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The Perfect Agent: Tools and Technology for Coaching Your Support Team

How do you motivate people to deliver excellent performance, whether they are in the next cubicle or far away? Communications skills expert Rich Gallagher shares the secrets to getting the best out of today's distributed support team. Topics this Webinar covers include:

• The psychology of a typical agent
• Strength-based coaching techniques that create real performance change
• Managing performance problems from near and far
• Making your agents part of a team
• How technology can help improve your team's performance

View the webinar today!

Dependable HomeTech Optimizes Workforce Management with InVision Software On Demand
Dependable HomeTech (DHT), a Canadian based provider of technology support services for residential and business customers, has selected InVision Enterprise WFM for optimizing the scheduling of its call center agents. By implementing the technology from InVision Software, a supplier of enterprise-wide workforce management (WFM) solutions, DHT aims for improving the efficiency of its disparate service departments. InVision is providing its solution on an ASP (Application Service Providing) basis meeting DHT's needs of a robust and cost-effective implementation.

Interactive Intelligence Software Suite Deployed by FirstCare Health Plans
FirstCare Health Plans has reported improved customer service and increased productivity using an all-in-one IP communications software suite from Interactive Intelligence. The software suite, Customer Interaction Center (CIC), has given FirstCare the ability to support multichannel communications, along with new quality monitoring, recording, and reporting applications.

Employers Increasing Use of Social Media to Reach Employees in Challenging Times
In order to communicate messages to workers in a complex business environment, a majority of companies plan to increase their use of social media in the coming year, according to a survey by Watson Wyatt, a global consulting firm.

Almost two-thirds (65 percent) of companies plan to increase their use of social media in 2010, according to the Watson Wyatt 2009/2010 Communication ROI Study, which surveyed 328 companies from various regions around the world. Overall, 78 percent of global respondents have increased their electronic communication in the last 24 months, and 55 percent have increased face-to-face communication. However, nearly half (48 percent) have decreased their print communication over the past 24 months.

While interest is growing, many employers report common hurdles to implementing social media. Among employers that did not expand their use of social media, more than one-third (36 percent) cited the lack of information technology support or inadequate technical capability. Forty percent indicate limited knowledge of the topic, and nearly half (45 percent) of companies cite the lack of staff or resources.

For now, the traditional communication channels remain the most popular for many of employers' messages to their workers. According to the report, most employers prefer to communicate changes to business performance via staff meetings (73 percent). Employers view financial education as best delivered through their intranet (43 percent). And employers still prefer communicating changes to pay and job security face-to-face (58 percent and 48 percent respectively).
More...

US contact centers predict return to growth in 2010
Bounce-back expected after industry sheds over 200,000 jobs in 2009

New research published by ContactBabel reveals that there has been a significant drop in employment within the US contact center industry, which employs around 3.6% of the nation's working population. In 2009, headcount declined by 3.9%, equating to a net loss of just over 200,000 jobs.

This year, both Opex and Capex budgets have been cut, with 43% of respondents decreasing their Opex and 39% their Capex. Few have been able to increase their budgets by anything more than a small amount, and the tightening of Opex has meant that there has been a significant decrease in headcount as well.

The Manufacturing, Finance, Insurance, Retail and Healthcare sectors were all hit harder than average, with more than half of respondents from these sectors experiencing a drop in headcount. However, the majority of Services and Technology/Media/Telecoms (TMT) contact center respondents posted headcount increases.

The next 12 months is expected to see a large rebound in agent figures, with respondents to the survey stating an average expected headcount growth rate of 5.7%, equating to a net gain of 290,000 jobs US-wide. Public Sector and Insurance respondents are least bullish, but the Services, TMT and Outsourcing sectors all expect significant increases in headcount.
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Are Employees Twittering the Day Away?
Whether they're shooting off their own "tweets" or following others, workers using Twitter are creating liability and PR risks with their 140-character rants, raves and company gossip.

Example 1: A PR exec landed in Memphis and promptly posted on his Twitter account, "I would die if I had to live here." The problem: Memphis is home to FedEx, one of the PR firm's largest clients. FedEx reps were not amused.

Example 2: A 22-year-old applicant who was offered a job with Cisco sent a "tweet" saying, "Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work." Needless to say, the woman Twittered her way out of the job.

Advice: Draft a brief policy on your organization's expectations for employees' use of Twitter and other social networking sites (plus video). It could serve as a complement to your e-mail or e-communication policies.

As the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) points out, "If your company ignores the impact of Twitter, the company's silence might cause confusion."

Here are some suggestions from SHRM for your Twitter policy:

• The personal use of Twitter or other social networking sites must not interfere with work time.
• Employees must get supervisor approval to use the company's electronic resources to send "tweets" or other public messages.
• Any use of the organization's name, trademarks, logos or other intellectual property must be approved.
• If employees make personal comments about any aspect of the organization's business, their profiles must carry a disclaimer that the views expressed are their own and not necessarily that of the organization.
• Tweets, blogs or other messages should not disclose any confidential or proprietary company information.

Remind employees that they can be disciplined or terminated for making online disparaging remarks about the company -- even if they're made on their own time from their own computers.
More...

Conquer the Mobile Workforce Challenge

If you've got branch employees, field workers and telecommuters who work on a variety of devices, like PCs, Macs and smartphones -- you're not alone. Your helpdesk should be equipped with the right tools to support an increasingly mobile workforce. If you're still using tools like VNC and RDP, you may be hindering both your helpdesk and the mobile employees you support.

See how easy it is to support anytime, anywhere workers with LogMeIn Rescue.  

Start Your Free Trial Now...

Star Performers Impact Customer Satisfaction
In the call center "star performers" impact customer satisfaction by bringing a high level of Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and Emotional Quotient (EQ) to each and every call. They treat every call as a "moment of truth" and another opportunity to communicate and connect with and serve those in need. Some behavioral scientists believe that EQ is just as important as IQ; yet, many call centers do not assess EQ, why?  We believe that EQ assessment should top the list of recruitment procedure in the call center recruiting for the industry.
Full Article...

The Rules of Call Center Agent Engagement
There are two types of call centers: 1) those where agents fully understand, embrace and even help define the organization's initiatives and key objectives; and 2) those that lose their agents to the call centers described in number 1. "Number 1" centers are all about employee engagement -- creating working environments where agents do not merely want to do a good job, but rather feel compelled to do a great one.
Full Article...

Training Virtual Agents - It's a Different Dynamic. Or Is It?
Today, the convergence of adult learning theories and distance learning technologies are enabling companies to create training programs that empower and engage people like never before. As more companies adopt the use of virtual training, however, it's important to realize that it's not enough to just make classroom materials available to online learners. Virtual training requires a new way of thinking about - and delivering - training. This article presents three tips based on the learner-centered approach that will help companies of all types implement a more successful virtual training program for call center workers.
Full Article...

Developing Strong Work Relationships
How do you talk about important topics with other managers whose specialty, agenda and physical location make it difficult to speak your mind freely and clearly?  Too often, distance and conflicting interests wreak havoc on candid dialogue and teamwork. As a result, peer managers end up competing for scarce resources rather than working together to contribute to the bottom line. This article presents three tips for bridging the gap that often separates departments and their managers.
Full Article...

9 Ways to Re-Energize Your Weary Workforce
At first, most workers in companies that have weathered layoffs and pay cuts are relieved to have a job at all. But then reality sets in. Employees realize they're doing more and working longer hours without the hope of a raise or sometimes even the opportunity to use earned vacation time. This article presents nine almost-free ways to light a fire under your workers.
Full Article...

44 Ways to Kick-Start Your New Year
What are you going to do now to make sure you have your best year ever? What one thing will mean the difference in actually achieving your goals rather than chalking them up to yet another year's unfulfilled resolutions? What can you do to enhance an aspect of your life that you've neglected in your single-minded pursuit of that elusive brass ring? Think about it.
Full Article...

Extraordinary Groups: How Ordinary Teams Achieve Amazing Results
by Geoffrey M. Bellman, Kathleen Ryan

In this important book, Geoffrey Bellman and Kathleen Ryan reveal that people instinctively sense when a group experience is something special, something different from the ordinary, something that surpasses their expectations in a positive, remarkable, and hard-to-describe way. These are extraordinary groups that achieve outstanding results. Members of extraordinary teams -- individually or collectively -- experience a profound shift in how they see their world. They are transformed.

However large or small, visible or intangible, such transformations happen because the group experience satisfies core needs that members intuitively bring to any group they join. Based on an extensive field study and filled with illustrative examples, Extraordinary Groups presents Bellman and Ryan's tested Group Needs Model.

For more information, or to order your copy...

More books can be found in the RecognizeServiceExcellence.com Required Reading section: http://www.recognizeserviceexcellence.com

White Paper: Best Practices for Coaching Your Support Team to Handle Anything

This white paper provides a step-by-step game plan for solving your support agents' worst nightmares, based on the author's experience in successfully "turning around" support performance, as well as current research in the psychology of how we communicate with people. In the process, you will learn how specific, procedural skills -- both for how your agents respond to customers, and how you coach your team -- can change everything about how your interact with customers, in a way that will impact both your support metrics and your bottom line.

Get the full white paper here!

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