The term “call center culture” has become one of the hottest buzz words in the contact center industry, and for good reason. All managers want to build a scalable and successful call center with happy employees. A great call center culture is an essential part, but this is not the only ingredient you need to get the right people on your bus.
At Autopilot Reviews, we specialize in helping contact centers through our specialized feedback collection mechanism. We know the importance of attracting the right people and building a team that consists of knowledgeable, reliable agents.
We’ve reached out to Fernando Moreno, Chief Operating Officer at Graduation Alliance, and conducted an interview to find out what this organization is doing to get the most from its contact centers. Graduation Alliance specializes in helping students of all ages get the support and resources to reach their educational goals and succeed in life. As part of its services, Graduation Alliance provides over-the-phone support through a team that’s managed directly by Fernando.
With this in mind, let’s go over the key variables to help you attract quality prospects as well as Fernando’s tips on how to get the right people on your bus.
What’s the Key to Attracting the Right Prospects?
Attracting skilled and engaged prospective team members is tough in all businesses and call centers are no exception.
Happy agents are usually a direct result of a great working environment. So, if you boil it down, the one step you have to take is to create a great environment for your agents in all senses of the word.
But, there are many elements that influence the overall feel in your facility, so you should see this shift as a gradual process rather than a single step.
One big element that some call centers can leverage is the mission of the organization and the role that agents play.
“We’ve definitely had our ups and downs, but having a mission like advancing students’ lives in an academic way makes it easier to motivate agents,” says Fernando Moreno from Graduation Alliance.
While not all call centers have such a clear-cut impact on society, this shouldn’t stop managers from reminding agents of their positive impact. For example, agents at an inbound sales call center help customers find the best fits based on their needs and requirements.
As long as you know what angle to take, you should be able to give your agents a sense of professional purpose beyond working for a paycheck.
The Importance of Having the Right Company Culture
As we mentioned earlier, having a positive atmosphere in your business is essential, and this is only possible if you cultivate a positive call center culture.
Your call center culture can be defined as the values, customs, and mentality that rule your organization. This directly influences how your team members act and shapes their collective decision-making process. Additionally, a solid culture within your call center can strengthen your brand, keep agents engaged, and help you deliver higher-quality services.
“One of the keys to a great company culture is transparency towards your staff,” says Fernando. “I really believe that people want to win, I don’t think agents come in thinking ‘man, I want to be terrible today’ so I think it’s my job to show them how to win. And, the only way to do this is by acknowledging the challenges as well as the wins in terms of your team overcoming these obstacles.”
So, How Do You Get (and Keep) the Right People on Your Bus?
According to Fernando, “building up your people from the start is one of the best ways to keep your agents happy, which in turn will help you attract and keep better prospects.”
This is the reason why successful call centers support agents on two different fronts: the professional and personal realms.
On the professional front, agents should have access to various support networks that help improve their performance on the phone. Autopilot Reviews is a great example here as this tool helps collect feedback from clients and about their respective agents immediately after every call, and presents this feedback on an interactive dashboard. This resource in itself can give agents enough real-time insights to make adjustments every day, rather than waiting for feedback sessions.
Supporting agents from a personal perspective means shifting the traditional view of an employee to that of an individual. All call centers use team structures to manage agents. Fortunately, this also gives team leaders the ability to connect with agents at an individual level and foster a stronger bond.
In this scenario, agents that are at risk of leaving or underperforming are more likely to open dialogue with their managers and seek the resolution of the issue, rather than leaving the organization right away.
Moreover, some of the steps you should take to attract the right talent include:
Ensure That Agents Feel Supported Their Quest for Success
Managers want their agents to perform well, but this message can get lost and it’s the leadership team’s responsibility to ensure that every representative feels the support.
“Agents want to do well and it’s our responsibility, as leaders, to not only provide everything they need to make sure that they feel supported,” says Fernando. “We have to teach our team members how to win and make sure that they understand where the help is coming from, that the goal is to help them succeed.
“So, when you help your agents, give them everything they need, and watch them grow, man it’s amazing. Besides seeing their numbers go up, it also gives you a huge sense of satisfaction. I take the success of my agents personally, when they do well that’s awesome for me too.”
Get to Know Your Team Members
Trust is a crucial element of any successful professional call center relationship and this concept can be applied at every level. It’s the same reason why companies that outsource their call center needs make a conscious effort to send representatives to visit these facilities regularly.
But, to build trust, you have to get to know your agents and your agents have to get to know you. For Fernando Moreno, this goes beyond how he treats his team members at work.
“It’s not just how you treat them at work, but how you treat them and their families outside of the job,” continues Fernando. “The process looks a bit different everywhere, but you have to find out what it means to get to know your agents, then you’ll see what that trust-building process is able to achieve.”
From an operational perspective, this is also a great chance to create profiles of your top agents. Your HR team can work on finding out the similarities that top agents have and focusing on attracting individuals with a similar profile.
Teach Leaders How to Manage Teams
“I had an agent who I was trying to recruit for years, but she worked for a big company. She then quit in order to come over. The same company offered her a huge raise and she asked me ‘are you mad at the offer?’ and I said ‘definitely not, I’m cheering for you from the sideline’ because this was a great opportunity for her. She ended up coming back a couple of years later finally and that’s what it’s about, getting the right people on the bus.”
Just because your agents are performing well it doesn’t mean they’re satisfied with the call center leadership. Unhappy agents are more likely to hit a wall, underperform, and eventually, leave. There, all individuals in leadership roles within a call center should be trained to ensure that this doesn’t become a major issue.
According to Fernando Moreno, “the leadership effect definitely trickles down from the top, so I’m sure that having great leaders has helped us get stellar results.”
“Some managers believe that being a great leader is about getting the most out of agents, when it’s actually about helping them succeed,” continues Mr. Moreno.
Be Selective With Your Recruits
The only way to have a great team is to attract a skilled pool of recruits. But, to achieve this goal you also have to be selective during the recruitment process, even if it means making adjustments to your training schedules.
When asked about his recruitment process, Fernando says that “it’s unusual, I don’t really look at resumes as much as I look at each individual. I also like rooting for the underdog because that was me, but that’s my personal view. I think it says a lot about your prospects when they’ve overcome adversity and they are able to articulate these situations properly.”
“There are many unreliable individuals out there, so you need to surround yourself with professionals that are responsible and have ambitions,” continues Fernando. “It’s the best way to avoid a compromising situation where you’ve introduced poor matches into your team and are now struggling to make them work.”
Create a Tailored Training Process
All call centers have a unique collection of tools and processes, which means that every agent needs to be trained before performing the job. However, you shouldn’t rely on a generic training program that only focuses on teaching them how to use their tools.
Instead, you should craft a course-like training program that includes multiple stages designed to teach both skills and company culture.
“I believe that I can teach the skills needed to succeed in the different positions within our contact center to any agent. Obviously, technical careers like law and medicine require a specific type of training. But, when I see an agent that’s willing to overcome adversity and is eager to succeed, I know I can make that person achieve great things because of our training program and its structure,” says Fernando.
It’s important to understand that every call center requires a tailored approach. The type of call center also influences the training process. As a rule of thumb, products that are more complex and sales processes that have multiple steps require a longer training period, so make sure to adjust your expectations accordingly.
Offer Remote Work and Make Preparations for the Change
While the concept of working from home has been around for decades now, the call center industry had mostly relied on in-person teams up until the start of the global health crisis.
However, this global event forced a wide range of industries to shift to remote work, including call centers.
The results have been nothing but outstanding from the agents’ as well as call centers’ respective perspectives.
“Interestingly enough, I hated the idea of going remote. I never wanted anyone in my team to go remote. Ever. But, then the pandemic hit and we were forced to go remote. I ended up loving it, I spent more time with my kids, got to the projects around the hole, and still managed to keep my team motivated at a distance,” says Mr. Moreno.
“Then my team asked if we were staying remote. I told them we were never going back to the office. The only thing is that you have to make sure that everyone has the resources they need to do a great job from home. This can mean a reliable computer, fast internet connections, the right routers, time management training, and so on.”
Implement Creative Management Strategies
Big changes like adopting a full-time work-from-home setup can have a great impact, but you also have to make adjustments to prepare the rest of your call center.
For starters, you need to implement creative management strategies and help your team leaders adapt the way they evaluate agents.
“Your management style has to change because the same things you did in the office don’t work remotely. You know what I mean? In the office, I can see what each agent is doing or go over to every person’s desk to have a chat and gauge how they’re doing. That option is not available when you have a remote team, so you have to find ways to manage your team without being a micromanager,” says Fernando.
According to Mr. Moreno, teaching your managers about the changes they have to make is a good start, but you also have to give them a different set of tools. “Part of it is, do your managers have the tools to evaluate employee engagement and energy levels? Have you taught them what to do with this information? Your managers should know how to positively leverage the tools they have rather than just breathing down your agents’ necks.”
Give Agents and Team Leaders the Right Tools
One thing that all call center agents have in common is that they need the right tools to do a good job and doing the bare minimum simply won’t cut it.
To Fernando, furnishing his team with the top tools and resources is the only way to set them up for success. “You need to make sure that your agents have the tools they need and it goes beyond software. Do they have powerful computers? If having multiple monitors can help them do their job and be more efficient, that should also be an option. Many call centers only cover the basics, but you have to pay attention to detail to avoid frustrating your agents.”
“A lot of our own agents were having issues with their internet speed, so we have a technician that specializes only in web connections for our team members. If you go beyond the basics, you’ll definitely give your team more chances of succeeding.”
Appoint or Bring In Specialists to Handle Employee Satisfaction
Having a good atmosphere that’s supported by a positive call center culture is one thing, but this doesn’t guarantee that your agents will be happy or satisfied. Modern employees behave similarly to consumers in the sense that they expect more from their employers, including call centers.
“Employee satisfaction is so essential that we had to make changes ourselves. And, we were not without incident before that. I mean, we had to learn from our mistakes, we had valuable team members leave us because they were not happy. And so, what did we do? We brought in a vice-president of human resources that specialized in remote work setups,” continues Fernando.
“For us, rebuilding the culture within our contact center was a big focus last year because we wanted to ensure that everything about our identity was conducive to remote.”
Create Alternative Reward Systems
Your top agents expect more from you in every single possible way. So, in addition to making them feel comfortable, you should also develop additional rewards systems that keep them engaged or encouraged.
Most sales call centers already have commissions that are performance-based, but this new reward system should be different and depend on metrics that aren’t related directly to operations performance.
“So, we have a recognition system called Bonusly, where everyone can give each other points based on a few different things and team members can redeem these points for gift cards and so on. It’s a big deal so we make sure that we keep doing that to keep our team motivated,” continues Fernando.
Pay Attention to Small Details, Like the Onboarding Process
Top agents don’t only look for big benefits because experience has taught them that the best call centers also focus on small details.
For example, the onboarding process, which is the action of teaching new team members about the products and integrating them into the rest of the workforce.
“One thing that we started doing is that we now provide onboarding kits for new team members, which we never did, but we do that now. In the end, there is no magic bullet that will help you achieve everything, you have to learn what your reps like and work with that,” says Mr. Moreno.
Find the Ideal Balance for Your Contact Center
Creating an agent-centric is a new process for every call center, so it’s essential to find a balance between team satisfaction and performance.
“I would say the mistake that I did make last year was taking the foot off the pedal a little bit. I became so employee-centric and less focused on necessarily the results,” says Fernando. “And so I think you have to have a balance this year of trying to go a little bit more while keeping my team happy. So, this year will be a lot about the balance.”
Get as Much Face-to-Face Time with Agents as Possible
Fernando says that “just because you’re remote doesn’t mean you can’t get together. So, we started looking at where we have multiple agents and arranging visits to these locations to get some face-to-face time. If you go two years without seeing your people face-to-face, that’s a problem. It doesn’t even have to be about business either, you can go out there and take them and their families out to dinner or something like that.”
Face-to-face meetings don’t only motivate your agents, but it also invigorates their drive because it shows them that they matter to the success of your call center.
Keep Team Members Motivated
“Every time we communicate at our call center is through video, not emails or messages, because video really gets the team involved. If you start seeing you’re in a meeting and everybody has their camera off, that’s a bad sign. People are not engaged. I need to figure out what’s going on. I need to do more one-on-one sessions. And I know, I see it when people are overworked. I’ll go to these meetings and 90% of people have their cameras off. Well, I know that when they’re super engaged, their cameras are on,” says Fernando.
“Connections are extremely important. And so I think one skill that has been talked about for years is emotional intelligence. Because you have to be able to tell and feel. I’ll be on a call with a team and reach out to the manager after to say ‘I’d like you to check on that agent and look at their body language, look at what they’re doing,’ and sure enough, they’d either quit or something would come up, so you need to learn to read your cues.”
Learn Which Areas of Your Contact Center Merit the Most Attention
“I have learned to become better at identifying the areas that need my attention and choosing my battles because wasting energy is a huge mistake. It can lead to bad decisions,” continues Mr. Moreno.
“I would say as I’ve gotten older, I now understand that I don’t have to die on every single hill and I know what things I really want to focus on. I wish I would have learned it earlier, it would’ve saved me a lot of heartache and probably even gotten me results sooner if I hadn’t tried to fight every single battle.”
Remind Your Agents That They’re on the Same Team
Promoting friendly competition between your agents is a great way to boost your call center metrics, but you should avoid creating a negative atmosphere.
“You should encourage agents to take a step back in terms of their mentality and not get wrapped up in the whole corporate America competitive thing. Instead, motivate your agents to sit with you, explain what they are going through whenever they have an issue, and work together on a solution. It sounds generic, but agents actually struggle with this feeling a lot, so it’s extremely important just to remind them you’re on the same team.”
Lead By Example
According to Fernando, leading by example is one of the best techniques that managers can implement because it teaches agents while also boosting their morale.
“I like to get my hands dirty and lead by example while rewarding someone when I was a frontline manager. I say ‘right, who had the most dials yesterday? I’ll dial your students today,’ and try to get as many people enrolled. And I would kill it too, which built my team’s overall confidence.”
Finding the Tools that Give Your Team the Best Chances
As the COO of Graduation Alliance, Fernando Moreno is tasked with getting the most from the company’s contact centers while also keeping agents happy and satisfied. We hope that the insights we shared in this article allow you to build a better call center culture in your facility.
To learn more about Autopilot Reviews and how we can improve your feedback collection system, get in touch with us today.
