1. Introduction
2. Six Fundamental Principles Of Call Center Management
3. Five Styles And Techniques Of Greeting Agents When They Walk Through The Door
4. Designing A Spectacular Communication Culture
5. How Call Center Agents View The Call Center
6. Grappling With Emotions In The Call Center
7. Understanding, Creating And Initiating Agent Feedback Opportunities
8. Communicating Through Channels And Messages
9. Tips To Make Agents Successful
10. Using Class Categories To Better Manage Agents
11. Using American History To Develop Creative Communication Culture
12. Introducing Culture And Prosperity To Your Call Center
13. Unique Ways To Motivate Call Center Agents And Open Communication
14. Away From The Telephone: Creating Employee Rooms And Organizational Teams
15. The Heart Of A Call Center: Contests, Prizes and Awards
16. Career Pathing
17. Why Supervisors Forget New Agents
18. Assimilating New Agents To A Veteran Team

19. Recognizing How New Agents View Technology

20. Call Center Agents In the New Technology World

21. Creating The Supervisor's Job Description

22. Building Retention And Performance Through Successful Compensation Agreements

23. Performance Development Programs

24. Delivering Monitoring Checklists

Management must take time to analyze how call center agents view their world in order to build a world class communication culture. It’s not an understatement to say that management’s perception of the call center and the way agents view it is quite different from what agents perceive. For instance, an analyst once asked a senior executive why agents in his call center didn’t turn over as rapidly as the industry average. Retention was fantastic. The executive said "Because we provide an outstanding management team and we pay better than the competition." However, when the analyst sampled the agents, their consensus was a little different. "Management doesn’t pay attention to extra lunches, leaving early and coming in late. We go and come as we wish. Plus, at the moment, they are the only game in town."

Mediocre management looks at call centers through their own prisms. They see their world as one that can be impacted based on their decisions. They make decisions on seating arrangements, project assignments, compensation, policies and procedures, contests, etc, based on their assessments. Agents understand that management does this, and it bothers them immeasurably. In lunch meetings, break conversations and after work, agents talk to one another about how management makes decisions without bringing agents in the loop. In essence, management "makes decisions without consulting us on what is really going on."

Below, I have listed twenty-one areas with respect to the way agents observe the call center.

1. A majority of call center agents recognize that first-level supervisors have little decision-making capability. They understand that first-level supervisors are squeezed between upper management and themselves. This opinion by agents is reinforced when they receive a "no" answer from the first-level supervisor and a "yes" response from the less-exposed senior executive. Agents know that upper management makes final decisions, and first line supervisors enforce those decisions. Yet, the communication from the front line supervisor to the agents is the one the agents take most seriously. Why? Because, the front line supervisor is the person the agent has the most direct contact with. The agent receives pay raises, performance reviews and consistent interpersonal communication from the front line supervisor. The channel of communication usually stops at this level. The agent's trust and confidence are with the front line supervisor. Yet, when it comes to decision-making capability, agents understand that their supervisor is simply in parrot mode. Agents recognize that supervisors provide answers based on what they have been provided, not based on their own choices or opinions. Therefore, agents know that final decisions rest at levels above their supervisors.

Although agents see their supervisors as their main line of contact, agents will not hesitate to use their supervisors' boss to get what they need. One can see an analogy with children and their parents. A child may ask one parent if he may go to the ice cream shop. When that parent says "no", the child goes to the next parent, who now has the position of wielding more power. Because of the conditioning they received as children, agents in the call center have perceived that going from supervisor to supervisor’s boss works! They learned as kids that it works, so they use the same game in the working world. One of the great travesties of supervisor-agent management is that the higher agents go up the management ladder, the more likely some high-level executive with little knowledge of the actual situation will make the wrong decision. (How many times does parent B tell parent A, "I thought it was okay to give her the candy bar.") In so many work environments, supervisors make a decision, agents appeal above the supervisor, and the decision is repealed. Supervisors lose all credibility, and agents learn a new way to manipulate decisions in their call center. One agent told me "When I need something important done, I go above my supervisor to her manager, because he always gets it done for me." Although agents understand the quandary first-level supervisors are in, they are not sympathetic towards it. In fact, one must expect agents to exploit the decision-making ladder when supervisors make a decision which agents don’t appreciate. Also, one must expect the more savvy and veteran agents to use their supervisor's lack of power to their advantage at critical junctures. Agents are intelligent enough not to exploit their advantage every time- just when they need it. This is the communication culture that exists in thousands of call centers across the world.

2. Call Center agents who work for service agencies view the call center as

ever-changing. For instance, a very small percentage of call centers have limited turnover. Most call centers find that one of their top challenges is facing continuous turnover from their agent staff, management, and clients. Many service agencies that handle accounts for clients turn over their agents, first line supervisors and support staff faster than one could ever imagine, and in today’s world I am sure we all can imagine quite a bit. This turnover isn’t a knock on service agencies, but merely a result of a changing industry. Agents who work for large call center agencies have come to expect that clients might come and go, and, to the same degree, jobs may come and go as well. They don’t want this to happen, and they may or may not understand why it happens, but they recognize that it does happen. Therefore, agents who work for service agencies have learned not to rely on long-term commitments from management or peers or clients, because over a period of months they have probably witnessed turnover in the management, peers and clients that existed when they began their jobs. In turn, they tend not to provide long term commitments as well.

3. Agents expect compensation to change for the worse. Agents fear change

in finances. Agents believe that a compensation change is never for the better, because most call centers make compensation changes to better the business, not the agent. Certainly, changes have been instituted for the better, but agents expect the worst when a new compensation plan is introduced. If given the choice, agents by and large would value the opportunity to keep compensation steady.

4. More than anything, agents desire an appealing communication culture.

Call center agents want to work somewhere other than the boiler room next door. The world-class call center that has a world-class environment can build terrific employee retention, even when they may not pay the most, or offer the best benefits. Comfortable surroundings matter!

5. Call Center agents desire a business that has a proven track record. Make

no mistake about the fact that having proven management, guidelines, policies, and a successful track record can make all the difference in the effort to retain call center agents. Consistency is extremely important. New call centers that begin their operations correctly can display a proven track record through the people who relish their jobs. Veteran call centers that have never done their job right may never be able to show their employees a proven track record, regardless of years spent trying. This lack of consistency and success stands out when new agents apply for positions.

6. Call Centers must exceed the competition. In some cities, call centers

face fierce competition for employees. Agents hop around from company to company at the same pace as blackjack dealers move about in Las Vegas. Many agents move around for better pay, but not all. In most surveys about call center agents, more pay has never been the number one factor in job switching. A better place to work has been at or near the top. Pay is usually an addendum to that, but not the sole reason why agents job hop.

7. The call center must provide growth and adaptability. Some call center

agents want to try something new and leave companies that have zero growth. Other agents relish their positions, but would like to contribute more. Agents look for call centers that treat the employee better. The question you may have is: "Better than whom?" That answer is irrelevant. Agents want "better" versus the past experiences each individual has had at one time or another.

8. Steady management makes a huge difference. Agents dislike breaking in

new supervisors. They want to develop a strong bond with their supervisor, and starting over with a new one constitutes a setback for them. They feel the supervisor they have knows how to work with them best.

9. Agents desire fair resolutions to disagreements. In some cases, this is a

subjective request. What is fair for one may not always be fair for the other. Yet, successful firms, particularly sales firms, thrive off competition. The thing that always arrives with competition is arbitration. Management is called in to arbitrate a variety of avenues in the call center, from sales distribution and ownership to fair practices.

10. Agents desire extensive training and residual training (new hire training,

product training, sales training). One of the questions potential new hires ask in interviews is whether there is training for the position. If so, is it paid, and how long does it last. The answers to those questions provide a big commentary on the company. Call Centers that provide little or no training, or don’t pay their agents to go through training, tend to not be worthy of a quality agent's time and effort. In addition, the best call center not only trains, but provides residual training to increase an agent's skill level.

11. Agents hope for call centers that provide some opportunity to advance.

Not all agents desire to move up in the organization, or within the organization. However, basic management dictates that organizations which provide career opportunities and room to advance have a much more dedicated and strengthened work force than those organizations that don’t. In the call center, sitting on the telephone constantly can be so repetitive that the challenge dissipates. Quality agents who can contribute more than just working on the telephone need to be provided an outlet to do so.

12. Call Center agents hope their management unit will listen to and think

about problems before acting. Management can sometimes find itself reacting to issues and concerns without first taking the time to listen completely to what those issues and concerns are, and how best to handle them. For instance, agents tend to use their supervisors to vent, but they don’t want any action taken. Oftentimes, the supervisor should take a step back and say "Is this something you want me to act upon?"

13. Agents desire their call center to be "fair". This is another subjective

wish, but certainly one that holds validity. What does "fair" mean to the agent? Usually, it revolves around making decisions involving two or more agents. In many roundtables, agents will speak of how they left organizations because management wasn’t fair to agents as a whole, or played favorites with one agent over another.

14. Agents want a management team that is empathetic. All veteran agents

I have met have remained working for their supervisor because the supervisor clearly cares for them as people as well as workers. It is very challenging to find quality supervisors who are empathetic to their agents and their agents' situations.

15. Agents observe their product as it relates to the market. They want a

product that is on the "up and up". In the world of telesales, there are quite a few programs and businesses that don’t compete with their competition. There are more that compete, but not in a legitimate fashion. If an agent wants to work for one of those firms, then management shouldn’t want that agent working for them.

16. Agents appreciate a call center that maintains a balance between

discipline and flexibility. In one job I had, every agent I managed told me, a minimum of one time, that they were pleased with the fact that I would okay them to leave early if they asked. At the same time, those agents were the same ones who made sure to alert me to any extra time they took at lunch or breaks, so I could "dock" their time card if applicable. Management has the impression that agents try to "get away" with as much as they can. In some instances, that is true. However, usually agents truly desire the balance of discipline with flexibility. Similar to children, they don’t want to be given everything they have ever wanted, because they desire limits combined with fairness and empathy.

17. Agents desire rules that are clear and easy to understand. For

management, the hardest part of developing rules is that those rules may not be clear to the people who actually work with them: the agents.

18. Agents desire rules in writing that maintain consistency. I have been part

of call centers that changed the same rule over and over again. "What is today’s edict on this rule?" I sometimes asked. Inconsistency with regard to the rules and regulations of a game breeds poor players. Can you imagine a basketball player who doesn’t know whether a 3-point shot will actually count for 3 points? Or, a baseball player who doesn't realize that for this week only, there are four outs in an inning?

19. Agents desire rules that are enforced. In many cases, policies and

procedures are words with no foundation. Veteran agents have probably worked for call centers that had comprehensive rules for every issue, until it came time to enforce those issues. Then, management subjectivity came into play. A consensus among agents is that they respect rules that are enforced, even when the rule goes against them. "As long as it works both ways, I am fine with it" is a phrase I have heard over and over again.

20. Agents hope the call center employs technology that is easy to use and

convenient. One of the greatest agent fears is inability to master technology. Technology is meant to simplify work in the call center, but sometimes it adds more angst than ease to the agent's daily environment. New agents, in particular, almost always question the type of technology that exists in the call center, and how cumbersome that technology is to orchestrate.

Agents react favorably to call centers that provide games, excitement, and motivation. When agents see a call center, they see the fun. Prizes, contests, energy. If your agent walks up to you and says "We need something exciting around here," you can be sure he is tuned in to motivation.