Laying the Groundwork for Excellence

“Begin with the end in mind.”
–Stephen Covey

In his book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effec­tive Peo­ple,” Stephen Covey writes the first habit of highly effec­tive peo­ple as hav­ing a clear goal, a direc­tion, a cause that makes suc­cess­ful and effec­tive peo­ple who they are. They are goal dri­ven. They set their sights on a goal, and all plans made and tasks per­formed are aimed at it.

But how does one even begin to set goals? A good place to start is iden­ti­fy­ing what is impor­tant to you. Toward this end, you dig up your VALUES.

It is impor­tant for indi­vid­u­als to be in touch with their val­ues, but even more impor­tant for an orga­ni­za­tion com­posed of indi­vid­u­als with diverse per­son­al­i­ties, work habits and per­sonal goals to be guided by a com­mon cause, a gov­ern­ing con­sti­tu­tion to which every­one is expected to adhere. What is the organization’s rea­son for being? What does it stand for? What dif­fer­en­ti­ates it from other sim­i­lar orga­ni­za­tions? What is its MISSION STATEMENT?

All con­tact cen­ters are ser­vice orga­ni­za­tions: post– sales sup­port and cross-selling are just some of the pri­mary ser­vices they offer. But how they offer them and the val­ues they live by are what set them apart. One big word that we often see in many orga­ni­za­tions, for exam­ple, is EXCELLENCE. That is a core value. And from this core value, a mis­sion state­ment can thus be written:

“We are the con­tact cen­ter OF CHOICE because we go the EXTRA MILE. We do not stop at prob­lem solved. We do not stop when the cus­tomer stops com­plain­ing. We stop when he is DELIGHTED. We do not com­ply. We excel.”

By hav­ing every con­tact cen­ter agent ori­ented to this mis­sion state­ment and core value as early as the pre-hiring stage, an orga­ni­za­tion is already lay­ing the ground­work for goals and what is expected of every sin­gle mem­ber of the team to achieve that goal. This will also be an invalu­able mantra in get­ting every­one involved and in form­ing one cohe­sive team singing the same tune.

Another area where hav­ing a mis­sion state­ment becomes impor­tant is when it is used as a tool – a met­ric – for agent per­for­mance. List down cer­tain actions or tasks related to the core value, and look at agent adher­ence to each, with a cor­re­spond­ing rat­ing assigned to each. Example:

CORE VALUE: EXCELLENCE

RELATED TASKS:

1. Han­dles calls with proficiency.
2. Con­sis­tently able to cross sell.
3. Man­ages dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions with the proper attitude.
4. Exhibits sin­cer­ity and gen­uine con­cern for customers.
5. Attends con­tin­u­ous learn­ing programs

RATING:

• Rarely or Never
• Once in a while
• Sometimes
• Fairly Often
• Very fre­quently or Always

Dur­ing agent appraisal or peri­odic per­for­mance assess­ments, these may be valu­able tools in deter­min­ing where agents can improve on, and a good oppor­tu­nity to re-orient them to the whys of what they do and what the orga­ni­za­tion, and the cus­tomers they serve, expect of them.

Per­for­mance in con­tact cen­ters is mea­sur­able, thanks to the var­i­ous met­rics used and widely accepted by the indus­try. But it should not be for­got­ten that it is still all about ser­vice, for peo­ple, by peo­ple, and should pro­ceed with a sense of pur­pose and a clear sense of what’s important.