Employee Work ethic

[Vioteck]

I manager a 25 person call center. I have constant high turn over ratio, most of my emplyees are young, not eager and party go'ers. Those seem like the only ones that stay. I have a constant problem trying to motivate them none the less have them work. One of the prolems that i see is the way they get paid. We set up Appts from lead cards that are sent out through the person's union to ther home with a letter informing them about the benifits that are already paid for through there union. The person fill's out the card send's it back to use. We call them verify the information and then tell the customer that he have to send out a Union Benifit Rep. ( insurance salesman) to deliver ther benifits and get there signature (Sales Pitch). But heres the problem. they only get paid $2.50 a appt. Then at the end of the week they get paid either Min wage ($5.50/hr) or by the appts which ever is greater not both. So some of there people make less then the people working at Mc' donals. which in turn creates people that can care less about work, or people that quit after 2- 5 days. Since I dont to control payroll this will proply never change. Now my boss wants 250 appts a night when we usally avg. 150. So my solution is this.

A ad in the paper until X amont of setters

New phone lines installed

More phones that work, or refurbish current non working phones.

7 refferal leads a week from insurance agents. For a constant lead flow.

A Sunday shift maybe 4-9

No fax or copying 4-9

Work schedule 4- 9:20

A bonus structure of appts per setter. A personalized setter goal and a bonus of 125% of goal. If they average 10 appts a night have there goal as 17, 21 appts is a small bonus

Since we already have the system installed within the next few months, be able to listen in on setters phone calls.


If anyone has any suggestion's please help me out.

Thanks

Vioteck

[Mary Jo]

There are no easy answers. The problems you listed are probably long in creation, and will take just as long to solve. First, motivation is an individual thing. However, group motivation can start with something as easy as food. Bring in pizzas one shift. With the younger crowd of employees, they want to have fun. What can you do to make the work environment more fun? Can you play soft music in the background? Games, contests, prizes?

You may be able to adjust the pay schedule if you have documentation to show to those who make that decision. Show how the current system is not working, and how your solution will bring in more money. But, you have to come up with the solution before talking to them.

Hope some of this was remotely useful. You have your work cut out for you.

[Top Rep]

Hello,

I saw your posting this morning and your experiences are fairly common on the Outbound Telemarketing side. I would agree with some previous comments that I saw. First of all, Candidate Selection on the front-end is critical. That is where you should start. Having a tracking tool (database) would be a very cost effective way to drive and manage the outbound call volume that your employees are making.

The way we look at Contact Centers is that we view the Call Center as a Garden. The Garden is made up of Roses, Daisies and Weeds. Of course all employers want to have all Roses, but that is not possible. Every World Class Organization out there has all three types of people. The Daisies usually represent 50% of the organization and this group tends to be ignored. Most of our time in management is spent usually on rewarding the Roses and Punishing the Weeds.

Furthermore, your Incentive and Motivation Programs need to be driving performance. If they are not, you need to re-evaluate the things you are doing and make the necessary adjustments. Implement incentive programs that move everyone up the ladder and operational performance and sales will continue to increase.

The problem with Incentive Programs is that typically the top 30% tend to achieve the results and most people hit their goals in the latter period of time. Implement programs where your sales people are recognized for their small accomplishments along the way to achieving the results. People will want to perform and work harder for you because the majority vs. the minority will be hitting their targets and being successful. The other benefit about this process is that people will learn how to maximize their selling skills better.

Let us know if you have additional questions.

Dan Chraska
Tamer Partners Corporation
800-500-1156
817 442-8202
www.tamerpartners.com

"Transforming The Customer Contact Experience"

[ctaylor]

There has been a lot of valuable suggetsed posted already on this thread, but let me add a couple of thoughts;
1- Your compensation plan is creating your turnover. Like any skill it takes time to achieve proficency and even long to attain mastery. 2-5 days will likely not achieve either. We all know intuitively that while practise doesn't make perfect, it certainly does make better. I would ask you to look at your best performers...how long did it take for them to get up to speed? How far above the pack are they achieving. Replicating this type of performance is what you need to focus on. Examine you stars, and chart their progress from when they joined you. this should allow you to map a 'learning curve'. Share this information with your management and ask for additional payroll dollars to compensate staff as they progress through the learning curve...call this top-up training. If you can create a path for your new staff to be as productive (and therefore as valuable to you and the company) as your stars you will see a huge turnaround in performance of the team, overall results will improve and morale issue will go away. You can't build morale in a revolving door.
2-Talent wins, always has and always will, select new staff with sucess in mind. Know the skills you are seeking, explain the learning curve and tell them how long it will take for them to attain certain compensation thresholds. As you improve your hiring and increase your talent your results will also improve.

I hope this helps. Feel free to contact me directly at ctaylor@thetaylorreachgroup.com.


Colin Taylor

[Prabhat Rao]

Hey Colin,

You can put up an incentive structure in place. You can sit with your agents and discuss their past weeks performance at the start of a new week, You can try motivating by turning their work into a contest and payouts can be cash or gift vouchers for the highest performer. Arrange for a team party once a month to increase team building. You can also put up performance chart for the whole team in a place where they see it regularly, this needs to be updated on a daily basis. Remember people work for people so maintain a very conducive and friendly environment.

[ctaylor]

Of course you must provide care and nurturing of you call center staff. You should not look or treat them as a mass of employee numbers. To look at 400 or 700 employees individually however is virtually impossible, so I suggest you view them as groups of teams. Each Supervisor heads up a Team. They need to build Trust, Conflict, Commitment, Accountability and Results focus. By empowering the Supervisor (within bounds) to lead the team you can achieve fantasic results, or at least this has been my experience.

I hope I have contributed something to this discussion. I can be reached directly at ctaylor@thetaylorreachgroup.com if I can be of further assistance.

Regards,

Colin