The new operational processes are simplified, streamlined and relevant for the work you do. These changes mean consistent delivery, increased focus on the client, and the power to better balance your work schedule and your life. When the operational processes are in place, no one will be able to match your ability to manage your contact centers.

Communicating expectations about work performance and

attendance can be a tricky part of a leader’s duties. Fortunately, the

new Career Commitment Process is providing some structure to

manage those responsibilities in a consistent manner that supports

the team, contact center and organizational objectives.

From quality monitoring, which provides better opportunities for

recognition and accountability, to a balanced life account that

enables you to better manage time off; these new processes are

designed to put you in charge of the service you provide your client,

the co-workers you may support, and your career.

Contact: Brian Hughes Bah66@tx.rr.com

You’re Business & Clients

You’re Work Environment

You’re Career

Call Center Processes – Best Practices

New Processes

New Agent Essential Skills

Training

���� More focus on customer

service skills

���� Introducing the “Academy

Team” to get new hires out

on the floor faster

���� Up-Selling and Cross-

Selling

���� Coaching for Success

Employee Scorecard

The Employee Scorecard

provides objective

measurements on:

���� Quality

���� Accuracy

���� Productivity

���� Attendance

���� Schedule Adherence

Performance Excellence

Transform to Grow

Employee Excellence

Customer Excellence

Operational Processes help you make

the most of all you do.

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Call Center Operational Processes & Training

• Section 1: Call Center Best Practices (Name,

Definition, Benefits)

• Section 2: Best Practices Linkage Document (See additional for the document)

• Section 3: Best Practices Marketing Flyers

• Section 4: Training Courses Marketing Flyers

• Section 5: Job Aids Examples (See additional file)

Performance Excellence

Transform to Grow

Employee Excellence

S

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Call Center Processes and Training

Performance Excellence

Transform to Grow

Employee Excellence

Customer Excellence

S

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Phase I 1. Performance

Evaluation (Scorecard)

Measures employee performance based upon defined performance metrics, and facilitates providing feedback, rewards and recognition, and coaching.

Reduces attrition through consistent feedback to employees on job performance, using industry standard metrics for call center excellence.

2. Quality Monitoring

Facilitates monitoring and evaluating work performance of agents, recording calls and data transactions, and providing feedback to agents.

• Optimizes agent performance through coaching and identification of opportunities for reward and recognition

• Promotes objectivity, improves performance against service level standards and customer expectations.

3. Recruiting and Selection

Enables consistent recruiting and selection practices from the completion of the staffing request to preparing for the applicant to start work. Provides several job aids and checklists, and electronic resume collection.

Increases productivity and quality through providing qualified candidates as quickly as possible, and decreasing screen-out time.

4. Supervisor “Lite” Training

Provides training curriculum and delivery methods for acclimation and training of call center delivery employees at the supervisory level.

Reduces attrition through equipping supervisors with the performance and coaching skills needed to align agents’ skills and knowledge to organizational goals and achieve call center service excellence.

Phase II 5. New Agent

Essential Skills Program

Provides agenda, facilitator, participant materials, and Train-the-Trainer activities, for acclimating new agents to their jobs, and their customers. Training can be combined with sites’ current best training practices.

Reduces attrition and improves quality through equipping new agents with the skills and knowledge needed to achieve measurable performance expectations as quickly as possible.

6. Recognition and Appreciation

Provides assistance to leaders in developing a program to recognize employees’ achievements. Includes a database of creative ideas from all sites for activities.

Reduces attrition and optimizes performance through recognizing desired results, and capitalizes on sharing ideas between sites.

7. Career Planning Facilitates coaching in identifying employees’ desired career path. Motivates contact center employees to improve their skills, continue their education, and cross-train.

Increases retention through career goal motivation, improving skills and personal growth.

8. Administrative Exit

Provides procedures and guidelines for managing voluntary or involuntary separation of an employee.

Reduces future attrition by encouraging candid feedback from separated employees, and enabling contact centers to analyze the data.

Phase III

9. Performance Improvement

Provides guidelines to assist leaders in consistently addressing problem performance, attendance and/or misconduct by employees.

Reduces attrition by providing early recognition and documentation of problems, and a uniform method to conduct improvement plans.

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10. Performance Management Program (PMP)

Provides a measurement and feedback program, specifically focused on agent performance. Facilitates consistency between scorecards and Agent PMP measurements, using scorecard scores to update each agent’s PMP record on a quarterly and annual basis. Streamlines the form and annual performance review process for agents.

• Reduces expense and administration time through a streamlined process.

• Improves employee satisfaction through focused consistent performance management.

11. Leadership Development Program

An internship or apprenticeship program for agents to gain experience and exposure to management responsibilities.

• The program provides selected employees with an opportunity they can use to determine whether a supervisory role is of career interest to them, increasing employee satisfaction.

• The program also enables a leader to adapt to fluctuations in the demand for supervisory manpower by providing a temporary pool of experienced candidates for supervisory roles, enabling better cost and people management.

12. Balanced Life Account

Provides common methods and tools that assist employees in managing their time off.

Reduces attrition by offering solutions to agents who may need help managing their time, while encouraging them to manage their schedules and time effectively.

Phase IV

13. Change Management

Provides a framework, methodologies, and training for contact center employees to manage operational and management changes.

Reduces attrition and costs through enabling contact centers to remain focused and effectively manage change.

14. Project Management

Provides a formalized process and training to structure and enable project management with the contact center.

Reduces salary costs by providing a consistent, prescribed methodology for managing projects in the contact centers.

15. Escalation Process & Structure

Provides for the creation of an internal help desk that is driven by service levels, available all of the time, and staffed with leadership development program candidates and/or high performers. Facilitates tracking of complaints.

Reduces the need for escalation and improves customer satisfaction by providing a process to evaluate trends and develop plans to address deficiencies.

Leadership Training

16. Leadership Academy I

Instructor-led course that focuses on the basics to successfully lead a contact center team. Newly hired or newly-promoted front-line supervisors in the contact centers will have a safe environment in which to learn and practice leadership skills.

It creates consistency among contact centers, regardless of the tenure of the supervisors and their managers located at the site.

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17. Leadership Academy II

Instructor-led course that allows supervisors to gain a better understanding of roles and responsibilities; HR issues; innovative thinking; team building; business communication; reporting financial information; recruiting; transition from temporary agent to employee; retention; and career planning.

• Practice business communication skills, review P&Ls, and review basic contract measurements. Our goal is to help the supervisors understand how decisions they make can impact the bottom line.

• Review Co. tools available such as Talent Mgmt System, Job Competency Matrix, IDP, SAP Vacant Positions Report, etc. In addition, supervisors will discuss how to have reactive career discussions.

18. Coaching for Success

Intended for individuals who provide any type of coaching feedback to contact center agents, including call-monitoring feedback, monthly Scorecard, yearly review, PMP, career planning, and other day-to-day issues.

• Establishes the value of using a Coaching model.

• Follows through on identified developmental action items results in agent job satisfaction and retention as a result of improved metrics, quality scores and relationships.

19. Strategic Leadership Management Program (SLMP)

The Strategic Leadership Management Program (SLMP) equips contact center managers with a strategic sequencing of key actions that lead to employee satisfaction and commitment, customer loyalty, thought leadership, and business success. The (SLMP) is a performance improvement system with a focus on behaviors that enhance collaboration, interaction, and coaching in a positive growth environment where people are involved and recognized for their contributions.

Upon completion of this program, participants will be able to maintain constructive relationships; focus on the situation or behavior, not the person; maintain the self confidence and self-esteem of others; lead by example, and evaluate work in terms of its impact on the customer.

Agent Upsell/Cross-sell Program

20. Building on Success with Soft-Selling

Instructor-led course provides modern telephone techniques that are proven to be effective for expanding the business base by up-selling and cross-selling.

Improves the quality of service our agents provide our customers while increasing sales and profits.

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Hire the Best Candidates Faster New recruiting tools and more appropriate best practices for the call center environment are giving you the ability to get the best candidates in the door faster.

Agent turnover is a fact of life in the contact center environment. But

unfilled or poorly filled positions don’t have to be. By making use of

the new Recruiting and Selection process, you’ll gain access to the

tools and proven practices that will help you attract, identify and

retain the best candidates.

Recruiting collateral is being introduced to assist in the hiring

process, as well as best-practices such as group information

sessions and information/feedback gathering sessions with agents,

conducted at specific intervals, once agents are on board.

New recruiting tools are:

• A job profile worksheet to assist in developing the Staffing

Request

• Hire.com, a Web-based interface between Web job boards and

company site. It populates qualifying resumes in a tool

accessible by recruiters through their desktop application.

• A Realistic Job Preview pamphlet

• An automated phone skills assessment tool

• Interview checklists

• An applicant tracking sheet populated with corporate reason

codes for denials

Recruiting and Selection

Call Center Processes

The intent of the Recruiting and

Selection process is to:

���� Attract the best candidates

���� Decrease the time to

identify candidates

���� Assist leadership in

qualifying best candidates

for open positions

���� Ensure consistency in

recruiting and selection

���� Improve agent retention

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Achieve “Top Box” Scores by Delighting your Customers with Company New Agent Acclimation and Training

Newly-hired agents are equipped to delight your customers by performing their responsibilities more effeiciently and with confidence through the New Agent Acclimation and Training Process.

You’ve just gone through the time and expense of hiring the right candidate for your open agent position. Now rely on the New Agent Acclimation and Training Process to help your new hires get up to speed quickly and effectively. There are four primary benefits:

• Equips agents with required skills and knowledge to perform duties in a controlled, non-intimidating environment

• Helps new hires feel part of the company, and more self-confident when reporting to their work unit

• Ensures consistency in new hire training processes that can be leveraged across all contact centers

• Provides “Best-in-Class” customer service training to all contact center agents for performance and positive business results

There are four phases to New Agent Acclimation and Training:

Foundation Training ����

Client Specific ���� Client Training

Company Systems ���� ( New Hires only)

Academy Team

1 Week 2 – 4 Weeks 1 Day Min. 1 Week

Features Features Features Features

• Overview of CRM and Company Values

• Call Center Industry

• Brief Intro to Career Planning

• Personal Change Management

• Visit by Call Center Management and Tour of the contact center

• Introduction to Customer Service

• Delighting the Customer: An Introduction to Quality

• Keeping the Skills Alive: A Customer Service Refresher

• Building Rapport to Delight the Customer

• Creating a Dream Team: The Fundamentals of Teamwork

• Listen to Calls

• Client History and Business Model

• Product and Services Training

• Company and CRM History

• Introduction to Performance Management Program

• Introduction to Career Planning Program

• Company Policies and Background/ Benefits

• Mentoring

• Nested Environment

• On-the-Job Training

• Graduation and Celebrations

New Agent Acclimation and Training

Call Center Processes

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Ensuring Commitments to the Job The Performance Improvement Process gives call center leaders a framework to address employees’ commitments in job performance.

Communicating expectations about work performance and

attendance can be a tricky part of a leader’s duties. Fortunately, the

new Performance Improvement Process is providing some

structure to manage those responsibilities in a consistent manner

that supports the team, call center and organizational objectives.

The purpose of the Performance Improvement Process is to:

• Ensure consistency in the administration of professional work expectations for all employees with the focus on attendance and performance.

• Provide contact center leadership with a framework that will enable them to address their employees’ professional commitment in the areas of attendance, performance or conduct issues.

• Provide a stepped program to move an employee’s behavior from unsatisfactory to satisfactory in a consistent and timely manner.

This process will assist contact centers through the following:

• Early recognition and documentation of a problem.

• Early notification to the employee of the issue through verbal discussions or documentation.

• Continued observation and documentation.

• Presentation of a verbal and/or written warning with “or else” consequence.

• Presentation of a written improvement plan.

• Conclusive action (e.g., successful completion of the plan or appropriate disciplinary action).

Performance Improvement Process

Call Center Processes

The Performance

Improvement Process

provides leaders with

guidelines on how to help

agents improve their

performance or change their

behavior or conduct. This

process offers leaders the

following:

���� Guidelines for early

notification, warnings and

corrective action plans.

���� Shared templates for

writing warnings and

corrective action plans.

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Taking Customer Service to the Next Level – Quality Monitoring The difference between good customer service and great customer service lies in knowing what the customers wants before they ask for it. Quality Monitoring gives you ongoing feedback to identify your next opportunity to exceed your customer’s expectations.

The key to continuous improvement is continuous feedback. The

Quality Monitoring (QM) process provides qualitative and

quantitative feedback to contact center agents based upon

reviewing and monitoring a percentage of their interactions with

customers. Additionally, the QM process reinforces our continued

use of best practices in customer service. The QM process will be

an important component in recognition of achievements in agent

performance, as well as measuring how we are all performing in

meeting customer Service Level Agreements (SLA).

Through the use of the QM process, you can expect the following:

���� Better opportunities for recognition and accountability

���� Early problem identification to resolve performance issues

quickly

���� A faster path to reward and recognition

The following principles guide the QM process:

���� Call centers will seek consistency in quality monitoring, quality

standards, and processes where practical

���� QM feedback will be provided to agents in a timely manner

���� Random samplings of customer interactions will be used to

ensure a consistent process, where practical

Quality Monitoring

Call Center Processes

The value of the Quality Monitoring Process is as follows:

� The QM process begins during the New Hire/Acclimation Training and is an iterative, on-going process.

� Reviewing this

feedback helps us all to learn more about what works and what doesn’t with our customers. And that means more satisfied customers—every day.

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Customer Satisfaction Is Up To All Of Us. How Do You Measure Up? We all know that keeping the customer satisfied is our most important job. But how do we know how we’re doing? The Employee Scorecards keep us in the know.

It’s a fact of human nature that we can only improve when someone

tells us how we’re doing. We all need objective feedback that

identifies strengths, patterns of performance, and areas for

improvement. Now we have the employee scorecard to help all of

us in the contact center—whether agents, supervisors, or leaders—

to understand more clearly how we’re contributing to customer

satisfaction and where we can get better in the days ahead.

The Employee Scorecard Process provides on-going, frequent

feedback to employees. This ensures that the performances of all

employees who deliver customer service are assessed using data

and metrics specific to their work environment. This includes:

���� Agents

���� Supervisors

���� Center Managers

The Employee Scorecard Process helps us all become better by:

���� Providing us with frequent feedback and recognition on our

performance, as appropriate,

���� Encouraging a coaching relationship and communication with

our leadership, and

���� Providing a regular means to receive guidance in relevant

competencies, such as leader skills or call handling.

However, the most important reason for using the Employee

Scorecard Process is that it increases credibility with our

customers through an up-to-date view of overall Center and

individual performance, reassuring customers that your company is

closely monitoring Call Center performance to provide excellent

service.

Performance Evaluation (Scorecard)

Call Center Processes

The Employee Scorecard provides

objective measurements on:

���� Quality

���� Accuracy

���� Productivity

���� Attendance

���� Schedule Adherence

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Recording Employee Exits in a Standard Fashion To the extent that is practical, we all need to record information about employee separations from a company in a standard manner that can be leveraged across the enterprise.

The intent of the Administrative Exit Process is to ensure

consistency, to the extent that is practical, when employees are

separated. This ensures that information captured—particularly

employee feedback from voluntarily separated employees about

why they are deciding to leave company employment—during this

process can be leveraged across all contact centers.

There are four major steps to this process, as shown below:

This process applies to all separations that occur in the contact centers except for employees separated because of a workforce reduction or account closings. The process:

• Begins with the decision to end employment.

• Encompasses both Voluntary and Involuntary separations.

• Includes Exit Interviews for both Voluntary and Involuntary separations.

• Ends when the separation is completed, recorded, and separation data is reviewed.

Administrative Exit Process

Call Center Processes

Identify type and reason for separation

Notify parties as appropriate, i.e., ER, employee, HR, security

Complete payroll information

Complete all administrative tasks

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Create an Environment that Motivates Everyone The Recognition and Appreciation Practice creates an environment in which people are motivated about work priorities, improving morale, client satisfaction, and employee retention rates.

Recognition and Appreciation plays a critical role in motivating

employees and rewarding them for accomplishments. Recognition

is critical to any sustaining effort in support of key corporate

initiatives focused on customer satisfaction, productivity, efficiency,

and cost reduction. The challenge at work is to create an

environment in which people are motivated.

The Recognition and Appreciation Practice creates a framework for

sites to conduct recognition and appreciation activities appropriate

to contact centers. The practice contains the following components:

Appreciation Activities - show general appreciation to large

groups, generally the entire site or a program/account team

Individual Status Recognition – create status with visible forms of

recognition for performance excellence and/or metric target

attainment. Individual status recognition is not necessarily tied to

rewards of value but rather is intended to convey individual

contribution, achievement, and value to the organization.

Short Term Individual and Team Recognition - provide

performance incentives for teams and individuals within those

teams to ensure continued motivation of high performing and

improving individuals and teams

Peer Spot Recognition - encouragement for recognition at peer

levels

Supervisor Discretionary Recognition - allow an independent,

flexible means for immediate or near immediate recognition of

individuals and/or teams for actions and performances not covered

elsewhere. Further, this component allows the leader to make the

recognition special and unique for the individual.

Recognition and Appreciation

Call Center Processes

There are four components to

a Recognition & Appreciation

Practice. They are as follows:

���� Recognition of individual

status

���� Recognition of individual

employee and team

excellence

���� Recognition of individual

and team improvement

���� Appreciation activities for

all site/team members Benefits of the R&A Practice

include:

���� Creation of a database of

ideas

���� Increased motivation of

team members

���� Increased employee

satisfaction

���� Reduced attrition

���� Better ability to influence

the bottom line through

meeting or exceeding

performance standards