Customer Service, Helpdesk and Operations

Why Is Training Important?

2011-08-27T05:09:00.000-07:00

There are several key reasons to ensure that your staff are appropriate trained and skilled. Perhaps the most important is that it ensures your team is better able to provide a response to your customer that is appropriate to their issue or problem. In addition, by ensuring that your staff have the right skills, your company is better prepared for the future and will be significantly more efficient and productive.

Reasons for Employee Training

Some of the most common reasons for training and development include the following:

Based on a performance appraisal and issues identified
To improve a companies performance and efficiency
To improve an employees future job prospects within the company
To help a company deal with a new technology or tool
To help a company obtain a specialized certification

Training Types

Generally training is split into two main categories (although these can also be combined in some fashion):

Internal Training - Provided by the company directly, this is most common with call centres and technical support teams. Internal training provides information about the specific company and is extremely useful to new employees trying to learn the essentials of what the business does, what products the company provides and what types of customers are serviced by the business. Internal Training is generally provided by internal resources that have the relevant skills and this type of training can be both structured and unstructured.
External Training - External training is somewhat more structured and is generally provided by a 3rd party business or company. This training is skill specific and is often provided if and when a business does not have the relevant skills in house. A good example of External Training is certifications - either technical or quality related.

Training Benefits

Training has significant benefits to businesses in several different areas, most notably however with regards to employee motivation and retention. Training is generally considered a "benefit" and those companies that provide this to their staff on a regular basis have an increased level of staff satisfaction. Also - those businesses that provide this to their staff have a better trained and skilled workforce which translates directly into an improved level of Customer Satisfaction.

Some Resume Essentials

2011-08-17T16:49:00.000-07:00

Your CV and Resume is your primary tool in finding a new role. Without having a properly formatted and targeted resume, you are not presenting yourself in the best light possible and you will lose out to others. Spending the time now is a wise investment not only in your future but also in your career as it can set you apart from your competition and maximize the interview opportunities you will receive.

Formatting

It is essential that you format your resume to the role that you are looking for. Management jobs should clearly be emphasized if you are applying for a management role, and similarly if you are applying for a sales executive position, you need to show and demonstrate your sales skills including revenue generation and territory growth.

Do not forget to emphasize your Customer Service and Client Management skills as most roles - regardless of the title - will be looking for these.

What Can You Do?

It is absolutely essential that you provide your readers with an idea of the skills and capabilities that you possess. This should be a very high level statement but quite explanatory and anyone reading it should understand at a glance what you are capable of and what you bring to the table.

Please note that this statement should NOT be your personal objectives. You should actually avoid including these in your resume entirely as those statements are what you want and not what you can DO. The company hiring you wants to know what your skills are and how they can benefit them - not why you want the job!

Give Them Real Numbers

This is one of the most important components to your resume. You need to communicate in your resume not just what you do, but what HAPPENS when you do what you do! This technique also helps employers envision you working with them, helping them with similar challenges and issues.

Use The Right Words

Key words organized in a group called something like “core competencies” for instance, will do two things for you. It serves to potentially qualify you for more interviews, assuming those companies you are submitting your resume to use key word scanners. Second, key words. i.e., your strengths that stand alone allow the reader to view your competencies independent of any past company associated with it. This has a positive psychological effect as again, it enhances the reader’s ability to picture YOU in the position they are working to fill.

Managing in a Matrix Structure

2011-06-27T06:20:00.000-07:00

Matrix management is somewhat different to the standard way of managing people and processes; however for a Project Manager, this is generally the only way of getting things done. Most projects operate in some kind of a matrix environment where resources to actually get the job done are acquired and released from other teams. In this fashion, the Project Manager is able to call upon the skills and excellence of staff throughout the organization to assist him in accomplishing his project, without having to build a huge and immense team internally.

What is Matrix Management?

Matrix Management is sometimes referred to as “dotted line” management and is fundamentally different to standard line management. With matrix management, you are responsible for some elements of that person’s role, but only in how it applies to your overall project. The day to day management of that employee including salary reviews, performance and so on, still remain the responsibility of their overall line manager.

Pluses and Minuses of Matrix Management

One of the biggest pluses of Matrix management is that you are not responsible for the tedious tasks of managing people and teams. Your responsibility is to the overall project and that person is simply a resource that you are utilizing to get the job done. However this comes with a downside – as you are not their day-to-day manager and do not have any overall influence on them from a managerial perspective, there are limits to what you can get them to do.

Pluses -

No need for line management tasks like pay reviews and disciplinary meetings.
Clearly defined objectives (project goals) are provided with a defined completion timetable
Your job description and focus is well defined, as is that of each of the team members
You are able to “poach” the best and most suitable resources from other parts of the company to accomplish your objectives versus having to make do with the staff in your team

Minuses -

Who do they listen to? Unless its very well defined, your new resource can be pulled in too many directions between the requirements of your role and the work they were doing for their manager.
Projects have a well defined timeline and due to these time constraints there are often issues with allowing staff to have time away from the job for personal development.

Average Handle Time (AHT)

2011-01-30T05:23:00.000-08:00

One of the most common of KPI's in the Call Center Sphere it is also one of most and least useful depending on why it is being measured and what that information is used for.

What is AHT?

AHT is a way of determing how long an average call takes and whether or not that CSR is meeting the requirements set by the business. The thing that needs to be realized though right from the beginning is that the target set MUST allow the customer the opportunity to ask and have their question answered. Setting a target simply to allow your staff to cycle through more calls in a shorter period will only ensure that your customer service and customer satisfaction levels decrease regardless of how many calls you take.

From another point of view - by setting a target that your staff are unable to reach without hanging up on your customers, you are guaranteed to have a disgrunteled team that are extremely unmotivated.

Why should you measure?

I've been in Call Centers and Contact Centers for awhile now and the key thing is that if you don't measure what you are doing, not only can you not know if you're doing a good job or not, but you also cannot fix whatever is wrong without measuring in the first place. The question is though - is AHT a good measurement or should you be focusing on Customer Satisfaction and MTTR (Mean Time to Resolve). Both of these measurments are specific to the service that you are providing to your customer and in reality isn't that what is most important? How quick or short a call is, is nothing more than a means and way of ensuring that your staffing and shift coverage is suitable to the volume of calls that your business is receiving. A much better way of doing this is via means of Erlang 'C' and other staffing calculators. After all, AHT is simply the total sum of the communication parts, so as a standalone measurement it is irrelevant to call quality and not a true indicator of call quantity.

Who is your customer?

Call Centers use templates and structured calls to ensure that the answer(s) provided to their customers are of the same type and with the same detail. However while this does work at the lower levels and with the more common issues - this is not a one size fits all approach and must be tailored for those customers with more important questions/queries and also those with more difficult issues. This difference needs to be understood by the CSR in the first minutes of any call and if a response requires going "off script" then that should be done. The goal should be to provide the customer with an increased level of service regardless of the length of the call.

Should you get rid of AHT?

No probably not. If your staff spend all day on a single call you're not serving your business or your customers either - however the measurement should be such that it does not impact your service or your staff. AHT is important and useful - it should not be the only requirement however.

Myers-Briggs Preferences

2011-01-03T09:23:00.000-08:00

Your type does not determine your behavior. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is simply a categorization of how you "prefer" to behave and even this is to some extent situation dependent as while someone might be a "E" type personality (i.e. Extraversian), after a full day at work and meeting/greeting/interacting with people - their inclination at the end of the day might be towards the "I" spectrum (Intraversian).

People generally have both competing types inside them at all times - the MBTI however simply describes which type is more likely during normal circumstances and which type you have a preference towards.

Myers-Briggs Personality Indicator

2010-12-26T04:08:00.000-08:00

Are people the same? No of course not, everyone is unique and has their own strengths and weaknesses. However what has been shown is that people do act and react in certain common ways and these patterns can be determined based on the way that people respond to certain questions.

One of the most popular questionnaires currently in use is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Developed during and after the 2nd World War this series of questions categorizes people into one of 16 different categories each of which have their own attributes.

Read the full post here.

Six Sigma and Process Improvement

2010-11-21T05:22:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time some very smart and intelligent people looked at the world around them and realized that the way things are working now is not the only way in which things can work. These people realized that the businesses exist to service a need and the need they are fulfilling is what people are willing to pay for. At the same time they also saw that by giving customers a more valuable and quality focused product they would be able to ensure that those customers would continue to come back. Some of these extremely smart people were W. Edwards Deming, Michael Hammer and Joseph Juran and they focused on a a very fundamental truth: The main source of waste and inefficiencies are problems in the process.

After careful analysis and much further work by other visionaries over the years Six Sigma was born. What is Six Sigma you may ask? At its simplest you could say that 99% quality is One Sigma. Businesses that state they function at this level seem laudable until you do some more digging though -

99% “good quality” means:

Unsafe drinking water almost 15 minutes each day.

5,000 incorrect surgical operations per week.

Two airplane accidents at most U.S. major airports each day.

200,000 wrong drug prescriptions each year.

No electricity for almost 7 hours each month.

Conversely Six Sigma is a striving for 99.9999% quality. As you can well imagine reaching this lofty goal is NOT an easy matter and takes significant effort and focus. Not just in the initial stages but on an ongoing basis. However those companies that are able to reach this goal are some of the best run and most profitable in the world. Their clients are the happiest and most loyal and the products that they sell some of the most ubiquitous ones out there.

One of the ways in which Six Sigma is achieved is through analysis of existing processes (A process is a repeatable sequence of operations, organized to produce a set of desired outcomes) in a search for things that are going wrong and don't make sense. Interestingly, when organizations first analyze their critical processes they are usually struck by how complex they are. Many processes that are absolutely central to the success of an organization were not designed; they just evolved. They consist of activities passed on from one generation of managers and workers to the next.

By analyzing the process and removing some the complexity an immediate impact can be made and this is where the different tools of Six Sigma come into play - things like the Spaghetti Tree and Kaizan events and others. Once you know what isn't working and WHY you can take the necessary next steps to resolve them. However the thing that should be kept upermost in your thoughts at all times is that Six Sigma is a quality improvement and the person who determines the final quality of your product is your customer!

If quality or expected performance is below expectations when people do their jobs as designed, then asking them to "do better" is managerial nonsense. The process must be significantly improved or redesigned. Doing the job right when saddled with a flawed process inevitably results in sub-standard performance. The only way to improve performance is to understand and correct the process that generates problems. Fix the process, and the problems will vanish.

The Voice of the Customer

2010-10-19T03:30:00.000-07:00

There are many ways of learning what is essential in your business. However probably the most powerful and least practiced is that of Customer Feedback. Having the greatest widget in the world is useless if your customers don't want to buy it and if it doesn't resolve a perceived need. Getting that information from your customers can be accomplished in a variety of ways though and it pays to ensure that you are doing as many of them as possible. (One point to note - conducting a survey is important, but if you don't actually do anything with those results, then you shouldn't have wasted the time or the money in gathering that information!)

Customer Feedback Is Critical

In order to drive continual customer service improvements, companies need to focus on obtaining the information from their clients, analyzing that information and acting on that information. Remember, as stated earlier ... if no action is taken - don't bother!

Capturing customer feedback

Capturing what your customers want can be done via a variety of different means now a days. Web and phone based surveys are common as are physical paper based surveys that are mailed out to customers. Depending on the size of your business and your customer base, there are many large organizations that can assist in gathering, collating and analyzing this information for you, but if you are just starting out a simple spreadsheet with the feedback that you've received from your customers is a great starting point! Listen to them NOT just in your surveys but also in your daily interactions with them via your support and customer service teams.

Another great way to get information from customers is via focus groups. Often used at the beginning of a product stage to determine WHAT customers want, it is just as effective afterwards to determine HOW you are performing and if you are meeting or exceeding expectations.

Another point to note - DO NOT over survey your customers. It is quite common for different parts of the same company to send out different surveys to the SAME customer. While it is obviously important to that division, the information that is returned will not be as useful as the customer will NOT be providing an unbiased response.

It is best if all survey's are done via a centralized team or department and then the results of that survey shared amongst the company as a whole. Customer feedback collected through surveys, e-mails, phone calls, online chat and other channels can be combined into a single instance, integrating both structured and unstructured data into a central platform and enabling companies to extract maximum insight from the information collected in a cost-effective and timely manner.

Analyzing the Data

Customer feedback is subjective. It always will be and this needs to be understood by the group running the survey and appropriate steps taken. Another very significant point is that when survey's are sent out it, it is essential that steps are taken to "tie" the response to a specific issue so that you are able to make the most use of this information. In addition, decisions via survey should never be taken unless the sample size is large enough.

Solving the Issues

Once you've determined what your customers want, prioritize those issues based on the 80/20 rule (Pareto principle) and let your clients know what you are doing to resolve the issues. What your plan is, how soon you expect to have the issue resolved and what the benefits to them would be. There is no harm in sharing a commonly perceived error with your existing users ... THEY ALREADY KNOW IT'S THERE! ... and if they see that you are going to take steps to resolve the problems they will understand that their best interests are in remaining with you. Remember that these are already your customers - you just want to treat them the right way and sharing information with them is a simple and effective way of doing this.

The 80/20/30 Rule

2010-10-15T06:41:00.000-07:00

I've spoken often about the 80/20 rule and you can find some of my posts on this topic below:

You can also find some more information here:

In a nutshell (and from a business point of view) - the 80/20 Rule species that 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your customers. Often called the Pareto Principle after an Italian economist, the 80/20 rule while an estimate is generally remarkably accurate and can be postulated in a variety of areas - For example, you could speculate that 80% of your calls come from 20% of your products or issues etc... By focusing your efforts on the 20% you will see a dramatic decrease in your calls (or again from a business perspective and increase in your revenue!).

However - an amendment to the 80/20 rule is the 80/20/30 rule. This addition, is that while 80% of your revenue comes from the top 20% of your customers ... 80% of your cost will come from the bottom 30% of your customers. This means that most of your costs; for time, resources, support, attention, etc... is wasted supporting the 30% of your customers who are not generating any revenue for you, or at least not enough to give you a return on your investment!! This is obviously not where you want to be spending your time or resources.

It is incumbent upon you to "sort" your customers into different tiers based on these metrics and target your efforts appropriately to maximize your revenue from each group. Your top 20% should get significant focus of course as they are bringing in the bulk of your revenue. The next big 50% chunk should get some attention too as you want to transition these customers up into the next level ... These are the clients you want to establish a partnership with as a trusted consultant and provider of solutions. By getting to know these clients better, as well as their business' needs and requirements, you will develop a customer relationship that will last for years. This connection will generate on-going revenue for your business and continued solutions for your client, hence a l ife-long customer relationship.

But with the bottom 30% you might want to change your strategy as they are costing your business money vs. generating money for you. Look at options like service agreements where they pay per call or perhaps even an annual support fee which would balance out the cost of their frequent service requests. NO ONE likes to lose a customer, but sometimes it just doesn't make sense to keep them all either!

Managing Technical Teams

2010-10-12T08:08:00.000-07:00

In most cases technical staff are those who prefer to perform their work with little or no supervision and they often view Management "oversight" as a hindrance to their - getting the job done. They also quite often forget that at the other end of the phone line, there is a customer (or customers) that has been impacted and regardless of the fact that they "think" they can resolve the problem, there are timelines and SLAs in place to ensure that issues get escalated. Now, while "techs" are members of the team that managers depend upon heavily to resolve the problem, it is the managers responsibility to understand the "big picture" and also the challenges faced by these key members at a non-technical level.

The manager is responsible for balancing the needs of the company against the needs of these key resources and obviously directing technical staff can be a challenge. It is made even more of one, by those managers that are unable to step back and release control (or delegating). The understanding between a manager and his team must be such that trust exists at either level. You trust them to get the job done in a timely manner and escalate those problems that they are unable to handle & they trust you to keep their best interests in mind, work with them to get more training (which is something a "true" techie will never have enough of), ensure that they have the resources and training to resolve the problems that you are assigning to them and in those instances where its necessary ... pull them back and away from a problem so that they do not get defeated. This mutual respect MUST be in place if the team and organization is expected to be effective.

The manager of a technically oriented department MUST have a reasonable grasp of the technologies and issues that his staff will face. They should be able to understand it at a "high" level, but it is OK to let your staff know that they are smarter than you! Remember they are skilled in their unique discipline and while you could not do their job, they are not managers and could not do your job either. It is far more important for the manager to be able to direct the staff to the right resources, tools or training when working issues. If the employee cannot perform the task with his current level of knowledge, it is incumbent on the manager and the company to ensure that appropriate and relevant training is available in a timely (& frequent) manner. Technical skills "rust" when not used and with the plethora of new technologies constantly being developed and launched it is very difficult to always be current with the newest while maintaining a grip on legacy tools/applications and knowledge.

Managers are constantly expected to do more, with less resources, regardless of the economy (think about it - in good times, the number of customers you have are increasing whereas your resources won't (at least not at a comparative rate) as the company is in business to make a profit ... in bad time, you lose staff and have to service what customers you have left with fewer and fewer resources) and unfortunately is probably one of the few constants in our world! Now, not only do you always have to do more with less, but you need to also ensure that the staff you have you KEEP! The cost of hiring/training and integrating new staff and making them useful is a topic for another day, but suffice it to say, if you have a "good 'un", you want to keep him! Its a fine line between customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction and its a tightrope you'll be walking every day. I generally tend to err on the side of employee satisfaction - if you have good staff, doing a good job who are happy doing that job ... customer satisfaction just comes naturally!

This post was initially published on The MouseTrap on 08/10/2010. Check out The MouseTrap for more of my posts and ramblings!

Why Do Customers Matter?

2010-10-01T05:52:00.000-07:00

This is a guest post from Glass Is Half the author of The Mouse Trap blog. Glass Is Half writes about Personal Finance, Jobs, Customer Service, Science Fiction and Fantasy Books and Television shows. A very interesting blog that is worth a visit!

Perhaps this is stating the obvious, but we want a large base of loyal customers as they are a lot more profitable than just “happy/satisfied” customers. They consistently do business with us and on top of that they give free advertising to others to do business with us.

Besides that, we already know that is ten times easier to keep a customer happy than to gain a new one, so based on this, it sounds like a pretty good deal to just give customers the GREAT/MEMORABLE service they are expecting and keep their business coming “home”.

The question of course is - What is Memorable and What do customers want from us?

First we need to understand that customers these days are smarter, more demanding, less forgiving, harder to satisfy and most of all approached by competitors on a daily basis, therefore the extra mile we used to walk has now become “The Expected”.

In order to gain Customer Loyalty we need to show them:

The value of our service. Let them know that they are dealing with professionals that are willing to understand and help them. “We are here to help you”.
How assertive we are. We will provide the correct information exactly when they need it and in the way they need it. “We are here to inform you”.
The best attitude. Regardless of how you communicate with your customers be that email, voice or chat it is essential that your willingness to help is transmitted through the conversation. “We are glad to help you”.

Now like I said earlier - these three things are no longer going above and beyond but are rather the expectation, so if you do them the only thing you are guaranteed to have is satisfied customers. To get to the next level you will need to demonstrate:

Reliability, as there is nothing better for a customer than to know what service to expect and always get it, over and over again, if you don’t believe me then take a look at how McD’s is doing regardless of the market.
Timing, because customers want it now, the faster the better. However, worse than late is wrong. If you ordered a pepperoni pizza, a potato salad and light coke delivered to your door three minutes after hanging up the phone would probably not improve your loyalty.

Now I don't think anyone would disagree that by providing these elements of service to your customer you are going to have a significantly happier customer out there. However its really easy to say that you need to do it ... doing it is another question. Here are some tips!

Every time you start working on an issue ask yourself the following questions in this order: How any issues is the customer bringing to my attention? Is it clear to me what the problem(s) is(are)? What information do I need to solve the problem? What information do I have at this moment? How can I get what I am missing? By doing this, you will improve your accuracy in solving the customer’s issues, you will start to work smarter instead of harder as you will focus your efforts and time on solving the problem.
Let the customers know what you have understood, what information you are giving them and in which order. This will tell the customers that you are taking their concerns seriously and that you will address all their questions. Remember there is nothing worse than being ignored and when you address two out of three questions you are basically telling the customer “your third request is not important to me”.
Get training on the things you find difficult to solve, the more you know, the easier your work will be, and the easier your work is, the faster you can provide the right answer to the customer. It is like body building, the more you know the stronger you get. The difficult part of putting this advice in practice is to recognize what we don’t know and even harder to be humble and ask for help. In my experience every time I have asked someone to teach me, they have felt proud of passing their knowledge to anybody who approaches them with respect, paradoxically this does not always work with teachers but has worked perfectly with colleagues.
I don’t have specific advice on improving your attitude, there is no method or technique to follow that guarantees an improvement in this area, however, I suggest you start doing some exercises, drink two more glasses of water every day, reduce caffeine, eat chocolate and most of all worry only about the things you can control, like your reaction to every day events.

Customers are human beings, as demanding and difficult to please as you and me. Think about the restaurants, pubs, stores, online sites, etc that keep you going back and spending your money there, what have those places done to earn your loyalty and then think about what else can we do to keep earning your customers loyalty.

Conducting an effective Job Search

2010-09-13T05:52:00.000-07:00

Its easy to make a mistake when searching for a job, unfortunately by doing so you are adversly impacting your ability to find that role of your dreams and case should be taken to minimize this as much as possible. In this difficult job climate, caer must be taken with even the smallest detail and your review should include your resume and cover letter as well as your own references!

Paperwork -

Your Resume/CV and Cover Letter are generally your first introduction to the company. You can never make a first impression again so it pays to ensure that the information you are providing to the prospective employer is accurate, factual and well presented. Use good quality paper if sending out or providing hard copies and ensure that it is readable. Try not to exceed 2 pages by formatting and if necessary deleating or editing out previous roles to ensure that it fits.

More Details -

Cover Letters are your ticket to sell yourself. While a CV/Resume is by its very nature a dry and factual document, a cover letter speaks to your passions and ambitions and you should utilize it fully to draw the reader’s attention to the parts of your background that are most applicable to the specific job.

Customization -

It is essential that you customize your resume & cover letter to the job that you are applying for. Having a "master" version of your CV that is available to you is a good first step and then depending on the role that you are applying for and what they are looking for you can and should tailor your CV (resume) and Cover Letter appropriately.

Networking -

If you only depend upon the job boards for roles, you are missing a vital clue. Make sure that you network (use LinkedIn for example) and speak to your friends and family. Get involved in some "after school" activities and clubs and meet other people in your community and in any professional associations. Some studies have shown that almost 60% (or higher) of roles are filled in this manner and it is significantly more effective than mass applications!

Please & Thank You -

Being polite never hurts and you will find that it pays even greater dividends in the job search! A professional "Thank you for the time" after an interview is absolutely essential. In addition, it helps bring your name back to the forefront after they have seen a raft of other applicants and also demonstrates your interest in the company and position.

The Boy Scout Code - "Be Prepared".

Make sure you know your resume and are comfortable with all the details included on it. Make sure that you carry extra copies of your resume to your interview with you. If you have written references take them, if you have demonstrative project work ... bring it!! More than likely you will not need all of this, but you are guaranteed to need it if you don't have it with you!

Do your Homework -

It is 110%(!!!!) essential that you know the details of the company that you are interviewing with! What do they do? What products do they sell? Who is their biggest competition? What is their revenue? Are they public or private?? Not doing your homework on the company shows a distinct lack of interest and regardless of how well you interview the hiring manager is going to think ... "if you're not interested in me, why should I be interested in you??"

Do you know what they are thinking?

2010-08-12T02:09:00.000-07:00

Ensuring that you measure your customers expectations of your business as well as acting to meet and exceed those expectations is a key step in ensuring that you are running a successful and profitable business. Gaining valuable insightful customer feedback is key to ensuring that your business continues to address consumers' needs.

Current data shows that over 80% of businesses currently make this effort, however that same research shows that the quality of these surveys and the data gathered from them was poor, with a significant percentage of people surveyed admitting that they had never undertaken the exercise at all!

However on the positive side, some companies that utilized automated technologies to assist them in their surveying had shown a significant increase in Customer Satisfaction and Revenue and a decrease in overall customer churn. By utilizing these sorts of tools and conducting a thorough analysis of the results provided, companies have been able to utilize the 80/20 methodology to assist them in targeting the pressure points that are most painful to their customers and removing them!

The key point to take from this is that the best person to determine what is and isn't working with your company is your customer and the only way that they will tell you what's wrong is if you ask them!

The Fallacy of Price

2010-06-23T09:52:00.000-07:00

A common misconception is that if you lower the price you will get more customers. This is not always the case by anymeans and there are some significant downsides to playing the price card which you should consider.

Now, you might not really have an option - if your competition has cut their price to some extent you will be forced to match this to ensure that you are not priced "out of the market" - however if this is not the situation and you are choosing to cut your price without any prompting from competitors or customers, there are reasons for and against this action.

Companies that pursue this strategy do so for a variety of reasons including the idea that lowering prices will revive their customers' wavering devotion and ultimately make the company better off. To defend the cuts, they cite changes in the competitive landscape, the convictions of upper management, a willingness to share cost savings and productivity improvements with customers, and the mistaken belief that lower prices equates to higher volumes. Because price cuts seem to offer the easiest way to lavish special treatment on customers, companies find the temptation hard to resist.

Now while some of these actions might be true there is significant justification in resisting the temptation. Proactive price cuts don't make you different, nor do they make you better off. They make you poorer, unless you have the evidence, the data, and the math to prove otherwise.

Lets look at a simple example:

Price of your widget = $10

Volume sold = 100

Revenue = $1000

New price of your widget = $8 (reduction of 50%)

Volume sold = 150 (increase of 50%)

Revenue = $750 ... you would need to sell twice as many units ... an increase of 100% to achieve the same revenue you enjoyed before the price cut!

This holds true regardless of how you cut prices. You can cut them through outright price reductions, by offering coupons or cash-back incentives, and by heaping services upon your customers in order to clinch a deal or cling to an existing customer relationship. Remember that in an established industry there can only be one cost leader ... in a mature industry in which competitors offer similar products based on similar technology and inputs, it may even be impossible for any company to achieve more than a slight cost advantage.

The key thing to remember is that you are in a business to make money AND deliver a service. Your customer wants to pay fair value for the services rendered and they realize that if you went out of business they would need to go elsewhere.

Using an IVR effectively

2010-05-23T07:58:00.000-07:00

First – what is an IVR?

Some people also call it an ACD but whatever you call it, an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) or Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) system is used to get your customers to the right people to answer their questions or provide them with the right information.

When used effectively it can be great for your customers – they get their calls answered by knowledgeable people in a timely manner and for the companies its great too ... by knowing who your customer is calling and about what you can ensure that you have the right people in place at the right time and you are able to pull the appropriate information from the system to ensure that this practice continues.

However, when an IVR is not working the right way, you are putting your customers in what is known as "IVR hell" – basically your clients are talking to the machine more than to your staff and are in a loop, just going around in circles getting madder and madder. This is one of the best ways to lose business!

How do you fix it you may ask?

Well sometimes the issue or problem might actually be related to the technology itself but more often than not it's the fact that you are offering too many options to the customer or when they actually do reach a representative that is supposed to be knowledgeable in the area that they are concerned about to hear the response that they are unable to help without additional information – which is more than frustrating!

You need to manage the caller's expectations and to do this right; you need to ensure that your customers know what information is required BEFORE they speak to your representative – mention it at the start of your IVR and at every hold interval that you need to put in. Make sure that the IVR is actually working – try it yourself ... REGULARLY ... and try it from a customers point of view not with your inside knowledge of who to speak to ... get people from other departments to call in if necessary. If you are able to integrate your IVR into your CRM solution do so – having all of the customers information available including past issues reported is extremely important and useful. Finally and perhaps most IMPORTANT ... ensure that your staff on the other end of the line are able to solve the problem! Finally reaching a live body only to be told that they will need to call back does not help your customer's mood.

Using LinkedIn to find a job

2010-05-18T03:28:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned LinkedIn a couple of times now (see this post and this one) and its a really great tool not only to keep in touch with old work colleagues and keep apprised of whats going on in your industry, but also to find a job. LinkedIn's job search should complement whatever you are currently doing to find a role via other online tools. The greatest advantage and feature of LinkedIn (aside from the fact that some hiring managers use it exclusively so this is the only place you would be able to find that specific job) is the fact that you can get your existing colleagues and friends to act as your references and based on your "links" to the job/company in question there is quite a good chance that you can be recommended for the role by someone already working in the company.

In the current market, any advertised job posting can generate hundreds (if not thousands) of applications from potential candidates. By using LinkedIn however you are able to get a referral from someone that already works in the company and this could possibly make a huge difference to your chances. LinkedIn takes the traditional formula of networking and modernizes it in a perfect manner. Keep in mind that studies have shown that 60-80% of all jobs are sourced purely through word of mouth - with that being said, having a way to make yourself visible to a larger market is bound to improve your hiring potential.

Step by Step -

Logon to LinkedIn and create an account. Upload your CV/Resume and indicate all the companies and roles you've had in the past. Find all the contacts at your previous roles and add them to your network (sorry, went through this really fast, but I will go through this in greater detail in future posts).
Now that you have a network in place, you can start searching for jobs that are close to you.

Click on Jobs -> Find Jobs
Click on Advanced search (under the Search Button)
Fill in the fields on the next screen but make sure that you sort by Relationship
On the next screen you will be presented with a list of relevant jobs based on the criteria you have selected previously. Underneath each role however is the phrase "See people in your network who can help you get this job". Click on this link and you will see people that are currently in the company that is hiring for that role. Each layer of your network is given a number so if you see a "1" for any of these names then that means this is someone you know and have in your direct network. A "2" would be someone that knows someone that you know - that is, you share a common contact. Each subsequent number indicates a person that is that much further away from you. Remember, with the LinkedIn search you can actually search for a specific company or a specific region to narrow down your search even further and you can even filter by the relationship.
Once you have found someone that can help you, the next step is initiating contact. If they are in your direct network thats fairly easy as its a simple email from within LinkedIn. If however they are removed from your direct network by one or two steps, you would need to get a referral from someone that you know. LinkedIn makes this easy also however as they give you a list of people in common that you share and you simply have to ask someone you know to referr your application onwards.

Once you have established contact with the person inside the company that has the job, its a simple matter to get additional details of the role, the name of the hiring manager, details about the company etc... With this information in hand, you can then personalize an application for the role and either have your internal contact forward it on for you or have it delivered directly to the hiring manager. Aside from the fact that your application has been delivered from or via an internal resource, the personalization itself will make your application stand out even more!

Whether or not you are invited to interview for the suitable positions you’ll apply for using this process; your response rate should be higher than if you just apply blindly to a job. Best of luck on your job hunt!

Using LinkedIn effectively

2010-05-07T05:39:00.000-07:00

I've already spoken previously about the power of LinkedIn and how useful a tool and site it is. However it definitely bears repeating as if you are not using LinkedIn properly you are missing one of the sharpest quivers in your bow! If you do not know about LinkedIn at all – make sure you visit the site immediately and input as much information as possible to build a complete and accurate profile.

Here are some of the most common mistakes that people make with LinkedIn – check your account and ensure that you are not making one of these!

Personalize your profile

Add a photo. People prefer photo's and images and generally if a photo accompanies your profile, it will receive a higher level of attention. Make sure that people can find you by using your real name. The default setup of LinkedIn has a bunch of letters and numbers which means that people will only find you by searching for skills and location, not your name. In addition, LinkedIn allows you to have 3 additional sites that you can refer interested parties to. Use these to reference your blog, your company's website or even your Twitter Feed.

Recommendations

One of LinkedIn's greatest strengths is its recommendations feature. Quite a few companies that utilize LinkedIn for their hiring will not even look at candidates without recommendations so make sure that you have as many as possible from your work history. You definitely want to get supervisory recommendations, but you should also aim to get peer recommendations to.

Making it stand out

Use keywords and descriptive words throughout. While you do not want to have something that is 10 pages long, at the same time you are not restricted to 2 pages like most CVs and resumes so you have an opportunity on LinkedIn to actually explain what you've done throughout your career and how your achievements have helped in each of your previous roles. In addition, you want to expound on the actual "bottom line" – what did the company you worked for "get out of it" and why was it a benefit to them.

Errors and Proofreading

Perhaps something that doesn't need repeating, but silly typo's and grammar issues are one of the worst things that you could do. It immediately shows a prospective employer that you are NOT detail oriented and that you DO NOT make the appropriate effort in your work.

Updating and Groups

Another big no-no is inputting your information and forgetting about it. LinkedIn like lots of other sites thrives on content so if you're not updating your information or participating in discussions and groups you are losing a whole new avenue to keep your name "out there". Ensure that any new posts you make on blogs or other sites are advertised in the "What are you working on?" box and that you've linked your Twitter account so that it automatically updates for you.

Choosing what to measure

2010-05-01T08:03:00.000-07:00

An old business axiom says, “You can’t control what you don’t measure.” As a result, nearly everything in business is measured, tracked, monitored, analyzed, and benchmarked. To flip this on its head a little bit though ... should you measure what you can control or rather what is outside of your control? While it is easy to put a number to things that you have complete control over wouldn't there be a greater impact to your bottom line and the business if you started measuring things that impacted your customers but that you didn't have complete control over?

You'll find that you will see a far greater improvement as well as improved education for your teams and progression towards your goals, if you start measuring the things that you can influence and not just the things that you control. "Any color as long as its black" - Probably one of the greatest quotes that never was is a perfect example of this point. While you can definitely control the color of your product by offering only one choice to your customers you are definitely not going to have satisfied or happy customers if you do not give them a choice. Total control does not make for happy customers and in a similar manner, what you can completely control is trivial. The important stuff is important BECAUSE it’s outside our circle of control.

Revenue and profit are obviously essential to any business. Monitiring your bottom line is only one part of the formula. Its essential that you are measuring the factors that actually are critical to your company. Here are some guidelines on helping you develop a plan to do this.

Goals - what are you trying to accomplish? What is it that your business does and build your goals around that. Make the goals a stretch but achievable. Determine your measures for success. Make your goals challenging, but achievable. Your goals can be fairly large in scope - decrease customer churn, launch into a new market etc... however while your overall goal is broad in scope, you will need to break it down into specific and achievable objectives that are measurable and achievable.
Company Performance - how does your company compare against the industry at large? What percentage of your industry/market does your company control or have an influence on? What turnover does your company have and how does that compare to the industry at large?
Strengths and Weaknesses - be honest with yourself but ensure that you are accurate. Where are you strong and where are you weak? What can be done in each area to enhance your company further and give you an increased advantage on your competition?
Customer Retention - one of your main goals should always be customer retention as getting a new customer is five times more expensive than retaining a current one. Work on issues that increase and improve customer and brand loyalty. Ensure that your teams are trained on customer service and that a helpful attitude greases more wheels!
Advertising and Marketing - ensure that you are measuring the outcome of any advertising campaigns and marketing activities that your company does. Your marketing results may be measured in sales (dollars or units), market share or a variety of other factors. The goal should obviously be the number of new customers your advertising dollars earn.
Employee Performance and Churn - track your employees and their performance. Top employees are crucial to your companies success and you need to ensure that you are hiring top quality and retaining top quality.

Rewarding Attendance

2010-04-27T06:58:00.000-07:00

This is actually quite an interesting topic - should you hand out an additional reward to someone for coming into work? Basically give them a reward for just doing their job - something that they are getting paid for anyways?

Well to answer the question I'm afraid this time I'm going to have be a bit ambivalent so ... Yes and No ... or it depends would be my answer. Allow me to explain.

What is the structure of your company? Do you have a forward thinking organization that allows remote working or does everyone have to be "in the office" everyday? If you do allow remote working, then lets be honest - what possible reason is there for someone being late? They need to roll out of bed and sit down at a computer! There should not be any tolerance for people taking advantage in this situation. If however you do have an office based culture you are going to have to take into account weather and other travel disruptions - while all of your staff should be expected to be in the office 10-15min before the start of their shift (after all they will need time to grab that first coffee or smoke and get their computer setup prior to getting started with their job) there are sometimes issues that are outside of your employees control that will impact them. Make sure that you are able to track these instances and also allow/disallow based on the circumstances appropriately.

Sickness and Absenteeism - well people get sick ... you should really not be considering this as a measurement UNLESS you see a definite pattern - for example the employee is ALWAYS sick on Mondays or Fridays OR they are sick for a couple of days just before they go on holiday. If this happens it must be dealt with and immediately. Otherwise follow your standard guidelines - probably something like 3days+ of sick in a row require a Doctor's note etc... One important point - if someone is sick and you do offer remote work as an option ... they should not choose to work from home (if they are scheduled to be in the office) and claim that they were sick. If they are truly sick they should not be working. If they are not sick - they should be in the office!

Now hopefully you are capturing lateness and absenteeism as part of schedule adherence and rewarding it appropriately in your end of your reviews or something similar. However there is no harm in having an employee rewarded for good behaviour and something small that is made public to the rest of the team is a great incentive. Heck even a gift certificate to Amazon or the equivalent for a not too large sum is something that people will strive for. A friend mentioned in passing that he had heard of one company that had problems with absenteeism introduced a free lottery for staff - however tickets were only provided to employees that made it into work on Fridays - if you think about it ... this is more of a carrot than a stick and as they say "you'll catch more flys with honey than ... "

Treat Your Job Search - Like a Job!

2010-04-22T05:29:00.000-07:00

How do you ensure that your CV does not just disappear into the void and that recruiting managers remember your name when the role that you are suited for finally comes available?

Well firstly - ensure that you are applying for those roles that you are actually suited for and that your CV and resume shows how your skills suit the position. If you are trying to get into a new industry - expect to start at a more junior position and ensure that you highlight why you are suitable in your covering letter (you were going to send a covering letter weren't you?)
Ensure that your CV/Resume and Cover Letter (remember the cover letter always ... its extremely important and gives you a great area to highlight your skills outside of the 2 page CV/Resume format) include the key-words that the job specification indicates are necessary for the role. However do not just fill your CV up with key words - no one will be fooled - ensure that you job experience matches the role (see point 1 above) and that you are able to speak to this skill in an interview.
Formatting, formatting, formatting. Presentation is key here - you want to ensure that you've minimized any spelling or grammar errors and also that your CV stands out (by that I DO NOT mean print it on fluorescent pink paper!) from the crowd. Ensure that your name and contact details are clear and use legible font that can be decreased in size without losing clarity throughout your document - I would suggest Tahoma/Arial/Verdana as they are all very clear even down to Font Size 6 allowing you to get a lot of information on the page. However - try to ensure that there is enough white space on the page as too much text is just going to kill the reviewer and they will not bother reading the whole document.
Structure - in addition to the overall look and feel of your document you need to ensure that you are emphasizing your achievements (not your job duties ... people know what a Customer Service Representative does, but they don't know that you've sourced and built the ticketing system that the company is using for example!). The top of your CV should have a couple of sentences speaking about what you are looking for and why you would be a good fit for the role.
Network - 60-70% or more of jobs are never advertised - well, not in the public domain anyways. They come about through word of mouth and the jobs are sourced and filled by people that other people know! You should always ensure that you have your name on others lips and keep yourself active on sites like LinkedIn and even Facebook for that matter!
If you've been lucky enough to secure an interview - make sure that you've done your homework on the company! Come dressed to impress at the interview and ensure that you send a follow up email or letter after the interview thanking them for their time. Remember they might be seeing 10 or 100's of people for the role and if you are one of the early people you want to get them to remember you again when they are closer to making the decision.
Treat your job search like a job! That means that you need to maintain a list of contacts (recruiters) and websites that you have advertised yourself on and you should spend 2-3 hours a day looking for new opportunities and following up on previous ones. Do NOT just send an email with your CV and expect that you will get the job immediately thereafter. To get the right role takes motivation and effort and you shouldn't give up after 1 or 2 strike outs.

So to reiterate -

Apply only to jobs where you are most suited
Format your CV and cover letter to include the key words that they are looking for
Check your CV for spelling/grammar errors
Ensure your CV is structured correctly
Network
Follow Up
Treat it like a job!- During a recession it often takes 17+ interviews to get a job so keep your chin up.

You may find these related posts of interest:

Finding a Job Through Networking

The Job Search

Job Search, Hiring & Firing

Happy Customers vs. Satisfied Customers

2010-04-18T05:00:00.000-07:00

Choosing your customer - if you had a choice, would you pick a satisfied customer or a happy customer? Well, first you need to understand the difference between these. Neither of them are unhappy with you, your product or service so what differentiates them?

What is a satisfied customer? You could say that they that felt OK after dealing with us. Their needs were met. The service was OK. The experience was OK. They are satisfied (even happy) with their “purchase”. They may or may not talk about their experience with others. They may or may not refer someone to us. Their overall feeling is between neutral and positive and their experiences with us have not been negative or disappointing. As we can see this is good but NOT great. This customer can also be satisfied with our competitors.

What is a happy customer? This type of customer feels GREAT about dealing with us. Their needs were met and/or exceeded. The service delivery was GREAT. The experience was GREAT. They will talk about their experience. They will proactively refer someone to us. Their overall feeling about us is wonderful and their experiences have been memorable.

Now I think if I was to ask you that question again, the answer would be fairly obvious - but the question that still remains is why is the happy customer better for us and our business? The satisfied one isn't going anywhere after all?

The simple answer is referrals and word of mouth. Happy and loyal customers are the ones that think of us first when they have a need that must be met and perhaps of even more importance - they tell their contacts about how great we are also! Studies have shown that for businesses with a focus on Customer Service, new business through referrals amount to 20% of all new business generated!

While the saying goes "there is no such thing as bad advertising", obviously good (& free) advertising from loyal customers and advocates is better.

Leadership on the Front Line

2010-04-14T06:41:00.000-07:00

OK - its great to have friends at work. In fact I think its a necessity - there are very few of us who would do this (or any) job for no pay and as such work is just that ... its work. If it was easy and always fun it would be called PLAY. So with that being said, having someone to talk to at the water cooler is a good idea ... however ... there is a difference when you are a manager! There is a line that shouldn't and mustn't be crossed and that is the line of professionalism. So how do you lead these people without seeming like an unapproachable monster? Well here are some hints and ideas for you:

Be honest - there are obviously things that you can and cannot share with your employees - terminations and reviews comes to mind! - but as long as you make it clear to your staff that there are some things that you cannot answer that should suffice. Let them know that in whatever you are telling them you are being as honest and as candid as you possibly can be. Remember if you get caught in a lie, its not only going to impact the employee that you lied to, but everyone else also once they hear about it ... after all if you could lie to one of their peers about something, whats to tell them that you're not lying to them also?
Communicate - talk to your team. ALWAYS. Constant and continual feedback on performance is imperative. They need to know how they stand in the company and in their team, what they can do to improve and if they've done something wrong this is even more important. Most employees are in the job to do the best that they can do - there have been very few instances in my career that an employee just didn't care and actively campaigned to get terminated (that's a story for another day!) - and its up to you to tell them how to do this. In addition to keeping your staff informed and motivated however this has a direct impact on you - do you remember my previous post about Performance Appraisals (if not, click here) - trying to do a year end performance appraisal without giving the employee feedback throughout the year is going to be extremely difficult unless you've decided to grade them at the highest possible level. If you've not been telling them what they can do to improve and trying to help them to do this they have every right to rip you apart in the review meeting!
Respect - Ensure that you are on time for and prepared for any meetings you have with anyone in your team. In or out of the office your comments about other staff, management and the company in general should always be of the highest calibre. NEVER let yourself get into a blame game and if you're in a meeting with someone - anyone - pay attention! This means:
stop looking at your email,
stop looking at your blackberry and
stop answering the phone.

Now where do you go to blow of steam? Lets be honest (which I always encourage - see point 1!) managing is a hard job. If you're in a difficult situation with your company or a member of your team you sometimes need to be able to say things that are outside the scope. This is where your manager comes in and if you have a large enough and established enough company - your peers - come in. They will be able to assist you in your decision making process and give you clear unbiased opinions on any decisions that you are concerned about. If you're not comfortable utilizing that framework - heck ask me! I'll give you a completely unbiased opinion and off course there are also tons of networking related groups available online that you can frequent that will be able to provide you guidance in your field too.

Leadership and management isn't easy ... well managing badly can be very easy ... its becoming a great manager that takes work. I hope you choose to make the effort.

Time Management 101

2010-04-11T08:14:00.000-07:00

Time Management is generally assumed to refer to the development of processes and tools that increase productivity and efficiency. However, this does not always have to be the case. Good time management is about knowing what to do and when.

The first step in this process is determining what your end goal is – what is it that you are trying to accomplish and what is the shortest path for you in reaching that goal? Once you know this then you can plan the steps appropriately that are achievable and realistic to realize this objective in a timely and efficient manner. Along the way the things that are taking you away from this achievement should be removed or reprioritized so that they do not impact your target negatively.

In addition it is extremely important that one of your goals includes focusing on your personal life. Having huge business objectives and targets is all well and good, but without an equal amount of focus on the people that care and nurture you, the real underlying reason for your business goals just does not make sense.

A good post on Time Management unrelated to business but still applicable is available here.

Remember – the only thing that you cannot get back again is time. Once it's gone, it's gone so make sure that you are using it wisely and well.

Measuring Performance

2010-04-06T06:02:00.000-07:00

Why do you measure performance? Well probably the simplest and most common phrase (that I have mangled, but) that you might have already heard is "you can't fix what you don't know" or "you can't manage what you don't measure" or even "what you measure gets done". While these are all true in their own way, the real reason that you should be thinking of measuring performance is from a proactive standpoint and not a reactive one which is what these all are.

You want to measure so that you know what is GOING to happen - which is extremely difficult but also extremely necessary. By ensuring that your resources are in place and trained BEFORE the customer knows that's what they want is only going to make your company shine that much brighter! Put another way - "you measure to ensure you have enough time to adjust".

Measuring a project (or for that matter your teams individual (see my post on Annual Performance Reviews) performance) at the end, is often too late. Constant and continuous measurement and feedback is needed throughout the course of the objective to ensure that you are able to appropriately adjust to any deviations and make the appropriate modifications necessary. By determining that a project has failed to meet the objectives only at the end of the project you are missing a key step.

KPI's (Key Performance Indicators) are a way for you to organize these measurements on a frequent basis and it is key that you share this performance with the staff/teams impacted. By only reporting UP in the chain of command with regards to KPIs and performance the people actually impacted are unable to adjust their performance appropriately.

Remember, its a continuous feedback loop just like any other Quality initiave and one of the key pieces of continuous feedback is that failures are fed back into the process as a step in the chain for improvements.

You may find these related posts of interest:

How do you measure First Call Resolution?

Erlang 'C' & Scheduling for Call Centres

KPI's and the Importance of Measurements

Goals and Metrics: The Bell Curve

2010-03-29T06:09:00.000-07:00

Managing a call center or help desk/technical support team is difficult. Not only do you need to ensure that you have the appropriate number of agents to deal with the incoming issues, but you also need to ensure that these agents have the right skills and abilities to handle the volume that they get. Finally - and perhaps most importantly - you need to ensure that your agents are meeting the metrics and KPIs that you have determined are key to your company. This is where Bell Curve analysis comes into play quite nicely.

How to Create Performance Bell Curves

Bell curve graphs are called histograms. By reviewing individual performance (lets take output as an example) and grouping it together across your team you will have a simple scale that graphed out shows a distribution. A normal distribution will have equal numbers on either side with the bulk of your team grouped in the middle.

Importantly, the bell curve (like any statistical distribution) describes a large number (or population) of individual things. The horizontal dimension (X-Axis) of the curve describes a range of values. The vertical dimension (Y-Axis) describes the incidences of "N" occuring. If we stick to our example of output, we would have a count of number of emails responded to (for example) on the Y-Axis with a corresponding group of employees on the X-Axis. By determining where your employees fall in the distribution you will see where they stand in the distribution.

You will need a reasonable sample size to create an accurate assessment - do not judge your teams performance on one months data, but gather several months and ensure that your measurements are accurate by taking account of time away from the job (supervisors and other special projects that would impact their output and performance) and averaging your output over the course of the period in question. In addition, you really need a sample size of at least 20+ agents to get a proper distribution - its even better when you get into multiples of that! As a rule, the more data you have the better your analysis will be.

You would take that data on a weekly/monthly basis and average it out over a specific period for all of your CSRs comparing their performance against your target goal. For example if output is to be 40 emails/day your distribution would have staff spread around that number in a fairly equal proportion (based on the size of your sample of course). Statistically speaking, the bell curve is defined entirely by its mean (average) and its standard deviation. But for our purposes we need know only that its shape can tell us a lot about agent group performance.

Understanding Bell Curves

As you can see in the graphic above, the peak is where the majority of your employees are in relation to output. You have some staff on the high side and some on the low side. You will see that the majority of employees are at the average with others above and below that average. By reviewing what the above average performers are doing in relation to the below average performers you will be able to compare and contrast behaviors and determine what actions you can best make to improve your lower performers. (NOTE: if you have a "double hump" curve that's something I will look at in future posts so don't think that you've done something wrong - double and triple humps happen ... a key case in point is call volumes by time of day where you will have several different peaks).

Remember if your skew is towards the lower end of the scale you have a problem that you need to address immediately! Depending on your customer base and type of business this might be fine for you - those on the low side could be your slower performers with regards to output, but conversely your higher performers in relation to customer retention just because they spend more time with each customer. However assuming that this is NOT the case and that all you are interested in is output, your goal is to "skew" your employees output towards the higher end of the scale.

I will cover in later posts how you can go about doing this in greater detail, but hopefully now you know how to measure and read a bell curve! Happy Bell Curving!

The "Right" Customer

2010-03-23T09:54:00.000-07:00

Lets assume that you have the perfect product. One that everyone needs. You've priced it right and everyone in the world can afford it. It works without errors and flaws and doesn't break and is extremely simple to use.

How much would you like to bet that you would still have customers complaining about it? Hard is it might be to believe the phrase - "you can please most of the people some of the time and some of the people most of the time, but you can NEVER please all of the people all of the time!" - is unfortunately way too accurate.

What you will see and notice however is that the 80/20 rule (remember that? I mentioned it earlier here) applies in this like it does in most things. If you haven't read my post, allow me to paraphrase - the 80/20 rule (also known as the Pareto Principle) states that 80% of "x" comes from 20% of "y". You could state it like 80% of your customer interactions come from 20% of your issues. Or perhaps another way - 80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients.

Now obviously the percentages might not always line up to exactly 80/20 but you will find that this is accurate and close more often than not.

So how does this apply to you and the miracle product? Well it might not , to be honest - not if you have one single price point across the board. However if you've priced it based on income, you might potentially be charging more for this product in some regions than in others. The 80/20 rule would tell you to concentrate on the 20 sectors that are actually generating the most revenue for you - if you do the math, you'll see that the other sectors don't amount to the same value and your efforts are best spent where they are most fruitful. So if we take our example of the miracle product you might find that the following applies -

Region 1 (Affluent and Developed Economies) - product priced at $100/unit
Region 2 (Developing and Growing Economies) - product priced at $50/unit
Region 3 (Growing and Restructuring Economies) - product priced at $10/unit

Region 1 will probably account for the highest percentage of your sales and also the lowest cost with regards to support as they have the infrastructure in place to utilize the product fully and also to understand what it can and cannot do. Region 2 & 3 will together account for a significant portion of your revenue but will also have the largest volume of support issues as they do not have the understanding of the products limitations and while this is a "miracle" product unfortunately it cannot in itself do miracles!

The unfortunate fact of human nature is that generally the lower paying clients have a much higher level of demand to those at a higher price point. From a real world perspective I previously had a job at a large Internet company that was experiencing severe growing pains (to put it mildly!) and as the Manager I was frequently on the short end of the stick. More often than not, during the course of an outage I would be speaking to businesses with 5-10 impacted users on a conference call and have to explain what we were doing to everyone in the company ... by contrast I would have an hourly update call with the Senior Network Analyst at a business that was on a similar service but that had thousands of customers impacted!

I'm sure you've all heard the story about the contractor charging $100/day for a job and not getting any business but that same contractor choosing to charge $200/day getting inundated with work. The perception in the market place is that the person charging more is also WORTH MORE. Be careful with this though as if you cannot "back up" your requested salary with a corresponding skillset, you are not going to get far at all!

Now please do not take this post to imply in any way that the customer isn't right. That Region 3 customer buying your $10/unit product could eventually turn into your monster customer that IS your business. If you are able to "upsell" your customers from one product to another, based on value and worth it is easily done. It is always worth the effort to nurture your customers as the hardest part of growing any business is getting new customers in the door. However you do need to do some careful analysis and tracking to ensure that the revenue you are earning from your customers is not actually COSTING you more in the long run - and remember - if you do not have that miracle product, you can only imagine that your complaints are going to be higher!

You may find these related posts of interest:

How do you measure First Call Resolution?

KPI's and the Importance of Measurements

Annual Performance Review / Performance Appraisal

Dealing with Low Performers & Performance Issues

2010-03-16T08:43:00.000-07:00

Why do we measure organizational performance? The first answers that pop into your head might be:

You can’t manage what you don’t measure
What you measure gets done
We have to be accountable
They have to be held accountable
They told us to (I always like that one!)

Now what do you do if/when you have someone that is not meeting or achieving these standards while everyone else in your team is?

The first thing that must be realized is that the buck stops with you. Its up to you transform these people and lead them in the right direction. You cannot let low performers dictate the outcome of the team as a whole and as such the bar must remain at the level you have set.

It would be a big mistake to lower the bar in the interests of morale while sacrificing the requirements of the company. By lowering the bar, you are only appealing to the elements of your team that are hopefully a minority. Remember - you should always be aiming to reinforce positive behaviour - remember my post about the One Minute Manager many moons ago (see the link below)?

Reading Material

You are the leader, whether you are a good one or not doesn't really matter at this point. You are the one that success hinges around and are in the position of leadership for a specific reason. Your team needs you to communicate a vision. You need to ensure that you are communicating with all of them (not just the weaker ones) on a frequent basis and directing them appropriately and your team as a whole needs to know that you are committed to them and their success.

Ensure that you are communicating the goals and objectives frequently and that the targets are achievable. You will always have a bell curve with people on the low end and people on the high end with the majority in the middle - your focus should be to shift the bell so that it is skewed towards the higher end at all times.

It is key to remember that these people are all there to do a job and to do it well. You've hired for their skills and expertice and you need to ensure that non-performance is something that will be addressed swiftly and conclusively. Not doing so is something that will definitely impact the morale of your team. If you need some suggestions on how to go about this - read my post on PIPs (Personal Improvement Plans) - for an idea. Remember, that you are doing the job you are doing to serve the business and its customers - friendships in the workplace are nice but there should ALWAYS be a line in the sand between Management and Staff.

One final point - I've mentioned that you are a leader already? So LEAD! You need to ensure that the example you are setting to your team is the right one and you should always be aiming for the stars!

Your team will follow where you go.

Getting the job

2010-03-12T03:59:00.000-08:00

OK, alot of my previous posts have stressed the importance of networking and CV reviews with regards to getting that next role. What lots of candidates fail to account for is the actual importance of the interview itself assuming that their CV will "sell them" to the prospective employer. It cannot be stressed enough that while your CV will get you into the door, it is only through an exceptional job interview that you will get hired!

You may find these related posts of interest:

Finding a Job Through Networking

The Job Search

Job Search, Hiring & Firing

With the current ratio of interviews to hires during this recession time, Employers can afford to be picky with the candidates that are walking through the door. There are always more people looking for a job and most employers want to ensure that they are getting the best value for their money. Generally in recessions, the ratio of job interviews to job offers is as high as 17-to-1 (this drops to 6-to-1 during the "good times") so nailing that first impression is paramount.

Some common assumptions that candidates make about the interview process are:

I am good communicator - while this is obviously important (confidence at the interview stage is key) you need to remember that communicating in the workplace is different to an interview. Quite often you are going to be interviewed by people that are not skilled in the role that you are trying to fill and they will not understand the jargon that someone who does the job you do would. Also there is the potential that you will have group interviews where you will be cross examined by multiple parties simultaneously - remember that focus your attention on the person asking the question, but you need to be cognizant of the body language of the rest of the panel also.
I can do the job - while this might be absolutely true, it really has no bearing on the interview itself! As I've already mentioned, if you're being interviewed by someone who doesn't understand Routers, talking about the TCP/IP stack is not going to get you anywhere!!
I am (was) a Manager and have interviewed people before - there is a big difference between interviewing and being the interviewee. Once you're on the other side of that table you need to ensure that the answers you are providing are relevant to the questions being asked. You need to show enthusiasm for the role and do not be afraid to show some ambition when asked the question - "What are your plans for the future?" If you're able to answer truthfully that you want to get back into Management and would like to eventually be sitting on the other side of the chair again yourself that would probably not be misconstrued - however do NOT be arrogant and assume that you can do the job of the person that you are speaking to tomorrow. Just as in your previous role, this one is no different - its not just the technology that you need to learn but also the people and he has that knowledge whereas you will need to learn it again.
I know all about the business/sector - while you might have worked in this sector before, you actually DO NOT know it all. Eat a little humble pie here. The key thing that you should do though is ensure that you know EXACTLY what the company is looking for and also as much information about the company as possible. It is more than frustrating for an interviewer to ask the candidate what do they know about the company they are interviewing with and then have the candidate waffle on. In today's world, there is really no excuse not to know as much as possible about the role and the company - BE PREPARED!

Now while this is by no means an exhaustive list, it definitely covers the main things that I've had experience with from both sides of the chair. Practice doing interviews in front of a mirror, make notes about how your strengths line up with what the company is looking for, BE CONFIDENT and ensure that you project that image of yourself.

Practice, Practice, PRACTICE!!!!

Remember that that the job search is a job itself and should be treated as such. Your resume and CV opens doors, your personality will get you the job! Best of luck.

The 80/20 Rule

2010-03-08T21:33:00.000-08:00

If you've been in Tech Support or Help Desks for any length of time - especially from a management perspective you'll be extremely familiar with something called the 80/20 rule. Put simply it implies that 80% of your calls/contacts are generated from 20% of your issues. If you are able to focus efforts on clearing up some of those 20%'ers you would have a significant impact on the overall volume that is coming in to your center. Now, while this is true from an "on the floor" perspective there has actually been a study done on this and this "rule" is actually known as the Pareto principle (sometimes also called the "law of the vital few" or the "principle of factor sparcity"). While these names all sound really fancy - I think the 80/20 Rule is most descriptive of what it is.

The principle was actually suggested by business management thinking Joseph M. Juran who named it after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. Vilfredo observed that in 1906 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. Surprisingly for Vlfredo Pareto he observeed a similar distribution amongst other countries and as such developed this guideline.

More recently, this was seen in a 1992 UN Report that showed that 20% of the world's population actually controlled 82.7% of the world's income!

Microsoft also noted that by fixing the top 20% of the most reported bugs, 80% of the errors and crashes would be eliminated.

The Pareto principle was a prominent part of the 2007 bestseller The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss which I have mentioned in a previous post. As Tim Ferriss recommended, by focusing your attention on those (20%) factors that have the greatest impact to your income (80%) you will obtain and receive a greater "bang for your buck!"

So as you can see, some significant analysis has gone into determining whether or not this "rule of thumb" actually applies and while its not always 80% on the dot, it is close enough for you to use in determining what you should be looking at from a managment perspective.

You can really think about the 80/20 rule from two different directions.

What are the negative impacts that you need to address. As I've mentioned earlier, 20% of your issues are probably causing close to 80% of your interactions with your customers.
20% of your customers are also probably spending the most (80%) with you! 20% of your employess also probably the most (80%) productive!

Dealing with the first option is reasonably easy - hopefully you can categorize your interactions with your clients utilzing any half way decent CRM system (see this link for a good one if you've not got anything in place). Once you know why you are being contacted, sort it out to see how many of each type (you should be doing this anyways!) and start with the top 20 types of problems.

Are there any of them that you can address by providing better documentation to your customer so that they do not need to contact you in the first place?
Is there something that you can and should do to fix your product so that they do not need to contact you?
How about updating your FAQs and other setup information? These are all simple and easy fixes and by doing them you'll make an immense impact on your bottom line.

Measuring & Dealing with the second should be even easier ... if you do not know who you top 20 biggest customers are ... SHAME ON YOU! ... they are your bread and butter and you should ensure that you are on extremely good terms with them. The same applies for your staff themselves. Reward your high performers with raises/bonuses and other perks. These are the people that keep the ball rolling and I've mentioned previously the impact of losing highly trained staff have on a business.

Best of luck using the 80/20 rule in your business ... its a good one - keep it close to heart!

Reading Material III

2010-02-23T18:10:00.000-08:00

48 Days to the Work you Love

While the title might indicate that this is a guide to finding a new job, that's actually not what this book is about! This book is actually more of a process to help you find out who you can be. Once you've learnt this about yourself and made this discovery then you can actually understand why you are in a job you hate!

Dan Miller will help you see clear patterns which will help you in making your future job and career decisions and along the way, help you find the work that you really do love! The book does a good job of giving you purpose for finding work that has both passion and meaning.

Starting off Dan Miller covers whether or not work and play can co-exist and why doing both is not a bad thing to actually enjoy your work (i.e. not just to pay the bills and "work to live NOT live to work"). Then he covers the fact that the current work environment is not that of our parents or grand-parents universe - the fact that most employees change jobs every 3-4 years with (hopefully) a significant pay increase by undertaking this move! We are currently in a shift from a production based job market to a knowledge based market with a concurrent increase in the speed of technological change.

As Miller explains, "everyone lives on the edge of job obsolescence and the threshold of career opportunity" and he provides some very interesting statistics to the current job market.

Fewer than 1% of job seekers find work by responding to an internet ad
During an interview, your answer to any question should be no longer than 60 seconds
The best times to have an interview are Tues-Thurs between 8-10am
2,322 of 2,756 managers rank enthusiasm as #1 in what they want in applicants
Today people are paid for their productivity, not their time, not their seniority
IQ contributes only about 20% to the factors that predict success
69% of businesses today cost less than $10,000 to start; and 24% cost $0
The most successful people got there not by being in the most lucrative industry, but by doing work they loved

Dan Miller goes on to describe that to truly achieve success you must create goals. Write these down (including short and long term goals) and then break each goal down into it component parts to determine what you need to do to achieve each one. These goals should NOT just be career based, but should also cover your personal life. The seven areas of life he recommends to make goals in are:

Finances
Physical
Personal Development
Family
Spiritual
Social
Career

Finally there is some really good templates and reading material with regards to resumes and interviewing as well as how to best conduct your job search. The job seeking advice is not just a “How to Interview” or “How to get your resume noticed” but rather goes into defining what work is and how to face this current job market that is constantly changing.

Doctor Who - The End of Time

As always, I try to emphasize reading (or in this case watching) something unrelated to work. Its important to relax and let your mind wind down and for the fans of SciFi and Fantasy, Doctor Who is a "classic" of the oldest school and the re imaging of the show by Russel T. Davies has definitely brought it into the 20th century in a big way.

This is the last episode (in 2 parts) with the 10th Doctor (David Tennant) and it is a moving finale to the character he has made his own. With some significant changes in store for "The Doctor" iin the coming season, this episode is essential viewing for any true SciFi buff.

You may find these related posts of interest:

Reading Material II

Reading Material

How do you measure First Call Resolution?

2010-02-19T17:24:00.000-08:00

What is First Call Resolution?

Probably the first question to answer is “What is FCR?” – In its simplest form it is a measurement used by most technical call centres to determine how often a customer’s call is resolved at the first interaction.

Measuring FCR

Now while this statement is fairly easy to make ... measuring it gets a bit difficult as you can well imagine. Measuring this correctly depends on how you are tracking customer issues – if you are able to correlate the customers to their issues you should be able to pull reports that inform you if/when a customer issue is re-opened and that metric would apply as a negative value. If you do not have such a tool available or in house, measurement gets significantly more difficult.

In addition, you must account for time of reports and the potential of customers re-opening closed issues incorrectly.

As I’ve mentioned, you need to determine an appropriate time frame as customers will often utilize the same (fixed) issue when reporting a new issue regardless of if the issue has re-occurred or not. In addition, you should track if a customer does not verify/dispute a fix in a specific time frame. As a starting point, you should aim for 5-10 days as your target time frame. Any reports after this period in time would count as a new issue.

If you are unable to correlate customer reports by a CRM system (see this good review on JIRA), you might be able to pull information from your phone system or ACD/IVR system although this does get a little bit more difficult and complicated. Another option of course is via email addresses.

Customer Surveys

Now in addition to measuring from a customer report perspective, you can also utilize Customer Survey’s to determine what the FCR is. However, this is a very “subjective” measurement as it is very dependent on the customers mindset and viewpoint and might be unrelated to the question being asked.

What is it good for?

Is FCR a useful metric? By itself it probably isn’t. FCR is dependent on historical data and trending. The goal at all times should be to improve the FCR that you are providing to your customer as that ensures they are getting a speedy and useful resolution to all of their issues at their first call. So if you initial measurement of FCR is 80% (i.e. 80% of issues resolved at the first call) your goal should be to aim for 85% in a reasonable time frame, and so on as time progresses.

In addition to the goal of improving the FCR %’age, you also need to determine and this is where your reports come in useful – why are your customers calling? More than likely you will find that the 80/20 rule applies here – i.e. 80% of your contacts are due to 20 issues. If you can focus on those 20 issues, you will drive down your overall quantity of issues quite significantly.

Play to your strengths! - The Question of Outsourcing Part III

2010-02-15T13:34:00.000-08:00

Continuing my posts on Help desk Outsourcing - discussing some key decisions regarding whether or not to outsource your help desk.

Play to your strengths! - The Question of Outsourcing

Play to your strengths! - The Question of Outsourcing Part II

Location & Scale - Despite the urge to keep your outsourced staff in-house (where you can keep your eyes on them and make sure that they're doing a good job!) its actually better to have them in another facility. If you choose a vendor that is supplying multiple other businesses this is obviously self evident, but even for a smaller operation, by keeping your supplier "in house" you mitigate any potential cost savings that you could see. By choosing to have your calls with a larger organization, you are also able to take advantage of "scale". As these companies have to keep staff for other clients anyways, you will be able to utilize these resources when your business is busy and when other businesses aren't. Working with larger organizations in this fashion ensures allows you to provide your customers with around the clock coverage at a fraction of the price you would have to pay if you did it yourself. Taking the outsourcing model to its logical conclusion implies Overseas outsourcing. There are obvious cost savings to be had by utilizing resources in another country at an advantageous rate of change to yourself, however these savings must be weighed up against the infrastructure costs required to setup a center in this region (not relevant if you are approaching an established company), the training required for staff without the necessary local knowledge required for your customers and the potential negative backlash from your customers.
Access & Tools - If you are going to do this right, the company that you are outsourcing to must have the same level of access to your systems and resources that an in-house department would have. Putting aside the obvious legal ramifications based on sharing sensitive customer information with an outside group, without this level of access, this team just will not be able to deliver the solution that you are looking for. NDAs and Disclaimers must be in place to protect your client's information, but whether you enable the outsourcer to have access to your network through a VPN or otherwise it is absolutely mandatory that this level of access is granted. The worst thing from a customers point of view is speaking to an "order taker" vs. a qualified help desk analyst that can resolve their problem.
Training - Talking about qualified ... train the outsourcer to the same level that you would an internal employee. If you have an existing helpdesk, use staff from that team to assist in your training. At the very least you must ensure that you cover off the following:

Top 20 Customer Questions and appropriate Solutions
Finding Customer Information
Logging and Reporting Customer Information
Escalations & Escalation Matrixes
Basic Troubleshooting methodologies
Product Knowledge (specific to your company)
Products and Services (specific to your company)
Types of Customers
Technical Training (specific to your service): you can (& should) specify that staff supporting your product are trained to a specific standard or certification.

Reporting & Oversight - Now one important thing is you cannot forget about the outsourcer once you've established a relationship with them. Monthly (at a minimum ... in the beginning you probably want to have weekly) meetings are required to ensure that they are meeting your SLAs and reporting appropriately to you. What reports and KPIs are you monitoring to ensure that customer service is not being missed? Make sure that you document fully what you are expecting to receive from the Outsourcer and that you receive it at the agreed upon intervals. However, you cannot take the information that they provide to you at "face value". You are going to still have to conduct some sort of internal audit to ensure that they are actually providing you with relevant and accurate information - a good way of doing this is selecting a random sampling of the clients they have stated to have worked on and performing a c ustomer satisfaction survey on them. You will then be able to determine if the customer was satisfied with the wait time, the level of knowledge of the helpdesk representative and other factors!

Outsourcing the helpdesk can offer signficant cost savings and enable companies to deliver a high level of service to their clients. With the right vendor, you could see some significant cost savings from outsourcing as your outsourced service department enables you to better focus on your core competencies. Done wrong however, and you could lose your customers or face significant backlash as well as a loss of faith in your products and services as a whole. Its a fine line to balance and I hope that this series of posts has given you some things to consider that might be of use in your decision.

The Importance of Training (Part II) - Management Skills

2010-02-13T21:28:00.000-08:00

How important is it to ensure that your skills are up to date? Assuming that you received your certification or degree several years ago, has the technology you are supporting changed? Are the teams you are managing still using the same tools and resources they used to in the past?

The one thing that is constant in this world of ours is that change is inevitable and universal. This very much means that what you knew last week and last year is now obsolete. Just as it is important to ensure that your team is appropriately trained to support your customers and products, it is also essential that you are trained on the latest and greatest.

The Importance of Training

Think about it like this - in school a syllabus would change from year to year. Regardless of the subject being taught, neearch and knowledge constantly advanced and grew and what the next batch of students were taught differed in a lesser or greater degree. Now, it was fine in school as you were with your peers and everyone was being tested against the same standard - however in the real world, this just doesn't work. Your peers are also your competition and whether they are inside your company or part of another company it is crucial that you maintain a current and relevant base of knowledge with regards to your companies products and services and how to best support them. There is a constant need to get yourself trained and to upgrade your skills irrespective of your position in the company.

What most employees tend to forget is that while Senior Management are key instruments in providing direction and support to the entire company, they have not forgotten the importance of ongoing training and learning and this lesson needs to be realized at the middle Management level also. The transition from an average Manager to a top tier Manager is gradual, but knowing the latest trends and information definitely play a factor in this. This is obviously NOT just a matter of being able to spout the latest and greatest "buzz word" that is currently in vogue. The only way to truly advance is to actually understand what you are talking about and to believe in its value and potential. Being ISO certified is easy - understanding that ISO is NOT just paper-pushing which is the common misconception is something else altogether.

Someone just starting out on the Management track however needs to focus on soft skills. Things like Team Work, Leadership, Dealing with Change, Time Management are all crucial skills that are useful for the young Manager and also show a demonstrable return for the company. Once this base is in place additional training which is focused on industry and technology trends should be looked at and into with the focus being on advancing the Manager and department that he is responsible for.

As you gradually work your way up the ladder, this training becomes more theoretical in basis, however it will have an increased value to the organization as the scope of your responsibilities continue to increase.

A Manager at any level is well advised to keep abreast of the latest trends and information affecting his industry through the use of technical journals, trade publications, networking and even the Internet as a whole. By speaking to customers and other managers in the industry further training and planning can be determined and while Managers today have less time then yesterday, the training if structured correctly can be useful and relevant and should be able to show an immediate impact to the organization.

It is key to remember to that training cannot be a single event and should be considered a constant - just like change - as that is the only way to stay in the running.

Play to your strengths! - The Question of Outsourcing Part II

2010-02-11T16:28:00.000-08:00

Continuing my posts on Helpdesk Outsourcing.

Play to your strengths! - The Question of Outsourcing Part I

Helpdesk and Customer Service positions while generally entry level should still be staffed with people that have ambition and can grow to other roles within your company. If you are not hiring for this type of person, you are not getting the right person you need. In addition, in some environments, the helpdesk itself is very stressful leading to significant churn and retention problems. In addition to the staff themselves, you generally need to have a supervisor and manager to ensure that they are performing to standards and that you have the resources in place to cover sick days, vacations and other gaps in the schedule. Finally you want to think about growth ... as your business grows, will the size of your helpdesk? How many extra resources will you need for 10 customers, how about 100 or 1000? What is your projection with regards to your growth prospects? Are you going to staff your team before you get the sales (costly but allows you to ensure that they are trained properly) or after the sales come in (financially in the short term you're saving money, but are you providing all of your existing customers with the appropriate level of service? what are your new customers going to think about not being able to get through to your call center because of long hold times?).

With all of the above mentioned (the details in my last post), the cost of a "good" help desk is not inconsiderable and you never just want to offer your customers "good" service ... you should be aiming for "great" service at all times!!!

So with everything I have said - I completely understand the justification and reasoning for those companies that have decided this is NOT their skill set and they'd rather focus on making their customers happy with and through their product and not by offering superlative service only when it is broken. However, if you are still on the fence and are trying to decide whether or not to outsource, there are a couple of things you should consider.

Please see my further posts for additional information on this topic.

Play to your strengths! - The Question of Outsourcing

2010-02-09T19:37:00.000-08:00

To Oursource or not to outsource ... while not exactly a question that plagued William Shakespeare (hence the lack of any really good quality plays about it!), is a very valid question for the small and medium size business!

While my natural inclination is generally to urge businesses to support and service their customers directly - after all the only one who can really tell you what you are doing wrong and right are the people paying for your service - there are sometimes very valid reasons to outsource your helpdesk and support operations.

As you helpdesk is your primary and first point of contact with customers, they are the people that your customers will most likely work with whenever they are having a problem. The question to ask yourself though - especially if you are a smaller business - is ... is this the business you are a specialist in? If your skills are in manufacturing or cooking, perhaps picking up a phone and troubleshooting a customers service issue is really not your forte!

You must remember, that to the customer calling in, the person on the other end of the line IS your company. If your support staff are not well trained with the appropriate tools and resources available to them, then they are not going to be able to provide the answer that your customer is looking for. If they are not knowledgeable and helpful, chances are good that your customers is going to feel the same way about your business too!

Now I think its self evident that many companies just don't have the resources for a high-quality help desk. As companies focus on efficiencies and turnover the mandate for these businesses is generally getting through as many calls or emails as possible in the shortest amount of time. While being responsive is an admirable goal, you NEVER want your staff rushing to get the customers off the line without providing the correct answer - this is a slippery slope and will only lead to unhappy customers and as I've been mentioned before you'll lose more business in the long run with unhappy customers than you can afford to. When companies do not provide the help desk team with the appropriate resources, training or tools you have a recipe for failure.

Please see my further posts for additional information on this topic.

Play to your strengths! - The Question of Outsourcing Part II

Managing Technical Teams

2010-01-29T13:56:00.000-08:00

Managing technical staff is becoming more of a challenge daily. Even more so, when your staff are MORE technical than you are - which to some extent is expected ... you are a manager and responsible for multiple area's of the company, they are specialists and able to focus on their area to the exclusion of everything else.

In most cases technical staff are those who prefer to perform their work with little or no supervision and they often view Managment "oversight" as a hinderance to their - getting the job done. They also quite often forget that at the other end of the phone line, there is a customer (or customers) that has been impacted and regardless of the fact that they "think" they can resolve the problem, there are timelines and SLAs in place to ensure that issues get escalated. Now, while "techs" are members of the team that managers depend upon heavily to resolve the problem, it is the managers responsibility to understand the "big picture" and also the challenges faced by these key members at a non-technical level.

The manager is responsible for balancing the needs of the company against the needs of these key resources and obviously directing technical staff can be a challenge. It is made even more of one, by those managers that are unable to step back and release control. The understanding between a manager and his team must be such that trust exists at either level. You trust them to get the job done in a timely manner and escalate those problems that they are unable to handle & they trust you to keep their best interests in mind, work with them to get more training (which is something a "true" techie will never have enough of), ensure that they have the resources and training to resolve the problems that you are assigning to them and in those instances where its necessary ... pull them back and away from a problem so that they do not get defeated. This mutual respect MUST be in place if the team and organization is expected to be effective.

The manager of a technically oriented department MUST have a reasonable grasp of the technologies and issues that his staff will face. They should be able to understand it at a "high" level, but it is OK to let your staff know that they are smarter than you! Remember they are skilled in their unique discipline and while you could not do their job, they are not managers and could not do your job either. It is far more important for the manager to be able to direct the staff to the right resources, tools or training when working issues. If the employee cannot perform the task with his current level of knowledge, it is incumbent on the manager and the company to ensure that appropriate and relevant training is available in a timely (& frequent) manner. Technical skills "rust" when not used and with the plethora of new technologies constantly being developed and launched it is very difficult to always be current with the newest while maintaining a grip on legacy tools/applications and knowledge.

Managers are constantly expected to do more, with less resources, regardless of the economy (think about it - in good times, the number of customers you have are increasing whereas your resources won't (at least not at a comparative rate) as the company is in business to make a profit ... in bad time, you lose staff and have to service what customers you have left with fewer and fewer resources) and unfortunately is probably one of the few constants in our world! Now, not only do you always have to do more with less, but you need to also ensure that the staff you have you KEEP! The cost of hiring/training and integrating new staff and making them useful is a topic for another day, but suffice it to say, if you have a "good 'un", you want to keep him! Its a fine line between customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction and its a tightrope you'll be walking every day. I generally tend to err on the side of employee satisfaction - if you have good staff, doing a good job who are happy doing that job ... customer satisfaction just comes naturally!

The Importance of Training

2010-01-27T21:25:00.000-08:00

How do you treat your new starters? Do they get thrown in at the deep end - after all, they were hired for the skills you need, they should be able to just "pick it up" - right?? How did that go for you? Were they your high performers? No, starting to wonder why?

Hard to believe as it might be, companies did this! They left their new staff alone to "find their feet" and pick things up on their own. However, fortunately most companies now provide some sort of introductory training or orientation for most of their new employees. The better companies have a dedicated training department that helps to integrate all new employees and following this some sort of mentoring from another more senior employee in a similar role or position.

Now, the initial training - if done correctly - is actually a staged approach. Generally HR would be responsible for showing the employee around the company, giving a little bit of detail with regards to the kitchen and all the details about time off etc... The training team or department would cover off the products and services that the new employee would be responsible for selling/servicing or supporting - in reality this should be a 2-3 week process at a minimum ... think about it like this, unless your company is brand new, the complexities of your product or service are something that has grown over time. Ensuring that your employee is able to answer questions about it properly using the correct tools is not something that can be picked up in a day. If you are offering a proper training program - spend the time and do it right. This should be followed by "on the job" training and again ... spend the time to do it right. One additional point?

Do not restrict this to your staff at entry level positions. Ensure that staff in management positions also receive the same or similar training. This is beneficial for a couple of reasons - (a) it ensures you have a extra staff - your management team- available to "jump in" in case of emergency; (b) it gives your management team an insight into the work your staff do on a daily basis and as such a better understanding of your staff and their challenges and (c) your management team NEEDS to know how to use your tools!!! I cannot emphasize this enough - you do not need managers able to program routers, but you do need those managers to understand some of the alerts that your monitoring system provides to you. This team determines what issues get escalated and to whom and as such they need to have the appropriate tools available to them to make that right decision.

Now so far I have only been speaking about training new staff. The technology in the workplace is changing very rapidly and companies that can't keep up will drop out of competition. It is definitely worth stating that you must ensure current and up to date internal and external training is available to your existing staff. I will cover that in more detail in some later posts though.

Is Training Worth it?

Surveys have determined that approximately 60% of companies are planning on offering some level of training to existing staff. Some of the reasons provided are the introduction of new technology into the work environment requiring staff retraining, improving employee performance and employee retentionin. The current $ value assigned to these initiatives? About $2000/employee of which the largest portion was spent on technology and process related training initiatives. A paltry 2-3% was spent on New Employee orientation.

Now, I am not trying to dismiss the amount spent - even at $2000/employee it is still a significant cost and in industries with high employee churn - a major expense!

Flip it on its Head

Think about it another way though ...

Its not a cost if you take into account the amount of time its taken you to find that employee in the first place.
Its not a cost if you take into account the inherent knowledge that senior employee has obtained while working for your company.
Its not a cost if you can get these new (& old) employees being your advocate OUTSIDE of the workplace.
Its not a cost if you want to provide valued and useful and timely service to your customers!!!

Although mentioned last think about the last point I've said. Which type of employee is going to be able to provide better service to your customer? One that doesn't understand your company, its culture, products and services or one that does? In the end that is really THE MOST IMPORTANT thing to consider. The only reason you are in business is the customers that you have and the best way to keep them is by ensuring that you provide an unparalleled level of service to them.

Make sure that training becomes part and parcel of your company and its culture. You want to get the right people in the door and integrate them into your teams as quickly and seamlessly as possible. You also want to keep the people you have and ensure that you recognize that the training and development knowledge, attitude and skills of the employees you have are fundamental to your companies efficient and profitable performance. Training should be so much a part of your culture that it is considered a benefit at the interview stage - you would be surprised at the number of people clamouring for this and the quality of these people!

In the News - Haiti Earthquake

2010-01-20T14:26:00.000-08:00

Firstly apologies that this post has nothing to do with Customer Service, Helpdesks or Operations. Sometimes there is a need to pay attention to what is really important in the world and right now that is the situation in Haiti. Now for those of my readers out there who think that this post is off topic - I am very sorry ... when I say "really important" its key to remember the reason we do what we do. Its for our families and to enjoy them. Work should be a means to an end and not the end in itself.

With thousands of people feared dead or lost, this is unfortunately not the best way for a New Year to start and it brings back echoes of the Tsunami from 2004/05. In that event, over 200,000 people were killed in Asia and the Far East. One can only hope that the Haitian earthquake does not have a similar death toll.

Its scary how quickly tragedies of this nature can occur, with little or no warning, and considering how advanced we are as a species and people its even more of a pity that some sort of early warning system has not yet been developed. For a race that has reached the moon, we really need to think about how all of our eggs are in one basket right now and that we need to grow up and grow up fast if we're planning on making it in the long run.

It is however encouraging that regardless of a worldwide financial meltdown and crisis people, ordinary people are still willing to help and going out of their way to provide their services to complete strangers. People they've never met before and if this hadn't happened never would have met! Its astounding how often ordinary people can make a difference - they just need to know the power that they have. There might actually be some hope for us - after all.

Work Ethic and Today

2010-01-20T07:16:00.000-08:00

A famous quote from Thomas Edison reads -

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Thomas Edison

Now how often have you been the one to procrastinate or put something off till later? How often have you not studied for that big test or perhaps not got onto that train because the weather was a little bit bad or you felt a little bit under the weather?

The unfortunate truth is that with the prevalence of modern conveniences that we now have available to us, people have gotten lazy. It is easy to forget that a requirement for success is dedication and hard work. This doesn't mean that you stop using the tools available to you ... what it does mean though is that you need to learn how to use them correctly.

Work smarter - not harder ... use your email client to track issues that you need to stay on top off - most clients have a "flag" option and any good email client will actually thread conversations together so that you do not need to read every individual message. Use tasks and task management ... if your email client doesn't support this, use one of the free ones on the net - a great one that I use that is extremely customizable is called "Remember The Milk". Make sure that you have access to all the people and resources you need to instantly by keeping your address book synchronized through tools like Plaxo. If you have a PDA (Blackberry, Palm or equivalent smart phone) make sure that your email client is integrated appropriately so that you can take it with you.

Remember however that you need to "clock off"!! Do NOT work to the exclusion of your family. You need to remember that the only reason you are there is to support your family and it should NEVER be the other way around.

Use appropriate and useful project management tools - if you do not have access to Microsoft Project there are several free alternative Project Management sites that you can get access to - check out Zoho Doc for a good option.

Think about MindMapping software - Freemind is great application if you can download and use it on your desktop. However, if your IT department has restricted your access you can use - bubbl.us - this is a free and fairly easy to use application.

The Job Search

2010-01-16T02:32:00.000-08:00

OK, unfortunately its that time of year again and you need to get your name out there and start looking for another job. Now, this might be for any of a variety of reasons and we're really not going to worry about that here. What we are going to discuss however is some good tools that you can and should be using to ensure that you are promoting yourself correctly and that you are looking in the right places for your new role.

First Question - what do you do now and are you happy?

Sorry I know it seems a little bit redundant, but you need to ask this one as so many people just go from job to job without doing what they enjoy. Considering you are spending 8+ hours a day there and over 40 hours a week - it really makes sense for you to seriously think this one through.

If you are not happy with your current career - perhaps it is time for a change? Think about schooling options and time away from the workforce in relation to your bills. Assuming that you can afford to do it, get the relevant training you need so that you can progress forward in your new chosen career. Remember for a lot of us, our job is just something we "fell into" after school - more often than not, it has no relation to what you studied, so this is your chance to do it right from an adult point of view!

One thing you should obviously consider is that whatever new career you start, you will be starting at the bottom. Just keep it in mind and don't expect to immediately be at the same level you were previously.

Hows your CV/Resume?

Make sure you have a professional looking version of your CV available. There are many free templates available on the Microsoft Website itself that are a good starting point if you have not built anything at all yet. Here are some links to some good ones - but check the site itself for even more:

Now if you recall in a previous post, I mentioned the fact that when first creating your resume do not worry about page length. The most important thing is content and information. You want to think about having a "master" version of your CV that you can tailor specifically for the job that you are applying for. So your master version could be 10 pages in length, but the tailored version once you've gotten rid of the jobs/roles that are not relevant and shrunk down the wording and font, would be 2 (or 3) pages.

Advertise yourself -

OK, so assuming you're happy with your chosen career and you have an appropriately formatted CV to show the world, you need to get your name out there. There are probably three main ways to do this and to be honest they are all somewhat interrelated.

Job Search, Hiring & Firing

Networking

Even though job search networking is one of the most successful ways to find a new job, it can sound intimidating and sometimes seems a little bit scary. It doesn't have to be. At least 60% - some report even higher statistics - of all jobs are found by networking.

The thing you have to keep uppermost in your mind is that your Job Search IS a job!! You need to treat it as such and ensure that you assign some time to doing it right.

Develop contacts - friends, family, neighbors, college alumni, people in associations - anyone who might help generate information and job leads - although you are not selling a product, you are selling yourself and that's how you should think about it.. Contact everyone you know. You may be surprised by the people they know. Make yourself pick up the phone and call. Networking isn't a process of making cold-calls to people you don't know. It's talking to people you do know or asking them to introduce you to others.

Email is a perfectly acceptable way to network as well. Keep your message brief and to the point and be sure to check your spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

Formal networking works too - try going to a business social or an association meeting or event. You'll find that many of the participants have the same goals you do and will be glad to exchange business cards.

Finding a Job Through Networking

Job Board

Now there are lots of different Job Boards that you can find and use. One of the most popular ones of course if Monster. In addition to Monster you will find many that are specific to your country or region and I will try to cover most of the bigger ones for the US/UK and Canada over the coming months and years. However another International tool that is definitely worth looking into - especially as it ties into the Networking topic mentioned above is called LinkedIn.

This site is different as it is very similar to social networking sites like Facebook and others, but it is professional in nature. Your work friends and colleagues will be your networking contacts here and these are also the same people that through their own network will assist in getting you a new job.

The main reason that companies are using LinkedIn is to find passive job candidates. Another reason why companies are using LinkedIn, is because referrals from their employees are highly valued because they typically have a higher success rate (hence the popular "employee referral bonuses"). LinkedIn helps companies leverage the networks of their employees.

It's also important to note that LinkedIn has reached a point where it's almost unprofessional not to be on LinkedIn. There are members from all 500 of the Fortune 500 companies. LinkedIn members comprise 130 different industries, and include 130,000 recruiters.

Recruiters

Your third option in your Job Search is Recruitment firms ... now, don't think of this as your last option as they should not be ... they are simply another arrow in your quiver and should be used in conjunction with the other two methods already mentioned.

Try to ensure that you target recruitment firms in your chosen sector vs. general recruiters as the specialists are most likely to have an opening in an area that you are interested in. I'll try to cover some of the better/bigger ones in the next little while, however finding a recruitment firm is probably best done through Google and other search engines.

Found on the Net

2010-01-12T08:39:00.000-08:00

Things that make you go hmmm.

Would really suggest you spend some time and read the little story below. I doubt that its true, however there are definitely elements of it that you should consider for your own life.

********

An unemployed man goes to apply for a job with Microsoft as a janitor.

The manager there arranges for him to take an aptitude test (sweeping floors and cleaning).

After the test, the manager says, "You will be employed at minimum wage, $5.15 an hour. Let me have your e-mail address, so that I can send you a form to complete and tell you where to report for work on your first day."

Taken aback, the man protests that he has neither a computer nor an e-mail address.

To this the MS manager replies, "Well, then, that means that you virtually don't exist and can therefore hardly expect to be employed. Stunned, the man leaves.

Not knowing where to turn and having only $10 in his wallet, he decides to buy a 25lb flat of tomatoes at the supermarket. Within less than 2 hours, he sells all the tomatoes individually at 100% profit.

Repeating the process several times more that day, he ends up with almost $100 before going to sleep that night. And thus it dawns on him that he could quite easily make a living selling tomatoes.

Getting up early every day and going to bed late, he multiplies his profits quickly. After a short time he acquires a cart to transport several dozen boxes of tomatoes, only to have to trade it in again so that he can buy a pick-up truck to support his expanding business.

By the end of the second year, he is the owner of a fleet of trucks and manages a staff of a hundred former unemployed people, all selling tomatoes. Planning for the future of his wife and children, he decides to buy some life insurance.

Consulting with an insurance adviser, he picks an insurance plan to fit his new circumstances. At the end of the telephone conversation, the adviser asks him for his e-mail address in order to send the final documents electronically.

When the man replies that he has no e-mail, the adviser is stunned, "What, you don't have e-mail? How on earth have you managed to amass such wealth without the Internet, e-mail and e-commerce? Just imagine where you would be now, if you had been connected to the Internet from the very start!"

After a moment of thought, the tomato millionaire replied, "Why, of course! I would be a floor cleaner at Microsoft!"

Moral of this story:

The Internet, e-mail and e-commerce do not need to rule your life.
If you don't have e-mail, but work hard, you can still become a millionaire.
Seeing that you got this story via e-mail, you're probably closer to becoming a janitor than you are to becoming a millionaire. If you do have a computer and e-mail, you have already been taken to the cleaners by Microsoft!

Reading Material II

2010-01-11T03:52:00.000-08:00

Business Book - The 4 Hour Workweek

1. Cautions and Comparisons—How to Burn $1,000,000 a Night

Who are the New Rich? They are people who make their money (quite a lot of money) by doing the minimum amount necessary to obtain the maximum effect. They do not work for others—others work for them. Their concern for money is not so much to have a great deal of it, but to have enough to achieve their objectives—objectives that are clearly defined. A blind pursuit of money is not their goal. Being financially rich and having the ability to live like a millionaire are fundamentally two different things.

Creating choices is the objective of the New Rich. This book reveals how the New Rich create choices with the least effort and cost. It is very possible to make a lot of money and NOT work 50 to 70 hours a week for the next 20 years in order to make it.

Read the full review here.

You can buy the book by clicking the links below.

Fiction Book - Rally Cry (A Novel of the Lost Regiment)

The First novel in the Lost Regiment Series - Rally Cry is the first in a series of 9 books detailing the trials and tribulations of the 35th Maine - a fictitious regiment from the American Civil War. Traveling to the planet Valennia they encounter Humans from various historical times in Earth's past. In addition they also encounter the Horde - a race of (literally) man-eating 9 foot tall humanoids.

Click here or here for a full review and click below to buy the book.

What is the hardest thing about running a call center?

2010-01-07T01:03:00.000-08:00

http://hubpages.com/hub/MindMapping-Description-and-ToolsI was recently asked this question in one of the forums that I am active on and its actually a surprisingly difficult question to answer. Here's what I said to the Questionaire ... if you have a similar question, take a read through the points below but pay special attention to the extra info section.

***********

What is the hardest thing about running a call center?

Well I guess this answer varies depending on if you're running a Customer Service Call Center or if you're running a Help Desk/Support Call Center. However, in either case probably your first challenge would be determining the appropriate KPI's that need to be measured.

You need to know what services are important to your customers and ensure that your teams are in the right place with the right knowledge to provide those answers to your customers to minimize any service disruptions or service impacts.

Then you need to be hiring and sourcing the right candidates - local or external - to ensure that your customers are getting the information they need. Once you've found the bodies, you're going to be looking at initial and ongoing training.

Appropriate teams and methodologies need to be in place to ensure that information flow and tools are available to your front line staff so that customers get the appropriate answer as quickly as possible - things like FAQs and Knowledgebases are great, but they need to be kept up to date. You must also ensure that you have a robust and effective system to track customer interactions.

Given you quite a bit of building and running a call center ... your question though ... the hardest thing ... really depends on what step of the process you're in. If just starting out, then getting the right people is probably going to be your biggest challenge - as a hint, hire for Customer Service skills and experience vs. Technical ... its easy to train/teach technical skills but a lot harder to do the same for Customer Service.

If your service is already well established you probably want to look at your KPI's and metrics as well as training and tools to ensure that your customers are getting the best answer possible.

***********

Extra Information -

As you can see, as much as I would have liked to, I was unable to give a complete answer to this question as it is a bit too vague. I would have liked to have known the following for a starting point to get into more depth.

Service Provided
Size of Company/Team
Size of Customer Base
Customer Service Call Center or Technical Call Center
Volume of Contacts
Current Customer Satisfaction Level & KPI's in place
Current Knowledgebase
Current Toolset
Insourced or Outsourced Customer Service

You may find these related links of interest:

Mind Mapping

MindMapping - Description and Tools

Annual Performance Review / Performance Appraisal

2010-01-05T11:09:00.000-08:00

OK, the time has come for you to review your staff and this is the big one ... its tied to salary increases and bonuses and everything. People's lives are on the line so you better not screw it up and you've only got 'X' days to get 'Y' reviews done and ... ... ...

Sound familiar? OK, first thing ... take a deep breath. As long as you've done your job well throughout the year, this is not really that difficult (please note, I didn't say it was easy ... its still going to take lots of time and effort but its not insurmountable by any means).

Your company should have some sort of a review sheet that all staff are checked against. Hopefully they've given you a scale to determine where someone one sit on each of these metrics? Grab both these pieces of paper and lets look at your first employee ... lets call him "Matt Smith".

Now Matt has been with your company for over a year and over that time has generally performed at or above expectations in most of the criteria that you are measuring. He does have some area's for development and growth and you need to ensure that you capture those here. Assuming that your scoring sheet is split into something like the following - lets go through it in a bit more depth.

Goals & Productivity - now these are based on Internal reports and are very much number driven. Individual goals should have a direct correlation to the Company targets and it should be obvious to the person that your are reviewing how these interrelate. Goals would be based on your KPIs (I hope you remember what these are, if not see here) and would be very much number driven as mentioned previously. Things like number of emails answered, average speed of response, total talk time, first call resolution %'age etc... anything that is important to your company would be captured here.

Competencies & Work Habits - these are NOT based on number but are more subjective. Generally this is where your personal interactions with the employee come into play and the notes from your meetings and one-to-ones throughout the year. Competencies can quite often be linked back to individual Goals. You would also try to link training and development from the previous year into the appropriate Competency here. Some of the things you would be looking for here are Dependability, Working with Others, Intiative ... see what I mean? Definitely more subjective (although your could argue that Dependability is perhaps Schedule Adherence whereas I think it is significantly more).

Comments - these are also based on your notes from one-to-ones especially with regards to the Competencies, but you will also need to expand upon the simple numeric score that you have provided to the employee for their Goals in this section. Again speak about the Positive and Negative actions that the CSR/Employee has done throughout the year, any special projects they might have undertaken etc...

Training/Development - this is where you address any new training and development that you think the Employee would benefit from in the coming year. This should be done with the Employee when you are doing the actual review as it is a 2-way street. You want to make S.M.A.R.T Goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant & Time Oriented) and not just say the Employee needs to complete or obtain his MBA. I will cover SMART Goals in greater depth at a later stage for those of you unfamiliar with the concept. Now the thinking to keep in mind is that this part of the form - although probably the smallest might actually be the MOST IMPORTANT! Everything else that you've discussed is their past performance ... none of it can be changed. This section is where you influence their FUTURE performance. Where do you want them to be and what are you going to do help them get there? Remember this whole process is also a Performance Appraisal which is a part of guiding and managing career development.

Most organizations will place a greater "weight" on Productivity as that ties directly back to Employee performance and the bottom line. As such the score that you can in fact influence -Work Habits won't have as much weight.

OK, lets get back to Matt ... assuming your companies scale was something like 1-10 with 10 being the highest (best) and 1 the lowest (worst) lets also assume that your Productivity scores are worth 70% and your Work Habits are only worth 30%. Its gets a bit more complicated however, because inside your Productivity (and also perhaps your Work Habits) sections you are further driving it down into other categories that also have their own unique weighting!

Now the things we are measuring for Matt in each section, the weight and his score are as follows:

Productivity -

(20%) Quality - 7/10

(20%) Quantity of Phone Calls - 9/10

(30%) 1st Call Resolution - 7/10

(10%) Average Talk Time - 8/10

(20%) Quantity of Emails - 8/10

This actually gives Matt a Productivity score of 7.7

Work Habits -

Dependability - 9/10

Working with Others/Team Interactions - 8/10

Initiative - 2/10

Problem Analysis - 10/10

Just to give you some insight into Matt in case you are wondering about these scores, he is your "go to" guy for those difficult customer issues that come up but although he's a great Problem Solver he is extremely reactive and never thinks outside the box to come up with a new solution to a problem.

Matt's overall Work Habit Score is 7.25

To calculate Matt's total score we would use a weight of 70% on his Productivity score of 7.7 and a weight of 30% on his Work Habit score of 7.25. This gives us a combined score of 7.6

Matt's score was comparatively easy - remember I told you he would be ... however you have another employee Susan working for you ... lets take a look at her in the same way.

Productivity -

(20%) Quality - 10/10

(20%) Quantity of Phone Calls - 3/10

(30%) 1st Call Resolution - 8/10

(10%) Average Talk Time - 2/10

(20%) Quantity of Emails - 3/10

Susan spends a lot of time with individual customers and they love her for it, but unfortunately because of this, she actually has the lowest overall productivity of your team. Remember I talked about Bell Curves earlier? Susan is at an extreme.

Work Habits -

Dependability - 10/10

Working with Others/Team Interactions - 10/10

Initiative - 10/10

Problem Analysis - 10/10

Now I've given Susan the best possible scores here (which I probably wouldn't in reality) to show you the impact of the weighting on the overall score.

To calculate Susan's total score we would use a weight of 70% on her Productivity score of 5.8 and a weight of 30% on her Work Habit score of 10. This gives us a combined score of 7.0 ... notice that there is a significant difference here (and it would be ven more pronounced if we gave her realistic numbers in the Work Habist section) and the more things you are measuring the more each individual datum matters. The thing that you need to realize though is that the impact you can personally make is generally limited based on the companies goals and targets. While to some extent this is sad as it feels the best person to truly judge an employee is that person's manager, in another respect it is actually extremely valid. It removes the posibility of personal bias impacting the employee and it ensures that the employee is being measured under the same criteria as his (or her) peers. If your company has not given a different weight to the Productivity and Work Habits sections they really should and it is something YOU should suggest in your Performance Appraisal.

OK, hopefully that's taken away some of the fear and now you can go out and pull together all your copious employee notes and start typing away. The one thing I can't emphasize enough though is that you must take your time doing these. As I've mentioned throughout - these measurements are generally used to calculate any future compensation that this employee would be earning and you should be able to defend your score to not only the employee themself, but also queries from Senior Managmenet.

If you have not got copious notes ... don't fret ... this is not insurmountable either. Work with your employee, with other managers in the company that have dealt with him, with other staff ... try to build as complete a picture as you can. However ... make sure you take notes going forward ... these happen every year and it pays well to be prepared!! The end goal of this whole process should be to reward those high performers on your team and guide and direct the rest towards that same goal and target. In addition, once this process is complete, it pays to continually push the same message throughout the year to ensure that staff are aware and do not lose focus on what's really important.

What do you do when your Company is constantly having Outages?

2010-01-04T14:24:00.000-08:00

Its been a while for me, but there was a period of my life where I was working for a company that was in a constant state of Outage. They had a mix of services, and over the course of 2 years I was flown across the Country and around the World apologizing for the (lack) of services that my company provided. While I love travelling and accumulating Air Miles, this was not my ideal of a trip as you can imagine.

So what did I do right and wrong? Well I got very good at apologizing and grovelling and it helped me write my policy on dealing with Irate Customers. While not exactly ideal I definitely learned a lot from this experience and I definitely made a positive impact to my companies bottom line. How? Well, simply put, the Customers stayed! As you can well imagine, when a business and its service is being impacted by a 3rd party the natural inclination of anyone is to pull the service and move to another vendor. When SLAs are constantly being missed and month on month, services are not improving this is even more likely.

Now - its easy to say that I "saved" the customers ... but how?

Communication. Its easier to say than to do - especially when you don't have any news or even worse when you have bad news (you expected it to be fixed in 1 day and its going to take 1 week!). As I mentioned earlier, I quickly became skilled at speaking to Customer's face-to-face which happened with quite a few of our Tier1 customers. I also became skilled at sending out mass emails, posts on message boards and forums and phone calls. Setting a timeline for an update by any/all of these methods and then ensuring that I met that criteria was key.

Now communication is actually a two way thing. Speaking to the Customers is great, but what if you don't have anything to tell them? Support and Helpdesk teams and Management are frequently on the "short end" of the stick without any updates from Engineering and Programming teams. More often than not, these internal teams have no concept of the impact that the service interruption are causing to the customers. Its your job to persuade them that the Customers MATTER and the reason you & they are in a Job - working for your company is the money that your Customers are paying!! They will take their business away eventually if you don't tell them what is going on.

OK, assuming that you're talking to your Customers and your other internal teams are talking to you ... what's next? Well you need to ensure that your company is actually doing something to fix the problem!! The company that I mentioned with constant outages? Well they were all with different services ... each time one thing was fixed another in a different product was impacted. From my point of view it was 2 years of hell, but no one single customer was impacted for that total amount of time. How do you fix this though, because it is extremely draining on your staff regardless ... well, Quality Control is useful. Make sure that any new product launches are properly tested and tested and tested again before being released into a live environment. Try to get your staff to break it if possible while its in the testing phase. Make sure your documentation, release notes and training material are complete and accurate. Ensure that Senior Management get involved at the appropriate intervals based on your Escalation Matrix so that they are aware of the impact to the Customers ... DO NOT be afraid of escalating. If you are ON CALL 24/7 so are they! Money will be released when the phone rings at 2am!

Active Listening

2009-12-17T14:21:00.001-08:00

I recently took some training on Interview techniques and Active Listening. It was an eye opener to say the least!!

The difference it makes when someone is really listening and paying attention vs that same person doing something else while you are speaking makes an amazing difference to the speaker. Much more than I thought - if you don't believe me try this little exercise with someone yourself.

Write down two different topics. The first one should be one that you are passionate about and could speak about for hours if given the chance. For the second topic, choose something that you really don't care about and/or have no interest in.
Get a little timer (60seconds should do) and have someone sit close to you.
You are first going to speak about the topic that interests you ... however the person you are speaking to should not be paying attention to you ... they can doodle on a piece of paper, answer their phone, check emails and speak to someone else. See how long you last and can keep on speaking about your chosen topic before you completely lose your train of thought and start to wander yourself ... I doubt you'll make it to the 60second mark if the other person is ignoring you properly!
Now choose the topic that doesn't interest you. The person you are speaking to should actively listen however ... they will be questioning you and showing a keen interest in what you are saying. I bet that you'll find you have a lot more to say about this second topic than you thought you did and that it will be a lot more enjoyable!

This is a small example of the power that another person has. Remember it when you are interviewing other people, when you are giving your staff an appraisal or doing a 1-1 with them. You need to be paying full attention and not letting distractions get in your way as you will be doing yourself and the person you are speaking to a severe disservice.

Money and Your Team

2009-12-10T06:16:00.000-08:00

As much as you'd like your team to work for free and to have the highest quality staff at the lowest possible prices ... it will never happen. You might tell yourself that you're doing what you're doing because you love the job and the company that you work for and that your staff and employees should feel the same - but - lets be honest ... you and your team are doing it for the money. You probably have a family that you are looking after, and if not, you're doing this because you have your own personal interests that you wish to pursue.

Now with that being said ... the one fact of life that we can never get away from is tax. Unless you live in a part of the world that provides tax free income, you are just like the rest of us giving away 30% - 50% (or even more!) of everything you earn to the Government.

Remember the famous phrase from Benjamin Franklin in his letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy, 1789, which was re-printed in The Works of Benjamin Franklin, 1817:

"'In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

Despite the frustration you might feel about this, there really isn't too much you can do to resolve this situation. All you can do is hope to cotinually grow your gross income so that the tiny amount you get to pay all your bills with at the end of the month increases by another small fraction.

Well guess what ... the British Government has now introduced a new tax on phone lines. This tax is designed to fund the expansion of broadband services across the country and improve the overall infrastructure of next generation services. At first glance this small extra tax (at £6/year - approx US$10 per year) does not seem like such a big deal and makes sense as you need a phone line to have Internet services - right????

Actually WRONG!!! The stupid thing that has obviously not been considered and thought through properly is the fact that a large proportion of current Broadband Internet AND Telephone users in Britain utilize a Cable service ... so in essence the people using the greatest amount of service and access are the ones that WON'T have to pay for it!! In addition, there are millions of Britain's that don't even have a computer yet and they will still have to pay for this tax also!

Now, there is obviously not too much you can do to change the overall taxation system of the country that you work with/in (although it is definitely true that even a small voice speaking loudly and with conviction makes a difference) ... you can however ensure that the way your staff are treated and compensated is in their best interests and works to their favor. Make sure that if they work out of hours they get paid for it. If they do extra work for the company they get the appropriate compensation and if they are entitled to a holiday - they take it! You need to look out for your team and if you do it right and do it regularly they will look out for you too!

When does Customer Service End?

2009-10-10T13:16:00.000-07:00

Have you ever noticed that the small entrepreneur will go that extra mile, while the big businesses don't bother? I guess the easiest explanation for this is that these smaller business people are actually closer to their customers and are able realize the importance and value of customer service in driving back repeat business. A good read I found that demonstrates this is here.

The question is though ... why don't the big boys?

The easy answer is that they are too far removed, but that is not really getting to the heart of the issue ... more and more often you see businesses and senior staff that think they are where they are forever and that nothing is going to change. However the one good thing that came out of this recent recession is the realization that this is just not the case. If you don't care for your customers and have a good business model to boot ... you won't be in business for long! I know that's a bit harsh and a lot of innocent people suffered but maybe the realization that growth is not the final objective is a lesson worth learning.

It is essential that all businesses provide an appropriate level of after-sales SERVICE to their customers. This should be more than just a phrase, but something that should actually deliver VALUE. The easiest way to measure this is to ask your customers! Don't be afraid to send out survey's and questionnaire's ... but make sure that you pay attention to the responses and that you do something about the issues your customers are telling you they don't like.

Reading Material

2009-08-17T06:07:00.000-07:00

Business Book - The One Minute Manager

Written by business Guru's Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson, the One Minute Manager proposes three key secrets to effective management. Utilizing a junior manager, just getting started on his management track as the disciple, each of these three key secrets is gradually revealed by a much more senior manager in simple and easy to understand examples and messages. This much more senior manager is the One Minute Manager that the book is based upon and is a very well respected leader by his staff and other managers.

The 3 secrets discussed are: (1) One Minute Goals - goals should be agreed upon and written down during the course of meetings between managers and employees. These goals should be a simple, brief statement and they should be reviewed occasionally to ensure that progress is being made. (2) One Minute Praisings - in a nutshell, catch someone doing something right! Its very easy to find fault, but praising when deserved is an even more powerful method of coaching and will show great dividends. (3) One Minute Reprimand - as much as you'd like to only give praise, when an employee makes a mistake it is important to reprimand them immediately and specifically so that they know exactly what they've done wrong. It is very important that the One Minute Reprimand also includes a step at the end where you should inform the employee that it was specifically the action that was at fault and that you do not have any issue with the employee.

Recommendation

The One Minute Manager is a quick read, probably 1-2 hours at the outside. It is also a book that bears repeated reading as although the message is simple, carrying it out is difficult and constant repetition and practice is needed to ensure that you are doing it right. It is a very good book for starting managers and one that I would highly recommend.

Fiction Book - 10 Best X-Men

Although not specifically a single book, Comic Books have been a huge influence on my early reading and this site, provides a really well rounded recap of the 10 Best story arc's in the X Men Universe. Definitely too detailed to go into here, suffice it to say that if you were to read each of these different series, you would have it all! Death of key characters, tragedies aplenty and some of the best storylines in Comicdom.

Russia and the Eastern Block!

2009-04-08T07:03:00.000-07:00

I just recently started a new role at a company where I am responsible for Customer service and supporting customers behind the "Iron Curtain"! Always a bug bear in the media and news, Russia is the largest country in the world and one of the most populous also, Russia has now taken a different place on the world stage. Instead of a Military Superpower, it is forging ahead in a different vein as an Economic and Energy Superpower. With a country that spans 11 time zones containing the world's largest reserves of mineral and energy resources as well as approximately one-quarter of the world's unfrozen fresh water the Russian Federation stands a good chance of re-imaging themselves.

Fortunately the staff I am responsible for are no where near as ferocious and although I am not a native Russian speaker they have been quite welcoming! To some extent, due to this welcome and also due to the experience in some of my previous permanent and contract roles where Programmers, Developers and/or Support staff always seemed to be Russian (or from the Eastern Bloc) I have decided to try and learn Russian! Feel free to follow my trials and tribulations about this here!

Some good sites I have found that have been are extremely useful already are as follows -

Mind Mapping

2009-01-14T06:44:00.000-08:00

What is Mind Mapping? In its simplest form it is a technique whereby you use a diagram to represent words and ideas. Linked to this are other tasks or items that are related to the previous item in a hierarchical fashion. By arranging the elements intuitively according to their relative importance it is easy to quickly branch out from the initial (main) point into lots of previously unexplored and unexpected avenues.

Letting your mind “wander” in this fashion is extremely useful from a brainstorming” point of view and the creation and use of mind maps has been shown to be useful in study, problem solving and decision making processes.

Free downloadable Mind Mapping Software includes a program called FreeMind. As the name implies this is a free application and one that is extremely user friendly and intuitive.

FreeMind is a premier free mind-mapping (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map) software written in Java. The recent development has hopefully turned it into high productivity tool. We are proud that the operation and navigation of FreeMind is faster than that of MindManager because of one-click "fold / unfold" and "follow link" operations.

So you want to write a completely new metaphysics? Why don't you use FreeMind? You have a tool at hand that remarkably resembles the tray slips of Robert Pirsig, described in his sequel to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance called Lila. Do you want to refactor your essays in a similar way you would refactor software? Or do you want to keep personal knowledge base, which is easy to manage? Why don't you try FreeMind? Do you want to prioritize, know where you are, where you've been and where you are heading, as Stephen Covey would advise you? Have you tried FreeMind to keep track of all the things that are needed for that?

If your company restricts access to downloadable applications, I would suggest you try a program called bubbl.us – available for use and access online, it is not as pretty as FreeMind, however the fact that you can access it anywhere you can access the Internet is a plus in itself. Currently in beta it is also a free program. You can access it here.

The Curse of the "berry"

2008-08-08T12:51:00.000-07:00

Are you invaluable? How about irreplaceable? Will the world stop turning if you don't pick up the phone or answer that email? No?

OK, so why are you ignoring your family (or friends or yourself??) to pick up the phone? Its very easy for companies to take advantage of employees & even more so managers who feel a personal responsibility for the performance of the team and department. Now I'm not talking about those of you who get paid for being "on call" - unfortunately I've found that Managers rarely get compensated for this - but rather the ones who don't.

Companies need to understand and realize that employees lives and health are at stake and for some of you (you know who you are) ... their family lives also. Staff need time away from work and away from the stresses of the job if for no other reason than to recharge their batteries for the next day. In addition, if staff are constantly contacted outside of regular business hours than their staffing and hiring needs to be looked at and examined. Management need to create and have in place a proper escalation plan for customers of course and a Manager should be included in there at the appropriate level. However a Manager should not be the FINAL point of escalation and if Customers matter (which all companies state, but few actually show), Senior Management should also form part of that plan and in addition, perhaps appropriate out of hours coverage should be put into place!

Irate Customers

2008-07-30T05:34:00.000-07:00

The unfortunate fact of the matter is that you will receive complaints from customers. Sometimes these are warranted and sometimes not. Having the skill and patience to deal with these types of issues is what makes (or breaks) an excellent service & helpdesk team.

People working the Customer Service and Helpdesk fields are often at the sharp end of having to deal with angry customers. One the one hand, some of these customers are just looking for fault or being extremely picky or even those (shudder, dread) chronic complainers who just like to hear their own voice. I'm not going to discuss those types of people in this post, as although they exist, generally people who complain about a product or service are ones that have NOT received what they have paid for. Most people don't enjoy complaining and find it a difficult (and to be avoided) process, so keep this in mind when you are speaking to them. They are NOT trying to just make your life difficult - they DO have a genuine issue that should be looked into and hopefully addressed.

Difficult customers come in several varieties including (but not limited to) the following: Angry, Impatient, Intimidating, Talkative, Demanding, Indecisive etc... and any (all) combinations you could think of. Dealing with these extremes is not easy and shouldn’t be considered such, but the key is that they must be dealt with and must be dealt with in a Professional Manner! Just like you cannot change someone else, you cannot control someone else’s behaviour. You have control only over yourself and your own actions. You can however influence how customers respond to you though, and I hope that my suggestions below give you some ideas.

Realizing the Issue
Remember that the majority of customers in the world are reasonable people. They may get "difficult" from time to time if they feel they've been let down. It's how you handle them that'll determine if they continue to be a problem or if you can turn them around. Difficult customers and situations usually occur because something has gone wrong. It's what happens then that'll decide whether they deal with us again or bad mouth us to other people. As I've mentioned in previous (& will be mentioning again in future) posts, is that the problem you are facing is not the one individual on the phone complaining about their problem. It is the 10 or more customers that have left without speaking to you because they are dissatisfied! A very good phrase you see advertised frequently - which you should always keep in mind - goes something like this:

If you are happy with our service, please tell your friends. If you are unhappy with our service - please tell us!

This should be more than just a trite phrase that gets thrown around. Companies need to actually believe, understand and live this statement. The only way you are going to ensure that your customers are happy is by talking to them. While a customer may be berating you, you still have an opportunity to win them over. I cannot count the number of times that I have been able to do this and not only keep them with my company, but transform them into my biggest advocates. Research indicates that customers who complain are likely to continue doing business with your company if they feel that they were treated properly. It's estimated that as many as 90% of customers who perceive themselves as having been wronged never complain, they just take their business elsewhere. So, angry, complaining customers care enough to talk to you, and have not yet decided to take their business to the competition. They are customers worth saving.

Turning them Around
OK, if I’ve not scared you away already, here’s what you need to do. The steps below are laid out in a fairly logical fashion (and you will see that some of them overlap in terms of how they work) and is illustrative of most of the cases and situations you will come across.

Control Yourself
Listen
Empathy
Identify the Problem/Issue
Don’t Blame Someone Else!
Resolve the Issue

Let’s explore each of these in a bit greater depth below.

CONTROL - The easiest way to do this is to remember that it’s not YOU!! When a person complains about something, it’s important to remember that they’re not attacking you personally. It’s the problem they’ve encountered which is causing the irritation. This correspondingly maps quite closely to the feedback you should be providing to your staff when they are not performing well and as mentioned in my review of the One Minute Manager . Never argue with customers when they are angry, displeased or complaining. If you allow a customer to push your buttons and lose control of yourself, you've lost control of the situation. You can lose a good customer if you show boredom, irritation, disdain or displeasure. Remember if a customer is being abusive and difficult, it’s NOT YOU!! If you can keep this in mind, dealing with them will be significantly easier ... it’s crucial you maintain a respect for the person even if you don’t respect their behavior towards you. Remember and repeat ... they are NOT mad at YOU!!! Apologies for the repetition, but this fact is extremely important and more than one Help Desk Manager has gotten flummoxed by the fact that they are taking the issue personally.

LISTENING - If an angry customer is explaining the situation to you ... let THEM talk. Do NOT interrupt them mid-flow to argue a point. This sounds easier than it actually is as everyone wants to justify themselves or bring up some rationale for a fault ... don’t do it! Once you’ve asked the person to explain their problem or issue to you, it’s then crucial that you simply listen without any kind of interruption whatsoever until they’ve finished. This is the only way that you will get a full picture of the issue from the customers’ point of view. Remember they are upset and in their eye’s justifiably! You cannot take that away from them – regardless of what you say. Its your actions after that will determine how they feel at the end. More often than not, once the customer has had an initial chance to vent his rage, it's going to die down a little, and that's your opportunity to step in.

Say, "I can tell you're upset..." or, "It sounds like you're angry..." then connect to the customer by apologizing, or empathizing. When you say something like "I'm sorry that happened. If I were you, I'd be frustrated, too." It's amazing how much of a calming effect that can have.

EMPATHY- OK, we’ve already touched upon this a little bit above, but let’s explore this in a bit more depth here. Put yourself in the customer's shoes, and try to see the situation from his/her perspective. Don't try and cut him off, don't urge him to calm down. Instead, listen carefully. If someone is angry or upset, it is because that person feels injured in some way. Your job is to let the customer vent and to listen attentively in order to understand the source of that frustration. When you do that, you send a powerful unspoken message that you care about him and his situation. Often, as the customer comes to realize that you really do care and that you are going to attempt to help him resolve the problem, the customer will calm down on his own, and begin to interact with you in a positive way. Once they’ve finished their diatribe, it’s important that you try to look at the situation from their perspective. Having not interrupted their flow and by listening intently, it’s already sent a signal to the person that you have listened and that you care about them and the situation they’re facing.

IDENTIFICATION - Sometimes while the angry customer is venting, you'll be able to latch right on to the problem because it's clear-cut. Something is broken. Or late. Or he thinks a promise has been broken. Once you have identified what the problem is, it’s important that you reiterate it to the customer so that they are sure that you have heard them correctly. If you’ve assumed correctly, the customer will say ‘yes’ and then you can move on. If not, this is a good place for some specific questions. Ask the customer to give you some details. "What day did he order it, when exactly was it promised. What is his situation at the moment?" These kind of questions force the customer to think about facts instead of his/her feelings about those facts. So, you interject a more rational kind of conversation. Eventually you will get to the heart of the matter and at that point, you should reiterate to them to ensure you’ve got it right and then you can move on to the next stage. However ... remember this ... you MUST apologize for the problem caused to the customer and the impact that he has felt. This is NOT an acknowledgment of fault or wrong doing, simply another part of empathizing with your customer.

BLAME GAME - I don’t know how else to say it but to be frank. This is NOT the customer’s fault. NEVER blame them for coming to you with a complaint. You should be thainking them for giving you an opportunity to excel! This might also not be your companies fault either, but it is still proper and correct for you to apologize.

RESOLUTION - Now it’s time to try to resolve the situation. There is never going to be a successful outcome every time here and what may be a satisfactory resolution for one customer may not appease another but what is important is to go about trying to resolve the problem in the correct manner. You won't always be able to fix the problem perfectly. And you may need more time than a single phone call. But it's critical to leave the irate customer with the understanding that your goal is to resolve the problem. You may need to say, "I'm going to need to make some phone calls." If you do, give the customer an idea of when you’ll get back to him: "Later this afternoon." Or "First thing in the morning."

Then do it. Whatever your commitment has been to the customer it is IMPERATIVE that you keep it. If you do not, you will have them angry at YOU for not fulfilling your promise and this time they would be justified! Even if you don't have all the information you need, call when you said you would and at least let him know what you've done, what you're working on and what your next step will be. Let the customer know that he and his business are important to you, that you understand his frustration, and that you're working hard to get things fixed.

If you are not going to be able to resolve the situation to the customers satisfaction – as them how they would like it resolved! There is no harm in asking that simple question, and even if their response is not something you can do, perhaps it is something that could be done at a higher level of the organization. By taking all of these steps, you’ll have done your job to the best of your ability and in a manner which is likely to resolve most issues.

You have the Power!
It is important that you remain calm in the face of your customer's anger. This will allow you to think rationally and eventualy win the customer around. The moment you start reacting to them is the the moment you've lost the plot and the control of the situation. You will not succeed in your intent if you do this.

The more you encounter difficult customers, the easier it becomes to deal with them and the more you’ll experience satisfactory outcomes. As long as you adopt an approach similar to that above, you’ll win more than you’ll lose.

Nevertheless, always bear in mind that you’re never going to win them all. Don't get disheartened ... if you have treated them with respect they will REMEMBER and chances are good when you competition causes them grief, they will be back!

What is a Helpdesk?

2008-06-06T10:36:00.000-07:00

OK, to start with it's not a desk that helps people! A help desk is a team of individuals (generally support staff) that provide solutions and resolutions to customers experiencing problems. Generally working at the 1^st tier of the support model they are responsible for Incident reporting and resolution vs. Problem Management (I shall discuss those terms in greater depth below).

What is an Incident?

Simply put, an Incident is anything related to a customer contact (Incidents are also reported by automatic means via monitoring tools and I will discuss those types of incidents in greater depth in later posts). Incidents related to customers can be anything really – Information requests, Account Updates, Issue reporting are all examples of Incidents. Incidents can also be reported through a variety of different methods – this could include the phone (probably the most common), email (a close 2^nd) and even chat. As mentioned previously, automated monitoring tools can also generate incidents.

All of these different Incidents coming from/through different sources would get routed to your Incident Management tool. For smaller teams this could be something as simple as a spreadsheet but in larger organizations either in-house customer built applications or enterprise level tools prevail.

Incident Management (in a nutshell)

Your helpdesk is responsible for reviewing the information in each of these incidents and checking if there is an appropriate solution already available to the customer. For those instances for example where the customer wishes to update their Account Information, the helpdesk would look at the Incident, obtain the correct new information (& assuming that all appropriate security questions had been reviewed) log into the customers account and update the information. Once the information had been updated, they would inform the customer and then close the Incident. This is probably one of the simpler examples of an Incident from start to finish.

If the customer is reporting a problem or an issue, the Helpdesk staff are responsible for updating the Incident with all the relevant details as supplied by the customer. If the customers issue matches a known fix they are able to inform or supply that fix to the customer, however, if that is not the case they would need to escalate the issue to the Problem Management team. The simplest way to think of the Incident Management (Helpdesk/Tier1) team and the issues they resolve is that if a "band-aid" exists they can apply it. If more drastic attention is required they will need to call the Doctor!

Problem Management

Problem Management is where the interesting work really happens. Incident Management due to its repetitive nature can get tedious and is definitely a drain on the more skilled staff in your organization ... if you have people like that, think about moving them into Problem Management if you have such a team or create one if you don't! Problem Management is more in-depth. It's where more often than not a single Problem is the cause of multiple Incident's from multiple customers ... as such you want your best people at this level. Generally you would consider this Tier 2 or Tier 3 from an escalation and staffing perspective and dependent on your product or service you would have some very technically oriented people there. Their goal is not to just provide a band-aid, but rather to find out why the problem happened in the first place and fix it. Ideally they should be looking at ways to fix it in such a way as to ensure that it doesn't happen again!!

KPI's

Now each of these teams would have different metrics in place. Obviously your Tier1 team (Incident Management/Customer Service/Helpdesk) needs to get back to the customer in a timely manner. Their goal as already mentioned is to fix it, fix it fast and move on. A band-aid will not always reattach the finger though, so it's up to the Tier2 team to ensure that the surgery goes smoothly which obviously takes a lot more time as you don't want the surgeon doing a shoddy job!

Response Time - So with that analogy in mind ... you want to have an aggressive goal set for your Helpdesk – try to work with the 80/20 rule ... 80% of incidents responded to in 20 seconds (If you have the resources, otherwise maybe 20 minutes? Or 20 hours (that's less than 1 day so might still be good – especially if you're doing email support)? Or 20 days ß well that's probably not really worthwhile) but hopefully you get the point? You want to set a specific goal for measuring how quickly your customers are getting a response.

Resolve Time – notice that I have separated these out. As much as you'd like to be able to resolve 100% of issues at that first contact, its not always going to be possible. However you can have another measurement in place that tracks this which is the Resolve Time (sometimes called MTTR (Mean Time to Repair)). The Goal here is also to get that band-aid on as quickly as possible so you need to ensure that your Incident Management system has some sort of a knowledge base which helps your staff find the solution to commonly placed issues/questions. If they have the answer every time, then a 100% resolution at 1^st contact is achievable! If not however ... it gets a bit more complicated because all of a sudden your Incident Management team becomes the customer and the team they go to is the Problem Management team. Guess what? They have a different measurement for Response Time and Resolve Time too!

Problem Management Response Time – now as previously mentioned these are generally your more senior staff and as much as you'd like them to be available 24/7 unless you have an extremely large organization this is probably fairly unlikely. So you are going to have build or determine some relevant response times based on their availability. In addition, as these escalated issues are generally issues that cannot easily be resolved, your resolution time is going to be extended also. Pick some appropriate intervals that meet your customers SLAs. Your main goal for this team (in addition to resolving the problem of course) is communication, communication, communication!!! They must inform your customer facing agents what the issue is, what they are doing to resolve it and when they expect to have it resolved. If they cannot provide an estimated resolution time, they MUST provide your Tier1 team with an estimated update time.

Exceptional Customer Service

2008-02-20T02:41:00.000-08:00

One important thing to remember from a Customer Service point of view, is that the last person you speak to (or chat with or email) is also the most likely to buy your service or product in the future. This is obviously not a hard and fast rule, but more an estimation of the impact word of mouth plays with any business!

A repeat customer does not happen by accident. It is something that is only developed (& nurtured) through hard graft and constant work. You need to build relationships and this is where Exceptional Customer Service comes into play.

Communication is key. You have to remember that when a customer first signs up to your service – you should THANK THEM. They didn’t need to bring their service to you as I am sure that regardless of your industry you have competitors. A simple Thank You email will most times suffice. When the scope of the contract is sufficient, ramp it up to a personalized letter or perhaps even a bottle of wine at Christmas time! Now speaking to them when they first sign up is important – granted and mentioned ... how about when they are having a problem???

SPEAK EVEN MORE!!!

The only communication a customer has is with you and the only insight they have into the status of their issue is what you are telling them. There have been many instances where I have been able to “Save” a customer simply by giving them updates. Please note – I have not solved the problem, that still existed, all I have done is told them what we were doing to get their issue resolved, gave them a timeframe to when I expected (hoped and prayed in some cases!) their issues would be resolved, and when I would next communicate with them. One key thing to remember here is if you give a customer a commitment – make sure that you stick to it... Think about it from your point of view and if you were the one experiencing this issue – wouldn’t you like to know what was going on? You probably have customers of your own that you need to inform also! This is something that always seems to be lacking at the lower levels of a CSR team, but should be enforced and driven down. Remember, your staff don’t need to give out sensitive information to satisfy your customers. Most customers know that the people they are speaking to are not the ones who have caused the problem and they are just there to help solve it – for those one’s that don’t, I will discuss handling IRATE customers in depth in later posts.

Give your customer as many ways as possible to get in touch with you. Obviously resource constraints come into play also as you don’t want to offer 24/7 telephone support if you have a staff of 1. But perhaps in addition to email, offer chat as an option. When you get to the size where you can offer telephone support – do it, even if its only on an outbound basis.

The one thing that you must always remember and keep uppermost in your mind whenever you are dealing with a Customer from a Service/Support standpoint, is that the issue they are experiencing which has caused them to contact you – is affecting them and THEIR BUSINESS. The only reason they are doing business with you is so that you can provide a specific service to them. Once you fail in that regards you have not fulfilled your side of the bargain and there are many surveys that point to the fact that when someone has a bad Customer Service experience, they are likely to tell at least 10 other people about it. Think about it this way ... not only could you potentially lose the business and money this one customer is paying you ... you have now lost 10 others also! Word of mouth unfortunately is a lot more prevalent when spreading the bad news than it is about the good service you provide.

Now what do you do if you had an issue (I’m assuming you’ve kept the customer informed throughout the process so that they are not too annoyed with you!) and have only just restored the customers service? Well the first time it happens, you probably don’t need to do anything, aside from a brief apology! Hopefully you’ve got an SLA in place and you’ve not exceeded the terms set out inside them. However in some cases, you might want to consider upgrading a customer to a better package or service – even if only for a limited time – you’d be surprised how often that works with customers and although the cost to you is not incidental ... think about what the cost could potentially be if you had to find another customer!

Exceptional Customer Service matters because retaining existing customers is significantly easier than finding new ones. Customer Churn and Retention are two phrases you might hear bandied about quite a bit depending on the industry you are in and in some – Telecoms for example – there are huge teams and departments created to address just these issues. Their main and only goals are to keep the existing customers that they have with them instead of losing them to other competitors. In a very simple example think about it like this. If you are the industry leader and have 1 million customers and your nearest competitor has only ½ a million, you might think you were doing great. However if you are only growing at the rate of 10% per year (due to the negative press you’ve been receiving) and are churning at 25% per year to that competitor (who in the same timeframe is growing at 50% per year) ... how long do you think you have at the top? Trust me it’s a lot shorter than you think!!

You want your customers to experience Exceptional Customer Service and instead of that 50% growth going to your competition you want it to flow towards your company. This mantra must be believed, understood and LIVED by your Customer Service Representatives and Support Teams. They need to understand that the reason they are getting a paycheque is because those customers are paying for it!

It might be trite and tired and a little bit old but the one phrase that is absolutely true is –

The CUSTOMER is ALWAYS RIGHT!!!!

Love it, believe it and spread it on!