Self Improvement The Ultimate Quest

Call centers are customer service centers that receive and transmit multiple requests by telephone (and also usually by email and other online channels). These were originally introduced as extensions of telecommunications services especially for large companies with customer support needs. They provide an effective, streamlined way of providing consumers with customer and/or technical support. Many companies, including telemarketing companies, mail-order companies, and even computer dealers use call centers to provide customer support.

Typically, call centers handle fairly high volumes of both inbound and outbound calls. Inbound calls consist of consumers phoning in for inquiries, and to ask for product or service support. These calls are forwarded to skilled support staff employees, who then help to resolve the issue as quickly and easily as possible. Outbound calls, on the other hand, are usually company telemarketers promoting the company’s products and services to customers via telephone.

Dealing with customers directly is of course a very sensitive matter, and every company strives to put its best foot forward with its call centers. These centers represent, after all, one of the company’s fronts or faces to the public. Careful management is required, and this is usually performed using KPI’s and benchmarking.

This can help avoid the common complaints of customers about call centers, which include non-expert operators, poorly trained agents unable to process simple requests, long waiting times due to automated queues, scripted agents, and so on. Benchmarking is closely related to the KPI concept, and basically aims to reform an organization from the ground up by making use of new, possibly more effective practices and methods. This presupposes, of course, a working way to evaluate performance, which is exactly what KPI’s are useful for.

Some of the more obvious and common key performance indicators for call centers include the average amount of time that a call takes to resolve, or what is known as AHT (average handling time). This combines the average time that a caller waits on hold and the average time that a caller spends talking with the agent (ATT, average talk time). Other possible measures (or metrics) include the percentage of successfully resolved calls, the number of calls per hour per agent, and many more.

Careful monitoring of these indicators can help managers to build up a complete and objective picture of a call center’s performance. Specific indicators may also point to areas of the most shortcomings, which would require immediate action. It should be mentioned here that these are only sample indicators; each particular case might come with its own set of useful key performance indicators. Thorough analysis and careful selection are key to the successful application of the KPI system.

A successful call center is an invaluable asset to any company. It can ease the communication flow between customer and company. It can greatly improve customer retention and satisfaction. It can even help to resolve emerging customer service issues before they get out of hand. The proper use of KPI’s to evaluate call center performance, and thus to make the necessary management decisions, can transform mediocre centers into stellar assets.

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No matter how old, or what sex you are, you probably love getting free stuff. You’ve seen that episode of Oprah every year, where grown women lose their ever-loving minds over a pair of sandals. They might not even like the sandals they are getting. They just know something better is just around the corner.

Chances are, you can’t get a ticket to Oprah’s show, much less that particular show, as getting on there is completely random. If you’re a guy like me, you could care less what Oprah says about, well…anything. I’d still smile and take the free stuff if it was offered.

I have good news for you guys: Better things are around the corner. There is department in pretty much every corporation that has the authority to give you free stuff. It’s called “Customer Retention”. See, as a consumer, even in a contractual situation, you have the right to complain, or at least ask for a better deal. CR is the only department that has the right to grant you the free stuff.

Why in the world would a company give stuff away? Well, it cost them quite a bit in the form of marketing, reputation management, and good, old-fashioned elbow grease to get you in the first place. Marketing data suggests that it will take them 12 times as much to get you back if they lose you. If you do the math, you can see why a little hush money would be worth paying out. Why lose money, when they can break even for awhile, and then continue to turn a profit?

Let me guess, you think I am full of a foul-smelling substance? Fine. Let’s take a walk back to the ultra-competitive days of dial-up internet. Do you remember a little company by the name of AOL. What did they do marketing wise? Hmmm…I believe you dedicated a small room in your house to all those promotional install discs they sent you. Then, you signed up for your 90 hour free trial. This, as fate would have it, was exactly how long it took to download a song.

You were happy, until you figured out that everyone else received a free CD as well, and all numbers at AOL were busy. You decided to call and cancel. Here’s where CR stepped in. They said ” Oh, I am terribly sorry that you are unhappy, we’ll give you another month of our service free.” Since they were such terribly nice people, you decided to to take them up on their offer. After this month, AOL increased their ability to handle your areas call. Then they billed you at the full $30-a-month for the next 4 months. You kept forgetting to cancel. When you finally got around to it, AOL had a slightly worse, but better deal for you: $19.95 for the next three months. You eventually canceled. The CD’s kept coming, long after you switched to Compuserve, Prodigy, or even DSL. They spent tons of money trying to regain your business.

Do you believe me now? Or….can you hear me now? Ah, the customer retention gold mine, Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T. These people want your business. See, what phone companies don’t tell the general public, is that they don’t start making a profit on any customer until the very end of a two year contract. The infrastructure, hardware development, and customer support(..ha…ha) cost them quite a bit. Once they reach the end of that term, however, they just watch the money roll in. For this reason, they love it when you get sick of your old phone, and decide to become an indentured servant at the end of your first two year term. Oh, yes. More money, zero effort. Who wouldn’t love a deal like that?

Ding.ding.ding.ding….the consumer, or as like to refer to them: YOU. So, how do you get free stuff? I’ll start with Sprint, as an ideal example. Although they have been a really lousy service provider (except for their mobile broadband product), they are fairly aware of their sub-par reputation, and their customer retention is extremely attentive. How attentive? Well, let’s see. When my company mentioned to switching to AT&T, suddenly, Sprint found a way to chop off 25% of our bill. Then, they gave us 2 months(nearly $3000) of service free. “But”, you will say, “you’re a company. You have leverage that I don’t.” Alright, I’ll give you another example: I know a guy that has received a top-of-the-line phone from Sprint every single time he has asked for it. He’s just an average customer, with a line for him and his wife. This is not the the bargain basement, $30 promo phone. This is the tricked out $400 PDA, with all the niceties included.

How does he do it? With a single call. He rings up Sprint, asks for their customer retention dept., and will not speak with anyone but customer retention. This is a very important step. In fact, it’s the only step, and it is very hard to implement. Why? Nobody wants to send you to Customer Retention. Customer Retention is the place most people send you’ve spoken with first level support, and a couple of supervisors. You can skip all that junk by just requesting them in the first place. After that, you and Customer Retention just have to come to an agreement on terms. Our friend with the free PDA just gives his demands, and Sprint gives him the tracking number for his new phone. No muss, minimal fuss.

I would also state the only rule, which explains the reason for the only step: Don’t talk to people who can’t help you achieve your goal. If you don’t know it already, phone centers are divided into teams and hierarchies. They are also bound by certain rules. Do you know what their first rule is? Never offer to let someone talk to your Supervisor. Whatever you get from a company’s first line of defense, you will have to ask for. Customer Retention is way up the ladder where conflict resolution is concerned. They are the nuclear option. I repeat: Ask to speak to them FIRST.

Now, I must also state that you will have varying degrees of success with this method. Some companies aren’t as generous,are too small to offer these benefits, or just don’t care. If the company you are dealing with falls into the last category, you are better off arguing your way out of the contract, and moving on. For those who are willing to hang in there, a treasure trove of services, discounts, and flat-out awesome await.

By the way, don’t abuse this information. Don’t call just because you can, and certainly not if this your first month of service. These companies want to retain customers, not bottomless money-pits. You want a great deal and even better service. Putting them out of business will not get you either. However, if your company is not delivering these things, don’t be shy about taking your pound of flesh.

Now, go forth and reprint this article, help others get the service and money they are due. I’m going to see if Oprah has a Customer Retention department.

Kurt Hartman works hard, plays hard, fights for truth, justice, and uses entirely too many commas. His day job is as an OTR analyst for a company that sells giant otr tires. Who does that? Kurt does.

Neuro Linguistic Programming NLP is a discipline originally developed by studying and modeling the work of world-class therapists such as Milton Erickson, Virginia Satir and Fritz Perls. One of the attributes that these and any great therapist has is a deep level of understanding and communication with their client. In general we call this rapport.

One of the greatest lessons that NLP can teach us in the business world is that of rapport.

Rapport is one of those unusual talents that most everyone possesses. If you stop for a moment the next time you are in a restaurant and look round at the other tables, notice how the people are sitting. For the most part, a couple or group of people at a particular table will be sitting in a similar way, all leaning forward, or all leaning backward, hands together or more open. In any case adopting similar postures. We recognize this as a sign that those people are in rapport, even though they may not be consciously aware of it themselves.

At the same time, rapport is one of those skills, which we find extremely difficult to acquire when we don’t have it, or practice and improve when we do. Why is this, and what can we do about it?

Many books talk about rapport and how to get it. Some say that rapport is simply a case of mirroring the posture, gestures and other behaviors of the other person. However, in NLP we would say this is putting the cart before the horse, and that mirroring is the result of rapport, not the cause. If you have ever tried consciously mirroring, you may know how awkward it feels, and how it can make you feel less in-tune with the person because you are paying attention to their posture rather than to them.

Neuro Linguistic Programming tells us that rapport is an unconscious process. Let’s suppose we are sitting in a business meeting with a group of colleagues; as the group gets “into rapport”, an unconscious feedback loop is established. This is to say that each unconscious mind first joins with the group, and only then communicates that it is part of the group by adopting the group behaviors, which includes obvious external group behaviors such as posture.

The individual, who “pretends” by consciously matching group postures in this same business meeting, does not give his unconscious mind time to actually join the group mind-set. While he may appear to be a part of the group to a casual observer, the group recognizes his difference. This may lead to comments such as “I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something a little off about him”.

If this is the case, then how can we use this knowledge to begin to build better rapport with our business colleagues, customers and clients, and business suppliers? The answer is simple: get into unconscious rapport with the individual or group, and we will automatically see matching of postures and other behaviors.

There are three key things that we have to do to achieve unconscious rapport:

• Silence our internal dialogue. This will give us the space to put our attention on the group

• Become intensely and respectfully curious about the thoughts, beliefs and behaviors of the others around us

• Allow ourselves to notice the most subtle behavioral cues of our business colleagues, and clients; I would suggest their breathing.

As our attention moves from our own dialogue to the group, and as we feel that sense of curiosity, we will have unconsciously joined the group mind-set. As a result, our natural rapport skills will begin to behaviorally match those around us. As we notice the most subtle behaviors around us, we will automatically notice the larger behaviors and will begin to calibrate the level of rapport in the group, without being attached to the concept of “being I rapport”.

A great way to learn rapport is to attend a Neuro Linguistic Programming training, either an NLP Practitioner course, or a shorter workshop, such as we teach here in New York.

Shawn Carson has 20 years of business, management, sales and consulting experience with a global consulting organization. Shawn is an Neuro Linguistic Programming NLP Master Practitioner and Trainer, teaching NLP courses in New York, including NLP Practitioner and NLP Master Practitioner training.