven’t figured out why Guatemala wants call centers, though.<br /><br />As I thought about suffering, I was led to recall the most recent trend of outsourcing call center operations to prisons. In an article on this subject on NPR’s website (2-23/2005), it is revealed that Federal Prison Industries (a company established by the prison system) trumpets its call center programs as “Domestic outsourcing at offshore prices.” Well, I'm sure it is. But never mind how <em>cheap</em> it is to have a prison run your call center - think of the benefits to prisoner rehab and recidivism it must be having: if you’re a prisoner who had been tapped to work in the prison call center, and you finish your prison sentence, you can be damn sure you’re never going to do <em>anything</em> that will land you in that call center/prison again. Never mind the “Three strikes, you’re out” law - it's “Three Strikes, You’re <em>IN"</em> – In the cube, that is - slap on that Plantronics headset. I would think that an increase in outsourcing to prisons can only push crime rates down dramatically.<br /><br />However, I think we can take this a step further. Combine offshore outsourcing with prisons. Think of the movie "Midnight Express", about the hapless would-be small time American drug smuggler who winds up in a brutal Turkish prison. Now there's a place for a call center. Talk about cheap outsourcing. The reps wouldn't need any breaks and all you'd have to feed them would be cockroaches.<br /><br />Anyway, my reverie was brought to an end by the dial tone. Quasi-customer had escaped with the final word, while I, Cogitating Call Center Manger, put the receiver down and turned back to my ACD, wondering if I could ever get used to the temperatures in Calcutta.Cogitating Call Center Managerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09650049110626319751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13428270.post-1120140061641562492005-06-30T09:58:00.000-04:002006-01-26T13:58:20.666-05:00Performing an Extraction<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5702/1179/1600/oper1.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5702/1179/200/oper1.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />There are fewer tasks as awful as having to fire someone. It just sucks plain and simple. I have often heard management blowhards espouse the dictum that if you’ve handled the disciplinary process correctly, then the person being terminated shouldn’t be surprised when they’re fired. To that I say “bullshit”. You can coach, document, verbal warn, written warn, threaten, cajole, personal-improvement-plan someone till the cows come home, and there will still be people who just didn’t see it coming. On the other hand, some people see it coming the second day they’re on the job.<br /><br />I have, over the years, come to call the termination process “Performing an Extraction” (which is prison guard terminology for removing an inmate from their cell by force – somewhat apt since the blue/gray walls of a cubicle bear some resemblance).<br /><br />Extraction #1: Hittin’ the Call Center Floor: I had to fire a woman for poor performance. There was a long, twisting muddy trail of documentation, meetings, talks, warnings etc leading up to the day of termination. Interspersed in there was a using-company-fax/time-to-fax-resume-during-on-the-job-job-search incidents as well. When the time came to lower the boom, I asked the assistant manager to bring her to my office. I had instructed him to wait outside my office for the termination to be completed, then usher the ex-employee to her cube to collect her belongings and hit the road.<br /><br />As luck would have it, the employee was crushed into a million tiny tear-stained pieces by the news, which didn’t make it easy for me (selfish bastard). I was able to get her to hold herself together enough to make her exit from my office, where she was passed off for the final walk.<br /><br />About three minutes later I heard this god-awful single wail, and rushed out of my office to see the woman collapsed on her knees on the call center floor at her cubicle. It sort of reminded me of that famous 1970 Kent State picture of the woman wailing over the body of the student killed by the National Guard. But this wasn’t Kent State – this was a call center, and this woman had, unbeknownst to her, been given a new lease on life – she was free of the call center! But she didn’t see it that way at that moment.<br /><br />The assistant manager was standing over her, holding her by one arm gently urging her to rise and collect her things, which she did in due time. But that image is certainly one for the books because the drama reached its zenith in front of the whole call center – picture it: the loud, single wail, the stricken ex-employee in limp, abject supplication before her cube, the assistant manager attempting to assuage her grief, attempting to raise her up (and get her the f*@#k out the door!), the call center manager rushing out (and rolling his eyes). It was a tableau one sees in Renaissance religious allegory paintings, by God! And it was happening right there! Right there, on the floor of MY call center!!Cogitating Call Center Managerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09650049110626319751noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13428270.post-1119324996360512722005-06-20T23:36:00.000-04:002005-06-20T23:48:16.540-04:00<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/297/6505/640/call%20center1.jpg"><img style="BORDER-RIGHT: #000000 1px solid; BORDER-TOP: #000000 1px solid; MARGIN: 2px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 1px solid; BORDER-BOTTOM: #000000 1px solid" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/297/6505/320/call%20center1.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /> <span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;"><strong>The Gulag</strong></span>Cogitating Call Center Managerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09650049110626319751noreply@blogger.com2