Friday, February 29, 2008

What Not To Wear - Call Center Dress Code

There is no one right dress code policy for call centers. What’s right for a particular call center depends upon the nature of the business, the background of its employees and even the geographic location. While more and more companies are relaxing dress code policy, many do still have definite guidelines. The guidelines often are stricter if there are occasional client or customer visits to the call center – and – there are quite a few companies who believe that dress code guidelines increase the overall professionalism and quality of its employees. I have to agree.

When I managed a small group of call center reps for a start-up web company, at first we didn’t have a dress code policy. During that period, most employees including the CEO and president of the company wore jeans and the chairman even occasionally wore shorts, t-shirt and sandals. However, as the company grew and the number of employees became larger and more diversified, the attire that employees wore to work was becoming an issue. Some of the call center reps would show up in what looked like pajamas, some in dirty t-shirts, some in raggy sweatsuits and some were dressed like they had a career “in the oldest profession in the world” like the singer in this music video.

A number of the other employees (both male and female) didn’t like it because it made them feel they weren’t working with other professionals - or - in a professional environment. Much to my surprise, the majority of the reps in my center actually wanted me to institute a dress code policy. So I did – with input from the employees. I knew what I wanted in a dress code policy, but I knew that I would get better buy-in from the employees if I solicitated their ideas and comments. I was very impressed at how much thought and consideration they put into helping me establish the dress code policy. It was still casual, yet sensible, more professional-looking and it took into account the diversity of our employees cultural, family and economic backgrounds. Was everybody happy with it? Of course not, but the majority of reps embraced it.

Most dress code policies include this list of 15 Don’ts.

Why should you give a hoot about your call center’s dress code policy? Because if you don’t it could be a career killer. Putting aside the disciplinary action that would most likely be imposed on you, not dressing appropriately for your job gives management a bad impression of you. You may just be a call center rep now – but if you want to get promoted to another position in your call center or another department in your company, then dress the part now. As much as we might not like it - Image Does Count.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Call Center Yoga

As a followup to my prior post, "Call Center Job Stress - Control It", here's a link to some more stress reducing exercises you can do at your desk. Don't get turned off if you're not into yoga. The exercises in these videos are more just simple, good stretches than yoga contortions. Even if you're not stressed, - - they're great exercises for getting rid of that aching back and neck you have after being hunched over your desk for 8 hours. Try them - and let me know if you like them.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Celebrity Call Center




A Maritz poll recently put out this question to bank customers:

Which celebrity has the ideal personality to be a call center representative?

Adfreak.com put together a recap of the results.

There's already been a celebrity Fear Factor, Survivor and The Apprentice. I say it's time now for a new reality series - Celebrity Call Center. Just think about it - celebrities having to show up on time for shifts, dealing with structured times for lunch and breaks, being monitored by QA, being mico-managed by their Supervisor on number of phone calls they handle, being berated on call after call by wacko customers - it would be brutal and great fun to watch. So, if there was a reality TV series, "Celebrity Call Center", which celebrities would you like to see be a part of it? I've put together a list of possibilities - see poll on right side of this page. What's your vote?

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Call Center Job Stress - Control It

With all there is in the world to be concerned about - the war, the economy, terrorism, global warming, your kids, your rent, your family, your health - it’s no wonder that people are more stressed than every. Then there’s your call center rep job, or, shall we call it your “stress center” rep job to bring your stress level to the extreme – if you let it.

Don’t let it. This article from Call Center Magazine talks about how important it is for call center reps to get control of stress levels.

I could compile a long list of tips to control stress - there are hundreds of websites now where you can get that information. After reviewing many lists, here are the top 7 tips that I believe are applicable and helpful in a call center job:

1. Keep a positive attitude – see my previous entry, “Change The Way You Think”.

2. Make the most of your break-times:

  • Get up and away from your workstation.

  • Don’t eat at your workstation.

  • Don’t spend your breaktime with negative, gossipy co-workers – find the positive, fun co-workers to chat with.

  • Don’t go sit someplace else – get up and MOVE. Try to do even just 5-10 minutes of light exercise such as walking outside or inside or going up & down a staircase.

  • Don’t smoke! (more about that in a future article)

3. Stretch - when you have a lull in between phone calls, stretch your body. You can get some great stretching exercises done in either a sitting or standing pose.

4. Keep Yourself Hydrated – drink water – not coffee or caffeinated drinks. Caffeine will only increase stress levels.

5. Eat Healthy Foods - snack on fruits, vegetables and nuts. Candy, chips, cookies and other types of carbohydrates will only give you a rush up of your blood sugar level and then a quick rush down. You’ll just be more stressed out with the high blood sugar level and then crave more food when your blood sugar level plummets.

6. Breath From Your Belly – when you are stressed your breath becomes shallow and you breathe from your chest. This type of breathing raises adrenalin levels which creates more stress - plus anxiety and maybe even panic. When you feel stress coming on breathe from your belly. First inhale through your nose counting to ten and then exhale through your mouth counting to ten. As you do this, place your right hand on your belly. As you inhale, your belly should distend like a balloon. As you exhale, your belly should deflate like a balloon. Repeat this at least 6 times up to 20 times. This type of belly breathing actually massages the adrenalin gland which in turn lowers the amount of adrenalin (aka Stress) that is flowing through your body. This won’t feel natural to you at first and you will most likely have to do this in between phone calls. But if you keep practicing it to the point where it feels natural, you can even do this type of breathing while talking to a customer on the phone

7. Don’t Dwell On It Or Take It Personally - let go of that nasty, rude customer - get them out of your head. Don’t take their rude, negative manner personally. If you have trouble letting it go, try this technique that one of my reps used: draw a funny picture of what you think that nasty customer looks like then crumble it up and toss them in the waste basket.

I’d love to hear if you have other good tips for managing stress in the call center - I'm sure you do. Please take the time to share - - but only if it’s not going to stress you out. ;)

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Measure Up - Your Call Center Job Performance

I know you don’t want to be call center rep forever. However don’t waste away your time as a call center rep doing a mediocre job. If you want to improve your life and move on to a better job (within or outside of the call center), then you need to focus on two primary things while you are a call center rep:
  • Make as much money as you can while you’re in the call center

  • Distinguish yourself from all the other call center reps
Simple, right? Actually it is because there is probably no other job in the world that has such clear-cut performance measures than a call center rep job. The highest paid reps and the reps given better job opportunities consistently exceed their job performance measures. The bottom line is that it costs a company a lot of money to run a call center and call center management is under a tremendous amount of pressure to manage the call center as efficiently as possible with a very tight budget. Within that budget they will allocate the largest pay increases to those reps that are the most productive with quality customer interactions.

When there are special teams formed in the call center to handle special products, special clients, etc., call center management will turn to the reps with the best job performance to fill the positions on these teams. You want to be on these special teams! Often these teams are higher paid than the general call center rep population and the type of customer interactions most likely are more interesting and challenging than the routine interactions of the overall call center. The reps on these special teams also become very familiar names with management.

So what exactly are a call center rep’s performance measures and what do they mean? Your call center management team has many measurements they monitor for the overall efficiency of the call center and I’ll go over those in a future entry. For now, there are just four that you need to be concerned with for your own good:

Talk-Time (TT) = the amount of time you spend actually speaking to a customer. The clock starts counting on this measure from the second you answer the call to the second you disconnect the customer.

After Call Worktime (ACWT) = the amount of time you spend completing work related to the phone call you just finished. The clock starts counting on this one from the second you disconnect the call with the customer to the second you put yourself available to take another call.

Average Handle Time (AHT) = Talk Time + ACWT. For example if a call center has a standard of 120 second Talk Time and a 30 second standard of After Call Work Time, then the Average Handle Time standard would be 150 seconds:

120 TT + 30 ACWT = 150 AHT

Call Quality = measure of how well you handled the customer interaction. Each call center will have their own favorite measures but most common ones are measuring your degree of politeness and professionalism with the customer, your problem solving skills and your adherence to company procedures and scripts.

Schedule Adherence = measurement of the degree to which you actually worked the hours you were scheduled. For example, if you constantly put yourself in an unavailable state (without supervisory approval) so you don’t receive phone calls, then you will have poor schedule adherence.

Each call center will have a standard for each of these measures. If your Supervisor hasn’t told you what they are – find out now! Your Supervisor should be giving you regular feedback on how you are doing with your performance measures. Work collaboratively with your Supervisor to improve your job performance measures. No, it’s not a matter of kissing up to the boss – it’s looking out for yourself and making your life the best it can be – even in a call center!