Adopt an effective method to develop employee engagement
Developing employee engagement in call centers often seems mission impossible. It is not easy to hire employees when work is standardized, autonomy is very limited, and time is controlled by the second.
Under these conditions, how then to :
- Build your reputation as an employer
- Attract the right candidates
- Keep the best employees
Fortunately, human resources teams today have several levers that they did not have before.
These are powerful levers that can make a big difference, to attract, engage and retain employees, and proving the organization’s performance.
Engaging Contact Center Employees: Mission Possible!
In the past, efforts to hire employees in contact centers were aimed at compensating for the standardized nature of work, the lack of autonomy, and the culture of control that prevailed there.
Human Resources teams needed to be creative and use their full range of programs to successfully attract, engage and retain employees, despite the reality of working in call centers.
They now have an additional lever, that of employee accountability and engagement.
Madness is doing the same things and hoping for a different outcome.
There is no longer a question of compensation. Instead, it’s about helping call center leaders reveal and realize the potential of their teams to maintain a profitable and sustainable customer relationship. It is often surprising that the impact of the accountability and involvement of contact center agents in continuous improvement can have: the quality of interactions improves, engagement increases, teamwork develops, changes are adopted more quickly, and collaboration with other channels is strengthened.
Employee engagement in a contact center today is a possible mission. More than that, it is a must for any organization that wants to deliver the promises it makes to its customers and employees, through its brand and employer brand.
Strategies and tactics for engaging employees in call centers
Control by the second, standardization of what agents say, the separation between those who think and those who execute have lost their raison d’être today. When they remain, they no longer serve the interests of the organizations; they are witnessing past practices and a certain inertia “This is always how things have been done”.
These include:
- Daily caucuses and regular team meetings,
- Continuous improvement activities of customer relations, processes, systems
- Co-development and mentoring processes between employees
- Greater autonomy and latitude for employees,
- New ways of measuring performance,
- Coaching processes and employee development,
- New skills for first-level managers
The magnitude of this change should not be underestimated.
To be successful, it will be useful to develop and implement a change strategy to progressively leverage team potential, build organizational capabilities, and create better results. Well orchestrated, the first successes prepare and lead to the next in a process of change that develops at the same time as the organization is transformed. This is a significant change in the way we do business that leads to sustainable improvement in results, both from a human and financial perspective :
- Higher employee engagement
- Improved retention
- Ability to attract quality candidates
- Increased business results (costs, revenues)
- Improved reputation as an employer and brand
By Guillaume Delroeux
Guillaume is President and Leader in Customer Experience Practice at Promethée Consultants and helps organizations with Customer Relationship Centres make the most of their technologies to maximize their impact and create legendary customer experiences.
