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Comments on news posted 2008-03-12 18:37:31: A Verizon DSL support representative explains the internal workings of Verizon support to the Consumerist, dishing out the metrics they have to meet. ..
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ispgeek
Premium
join:2006-02-16
Saint Petersburg, FL
| Re: I'm adding my 2 cents... While many call centers are scripted (Dell, AOL, Linksys/Cisco)...many also are not for the most part. Keep in mind that the language we call english in this country has been so destroyed by popular culture today that you can't assume that your employee is going to use the correct conversational english. In an effort to leave as much of the rap crap and slang out the customer experience employees in many cases are now scripted. Now a high quality employee will still meet all of their talking points without sounding like a robot. In fact you won't even know they're scripted (even if you try to trip them up). The biggest problem is just finding high quality staffing that want to show up every day and do their best job. It's not about the money...its about the American work ethic...it just plain sucks....especially younger people today. The last two generations are some of the laziest most gimme gimme people I have ever seen and many quite frankly are not worth what they currently are being paid.
With that said...there are many very fine people who have decided to make the call center environment their career and for them, the company and the customer...all are happy. You will know who they are when you talk to them...it will be one of the best call experiences ever...trust me.
For those companies that think it's all about metrics (and you are in a technical support environment)...forget about it. It doesn't work long term and your most valuable assets (your customer and employees) will leave you very quickly. Don't fall prey to the mid level manager hiding behind his/her metrics....failure is not in the employee but in the management's ability or willingness to accept responsibility for such and then take the appropriate steps to motivate their staff (through all reasonable means) and proper staffing. The concept "if we can just shave off another 22 seconds on each call will save us money and keep us meeting service level" is 100% pipe dream in a technical environment. Bottom line, if your customer is important to you then you will properly staff your call center and during the slower periods will make sure your staff are cross trained and then utilized in other areas of the business thus not wasting manpower hours. | |
| | | sgthomas
join:2003-02-27
Santa Monica, CA | Re: I'm adding my 2 cents... I agree with all you've said...unfortunately, the only way I can get to these 'high quality' folk is by making demands at the executive level.
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To be of words & not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds... | |
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fios rep
@verizon.net
| Re: I'm adding my 2 cents... Just a quick note. Im a verizon sales rep, if you dont want verizon to try to sell u something everytime u call here's a trick, we are suppose to ask customers if we have permission to review there accounts, if they say no, we cant offer them anything. | |
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ispgeek
Premium
join:2006-02-16
Saint Petersburg, FL
| said by sgthomas  :I agree with all you've said...unfortunately, the only way I can get to these 'high quality' folk is by making demands at the executive level. Make the demands BUT be sure to include large amounts of facts and figures to support your request. The problem today is the wrong people have executive level attention. You can get around this problem by being better than the eggheads they currently listen to (and that isn't hard to do).
For the longest time many execs have been running under the idea that there are plenty of new customers and not to worry. Well times are a changing fast (in case you failed to read the paper today). More than ever businesses need their existing customer base to remain stable (after all selling an existing happy customer an upgrade is a hell of a lot easier and doesn't require any advertising not to mention in most cases results in higher profit to the company).
How do you keep your customer happy? Simple...scroll back, read AND LISTEN to every post in this thread and then put into action what should have been there long ago and for god sakes get rid of the idiot in your ear spouting "its the metrics it's the metrics...because in the real technical support world...the only person benefiting from the metrics game is the guy hiding behind them because he doesn't know how to manage people.
I'm not saying that all performance metrics are bad....just the way they are currently being used and in the wrong environments.
Like I said in my previous posts....most good technical support organizations flirt with the metrics monster at least once or twice in their history and ALL of them dump it within a few years (The ones that want to succeed do anyway)....as for the rest the link below kinda says it all. I conducted an informal poll...the results are not surprising at all.
»www.ispgeeks.com/wild/modules.ph···&thold=0 | |
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BassRvr
@cox.net
| Call centers I have managed multiple call centers for some of the top 500 companies. The critical ingredient for any call center's success is the work environment and culture that exists. Respect and trust of the associates is a must. The people on the phones know more about what is going on with customers than anyone else. All you need to do is 'ask them'! get them involved in coming up with solutions.
When the call center leadership roll out the next 'flavor of the day' to the floor, eyes roll. But when a leader can articulate a vision that makes sense and passionately follow through, people will follow. But the leader must communicate at all levels, be accessible to people and 'listen'. Knowledge may be power, but sharing it is leadership. Not all call centers 'suck' only those that have poor leaders and whose leaders do not trust, respect or value the people who do the work. | |
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I'm adding my 2 cents...
