Here's What's New In Social Media Customer Service

Social media is still an immature customer service channel.

That's apparent when reading the latest Customer Experience Benchmark report from Execs In The Know and COPC, Inc. This report is the 2015 Corporate Edition and was published in 2016.

I previously analyzed their 2013 report and their 2014 report and came to the same conclusion each year. Most companies still don't get social media as a customer service channel.

Six years ago, I did my own tiny social media study. That's back when the Starbucks Twitter profile said that some guy named Brad did the tweeting. Things are pretty much the same as even back then. (Except for Brad. I'm not sure what happened to him.)

In this year's report, I did see a glimmer of hope that more companies are starting to catch on. Social media customer service is still far from maturity, but it might be entering it's adolescent years.

Below are three of the more interesting trends revealed in the report. You can also purchase the full report from Execs In The Know. It's full of intriguing insights on social media plus more traditional channels (phone, email, etc.) and emerging channels like self-service and chat.

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Trend #1: Ownership

More customer service teams are getting involved, and they're getting more resources to do it. It still isn't great. Here's the breakdown of who owns the social media function:

Customer service has sole or joint ownership of social media in 54 percent of companies surveyed. That's up from 50 percent last year.

The percentage of companies that give their social media agents training is also up, though not quite as high as it was in 2013.

Side note:

What the heck are companies doing that aren't training their employees?! I can just see those managers now.

"Hey Kayla. You're a millennial, right?! Don't all you millennials get social media and stuff? Well, you're in charge now."

I digress.

The other good news is that 60 percent of companies surveyed expected their budget to increase. Only 27 percent of companies surveyed last year planned to increase their budget.

 

Trend #2: New Channels

Twitter and Facebook remain the big dogs when it comes to social media customer service. 

There are other sites like Pintrest, Instagram, and LinkedIn that have millions of users but haven't really caught on for customer service.

However, there are a few alternative social media channels that are increasing. The chart below compares each channel's share of social media engagements in 2015 vs 2014.

Here, it's helpful to remind ourselves what constitutes social media. This is the definition from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary:

forms of electronic communication (as Web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (as videos)

What types of sites are in these three growing categories?

So, the real trick for companies is figuring out where their customers are trying to interact with them and then establishing a service presence in those channels.

 

Trend #3: Maturity Is Still Low

If something stays the same, does that constitute a trend? 

I'm going to say yes. It's important to acknowledge that many companies are struggling to serve their customers via social media. 

Just 20 percent of survey respondents felt their social media customer service was mature or very mature.

This is going to pose a problem for two reasons. First, social media volume is increasing. The survey found that social media volume increased in 77 percent of companies. 

Second, companies are struggling to keep up with this volume. I examined this 2015 multichannel study from Eptica to learn about social media response rates. 

Here's how the top 500 U.S. retailers fared via Twitter, Facebook, and email:

Yikes! Do these brands hate their customers?

Seriously, brands. I say this with sincerity and affection: If you aren't going to respond to your customers on social media (or email?!) then shut down your account. 

It's social + media. Not media. Sheesh.

Here, I suspect companies are lying to themselves. They think they are awesome when they're not. (I recently wrote about overconfidence causing service failures.) 

There are three data points that support this assertion.

First, the Customer Experience Benchmark found that improving the quality of care was a top priority for contact centers for the second year in a row.

Second, the report also found that 79 percent of companies think they're meeting the needs of their customers, but only 33 percent of customers surveyed agree.

Finally, there's Gartner's famous stat that 89 percent of companies expect customer experience to be their primary basis for competition in 2016.

It's hard to believe we're entering a new age of customer service awesome if companies aren't even responding to basic inquiries. Maybe that's why retail customer satisfaction continues to drop. 

 

One Last Trend

There's one last trend that I think explains a lot.

Take a look at Domo's 2015 Social CEO Report. They looked at Fortune 500 CEOs to see which ones had a presence on social media. 

Their sad finding is 61 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs have no presence on social media. It's hard to believe that social media will get the attention it deserves if CEOs don't understand it.

How Employee Overconfidence Causes Service Failures

Hubris created one of the funniest and saddest moments in my training career.

I had been hired to conduct customer service training for an airport parking operator. The night before the classes, I drove through some of the facilities to see whether employees were following the company's five service standards.

The results weren't good.

Only one out of five employees I visited demonstrated all of the service standards. The other employees only delivered on one or two. Most barely paid any attention to me.

I shared the overall results the next day in class. Employees were shocked. They had been convinced they were all doing it right, each and every time.

One woman was particularly upset. She asked me to point out which employees had failed. I refused because I didn't want to embarrass anyone, but she persisted.

She stood up and angrily asked, "Who was it? Who is making us look bad?"

I didn't have the heart to tell this woman that she was one of the employees I had shopped. She didn't recognize me because she had been too busy yacking with a co-worker while she served me.

This employee's overconfidence was comically bad. It was also sad that she didn't realize she was part of the problem.

Employees like this believe they're awesome when they clearly aren't. This post explores why overconfidence is a problem, how employees develop it, and what you can do about it.

The Overconfidence Problem

Overconfident employees believe service is a breeze. They think of themselves as rock stars who can virtually do no wrong.

When things do go wrong, overconfident employees are quick to blame someone else. Do any of these statements sound familiar?

  • "I'm awesome, but management doesn't have it's act together."

  • "I'm awesome, but our customers are a pain."

  • "I'm awesome, but my co-workers don't know what they're doing."

It's very difficult for overconfident employees to learn new techniques or improve their skills. They refuse to learn because they're stuck in the first phase on the learning curve, which is known as Unconscious Incompetent. 

People in this stage don't know what they don't know. It's only when you progress to the next stage, called Conscious Incompetent, that you realize you don't know something. You won't learn something unless you think you need to learn it.

The transition from Unconscious Incompetent to Conscious Incompetent is called the Magic Window because it's essential to learning. Overconfident employees rarely make this transition.

 

How Does Overconfidence Happen?

Blame the Dunning Krueger effect. 

It's a phenomenon where the less someone knows, the more they overrate their ability. David Dunning and Justin Krueger ran a series of experiments where people were asked to rate themselves on a topic and were then tested to see how good they really were. 

The only group that didn't overrate their ability was the top 25 percent. Everyone else suffered from some degree of overconfidence. The people who scored in the bottom 25 percent were the most overconfident of them all.

The explanation is two-fold.

First, people with less knowledge, skill, and ability have a more difficult time distinguishing between good and bad performances. So, your overconfident customer service employee might not truly know what a good customer service rep looks like.

The second problem is the Magic Window problem. Overconfident employees don't feel they need to improve because they already think they're the cat's pajamas.

I've run a similar experiment several times.

I start by asking members of a customer service team to rate their own ability on a scale of 1 - 5, with 5 being highest. Next, I ask them to rate the team's overall ability on the same scale. The results are remarkably consistent:

  • Individual Average: 4.0

  • Team Average: 3.0

The math doesn't add up, but that's because nearly everyone thinks they're better than the group. Just like the Dunning Krueger experiments, the top performers typically underrate their ability just a tad.

This is a big reason why poor customer service performers don't benefit from customer service training, but good ones do.

 

Overcome Overconfidence

Many customer service leaders have overconfident employees. The good news is there are techniques that can help. The bad news is not every overconfident employee wants to be helped.

Here are a few things you can try.

Start by making sure employees have a clear definition of outstanding service, called a customer service vision. You can't help them become more awesome if you can't clearly define awesome.

Next, make sure they're getting feedback on their performance. It's often helpful to give overconfident employees the ability to self-diagnose.

  1. Have them review their own calls, emails, chats, etc.

  2. Ask them to self-assess against the customer service vision.

  3. Invite employees to describe what they would do differently.

It's important to understand that some employees either can't or won't overcome their overconfidence. They'll continue to believe they're amazing despite strong evidence to the contrary.

Unfortunately, these employees might not be keepers. You may need to let them go if they are unwilling or unable to improve.

 

Resources

Overconfidence can plague everyone, from frontline employees all the way up to senior executives. 

I tackled this topic in my book, Getting Service Right. You can download a free chapter to read about overconfidence or buy the book on Amazon.

You may also enjoy this short video that describes why customer service is so hard. Overconfidence is part of the problem. 

3 Ways Effective Employee Onboarding Can Boost Customer Service

Onboarding new hires can feel like a small miracle.

They start without many of the skills they need to serve your customers. Then, in a relatively short period of time, they transform into customer service superstars.

At least, that's how it's supposed to go.

The reality can be a bit different. Managers don't always devote enough time. Employees can get lost on the learning curve. Customer service often suffers.

This post explores three ways that effective onboarding can boost customer service.

To start, check out this short video that highlights the importance of onboarding by tracking two new hires who have very different experiences.

Increased Engagement

Poor employee onboarding can negatively impact employee job satisfaction, which is a key indicator of engagement. Here's a scary statistic from Benchmark Portal's 2013 Agent Voices report:

It just so happens that the average contact center takes about three months to fully onboard it's new hires.

There are two ways to look at this. One, is onboarding is so great that the actual job pales in comparison.

This might be true. But, the other way to look at this is onboarding is so disconnected from the day-to-day realities that employees are in for a rude awakening as they transition into their new job.

A good onboarding program prepares new hires for success. It helps them become engaged with the company's culture. They become committed to helping the company succeed and feel they can make a difference.

And, it helps ensure their satisfaction rises once they've graduated from training.

 

Customer Impact

It's awkward to be served by an obviously new person.

A new employee was recently learning the ropes at my local coffee shop. The line continued to grow as each transaction took longer than average. He smiled awkwardly as he tried to swipe my credit card several times before realizing he was doing it the wrong way.

Other customers asked him questions he couldn't answer. He repeatedly had to ask another co-worker for assistance, which made it hard for this employee to connect with customers on his own.

This situation wasn't his fault. He hadn't yet been trained. He didn't yet have the skills to serve customers quickly.

It was also an unfortunate choice train him on the register during a busy morning. Every customer that day paid a small price for this employee's learning curve.

Good onboarding programs avoid this problem. They use careful timing and smart design to train employees on important skills while minimally impacting service quality.

 

Wait Time

You hire more people because you need more people to keep up with demand.

The problem is those new people take time to fully onboard and train. Customers have to continue waiting longer until that happens. 

It's not just in my local coffee shop. Think hold times in contact centers, longer lines in stores, or slower service in restaurants. Short-staffed usually equals slow service.

A good onboarding program can help fix this. It ensures new hires are trained faster and better, so short-staffed periods are kept to a minimum.

 

Design Your Own Onboarding Program

My LinkedIn Learning course, Running Company Onboarding, shows you how to create an effective employee onboarding program. Here’s a short preview:

Book Review: The Good Jobs Strategy

What do Costco, Trader Joe's, and In-N-Out all have in common?

You might immediately think of their cult-like customer following. Or, perhaps you're drawn to their great products at reasonable prices. You may even think about their reputation for outstanding customer service.

These companies all have something else in common. They invest significantly more in their employees than their competitors.

That's the core lesson from The Good Jobs Strategy: How the Smartest Companies Invest in Employees to Lower Costs & Boost Profits by Zeynep Ton. 

Investing in your employees doesn't have to come at the expense of profits. A few smart companies have figured out how to succeed by creating better jobs for their employees.

Ton focuses on jobs in retail, a traditionally low-wage industry. She also gives examples from fast food companies like In-N-Out and other industries where wages are typically low.

A good job has a few characteristics:

  • Higher than average pay

  • Better than average benefits

  • Comprehensive training

  • Predictable work schedules

  • Greater levels of empowerment

Ton explains in detail how these companies make a strategic choice to combine high-caliber employees with operational excellence.

Here are just a few characteristics of good jobs companies:

This book was an enjoyable and inspiring read. It proved that companies can become successful by truly treating employees like their most valuable asset.

You can buy the book on Amazon.

Why The Phone Is Still King For Customer Support

The phone is not dead.

Let me tell you why. Actually, allow me to gush. I recently had a customer service experience over the phone that proved why the phone is still king.

Melanie, a Verizon Wireless technical support rep, took a minor frustration and turned it into a great experience. 

She did it primarily over the phone. Yes, she used text and email too. It was a very omnichannel experience. But, the phone was the primary channel.

No other channel would have worked so well.

Read on to learn what Melanie did, why other channels would have failed, and how Verizon Wireless empowered Melanie to make it happen.

Friendly and capable phone reps are hard to beat.

Friendly and capable phone reps are hard to beat.

The Story

My day had just gotten crushed. 

A check engine light forced an unexpected trip to the mechanic. Then, my smartphone died while I was trying to set up an appointment to get the car fixed.

The phone lost it's network connection, giving me a "No Sim Card" warning. Like an estimated 57 percent of customers, I first went online to find some self-help. There were a few knowledge base articles, but none of them fixed my phone.

Time to call.

I dialed Verizon Wireless's customer service line. Pressed the number for technical support. Entered my phone number. Entered the last four digits of my social security number for verification purposes.

And then... I was instantly connected to Melanie. 

Customers like me who are angry about other things (remember my wonky car?) are typically hard to serve. But, Melanie was a saint.

She was warm and friendly. Reassuring without being patronizing. She also clearly knew her stuff as she walked me through several diagnostic steps.

We had to wait a brief moment during the diagnostic process while my phone reset itself. Melanie took the opportunity to helpfully review my plan. She looked at my actual usage and pointed out a new plan that would save me $30 per month. 

Wait, helpful tech support and I just saved $360 per year?!

It got even better. Melanie asked if it would be okay if she called back in 30 to 45 minutes to just check in and make sure everything was OK. 

Dogmatic first contact resolution adherents are cringing right now, because Melanie's follow-up call would technically be a second contact. But, to a customer, it was awesome.

She called a short while later just as promised. She happened to catch me while I was in the waiting area at the mechanic. "How is your car?" she asked, leading with empathy.

Melanie then asked a couple of questions to make sure that my phone was still working fine.

 

Why Other Channels Would Fail

No other channel could do what Melanie did. 

I tried chat before calling support because I thought chat might be faster. I was still waiting for a chat agent when Melanie answered the phone. 

Even if I had gotten through, a chat agent wouldn't be able to empathize in quite the same was as a live phone agent. And, there would be the inevitable delay as we went back and forth to run diagnostics. Once you're connected, phone is faster.

Other written channels like email, text, and social would also have failed. The starting point for those written channels would likely be to send me to the knowledge base article that I had already visited.

There would then have been a significant delay going back and forth. I doubt we would have fixed my phone so fast. I also doubt there would have been time to save me $360.

In-person would have accomplished the same result. The only problem with that is I would have to drive down to the Verizon store. That would take extra time and my car was headed to the mechanic anyway.

No, the phone was the fastest and most satisfying channel by far.

 

How Verizon Supported Melanie

There are many people who don't like the phone as a service channel.

Perhaps one reason is that many contact centers don't support this channel the right way. A 2015 ICMI study found that 86 percent of contact centers don't empower their agents.

So, saying the phone doesn't work is like watching a lightbulb burn out and declaring that all lightbulbs are dead.

Verizon does a lot of things right over the phone. They seem to hire a lot of people like Melanie. I've consistently spoken to helpful, friendly people who quickly solved my problem whenever I've had to call.

Verizon must also do some things to make sure those customer service stars don't get demotivated. After all, demotivation is a much bigger problem in contact centers than motivation.

So, here are a few things I noticed.

First, Melanie had the tools she needed to help me. She didn't have to ask me for my account information because it was already on her screen when she answered my call.

She had diagnostic tools to help her remotely figure out what was going on with my phone.

She had a database of different phone designs so she could access the specs on my particular model and tell me exactly where to find things.

And, she had the ability to schedule a follow-up call to make sure everything was working properly.

Second, Melanie was given time. She clearly wasn't trying to end the call as quickly as possible to ensure she met a draconian average handle time standard. She focused on moving things forward swiftly because we were both anxious to solve the problem, but she didn't cut any corners at my expense.

Finally, Melanie clearly had a lot of training. She was well-versed on her product, knew the right questions to ask, and knew how to ask them.

Don't get me wrong. I like other channels. And, there are a lot of companies that do phone so poorly that you feel compelled to use a different channel.

But, so long as companies like Verizon Wireless can do phone right, that will be my preferred channel for situations like this. 

How about you?

How to Use Surveys to Save Angry Customers

Companies that use customer service surveys fall into three groups.

The first is the majority. These companies just report the numbers. They don't really understand why they're surveying their customers, they just know that higher numbers are good.

Unfortunately, you really haven't learned anything if all you know is your Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) score is 85 percent one month and 86 percent the next. 

The second group uses their survey data to identify actionable insight. This group knows why CSAT moved from 85 percent to 86 percent. They also have a clear idea on how to get it to 87 percent next month.

The final group uses their survey to identify actionable insight, but they also use it to connect with individual customers.

This group knows that if 85 percent of customers were satisfied, then 15 percent were not. They want to find that 15 percent and help them before they take their business to a competitor.

This post explains how you can be a part of that third group too.

Why Yelp is (Almost) the Perfect Survey System

Take a moment to consider the beauty of Yelp.

Yes, it has some flaws that businesses don't like. The reviews are public (scary!), some of the reviews are fake (true story), and most people leave negative reviews (patently false).

Yelp also has a simple design that can give you a lot of feedback.

First, it asks customers to give a single rating. There's no convoluted mess of 36 different dimensions that will never be read or analyzed. Just one rating. One to five stars, with five being best.

Do you think people would write Yelp reviews if they had to answer 36 questions? Not a chance.

Next, Yelp asks customers to explain their rating in the comment section. The beauty of this is you can do some basic text analysis to understand why someone would give you a five star rating versus a three star rating.

Best of all, Yelp allows you to close the loop with your customers.

You can follow-up with the customer in private to (hopefully) resolve their issue. You can also respond to their review publicly so other customers know you're listening.

In many ways, Yelp emulates the ultimate three question survey. In fact, the biggest problem with Yelp as I see it is most businesses don't get enough reviews. 

 

Creating Your Own Better Yelp Model

You can easily create a survey that includes Yelp's best features.

Unlike Yelp, you will likely get a lot more responses and the results will remain private unless you choose to release your data to the world.

Here's a sample survey:

A survey like this can yield lots of useful data without burdening your customers with unnecessary questions. You just need to know how to analyze it. 

Fortunately, you can use this handy guide.

Notice the third question allows customers to opt-in for follow-up contact. This is the linchpin that can allow you to identify and follow-up with angry customers.

For example, you can set a rule that any customer who gives a rating of three or lower gets a follow-up contact. (Provided, of course, that the customer opted-in.) 

This follow-up can yield all sorts of great things:

  • You might fix the problem.

  • You might save the customer.

  • You might gain additional insight.

There's also a bonus.

One data analyst at a large company confided in me that customers who received a follow-up contact generally gave top scores on their next survey. So, closing the loop with angry customers can be really, really good for your overall survey score.

Let's not forget that our executives really do care about that score.

 

Resource

You can learn more about creating customer service surveys by watching this training video on LinkedIn Learning (subscription required).

Why Five Stars Might Scare Away Your Customers

Negative reviews can enhance your product's reputation.

That's the finding from a study conducted at Northwestern University’s Spiegel Digital and Database Research Center. The research, commissioned by PowerReviews, looked at customers' likelihood to purchase various products based upon that product's rating on a five star scale.

Unsurprisingly, they found that poor overall ratings can hurt sales. The twist was that sales can also decline when a product's rating is too high!

Here's an overview of the findings along with what this can mean to your business.

Study Results

The study looked at the relationship between consumer reviews and sales for a variety of products including lightbulbs, hair coloring, and baby food.

Each products' average star rating (1 - 5 scale, 5 being highest) was compared to customers' likelihood of purchasing the product. Theresa O'Neil, VP of Marketing at PowerReviews, explained that "Likelihood to purchase is calculated by dividing the number of purchases by exposures to the (review) page."

Here's what they found:

  • 1 - 3 stars: There is virtually no difference in sales.

  • 3 - 4.1 stars: Sales increase as ratings increase.

  • 4.2 - 4.5 stars: Sales hit their peak.

  • 4.6 - 5 stars: Sales decline slightly.

The researchers discovered that the optimal rating was between 4.2 and 4.5 stars!

The study didn't do any testing to determine the reason that sales decline slightly for products rated 4.6 stars or higher. However, the authors offer a reasonable theory.

Citing a previous study that found 82 percent of shoppers specifically seek out negative reviews, the authors believe that a perfect or near-perfect rating seems too good to be true.

Intuitively, this makes sense. 

Many people have told me that they don't trust a business that has a perfect five-star rating on Yelp. They will often look at negative reviews written about that business to get a more balanced perspective and also see how that business responds to feedback.

It makes sense that consumers would take a similar approach to product reviews.

 

Business Impact

Customer service leaders should focus on earning a positive reputation via customer reviews. Whether it's a product review on their website or a business review on an external site like Yelp, a good reputation can boost sales.

The caveat is those reviews must feel authentic.

That means customer service leaders should avoid pressuring their employees into begging for positive feedback. The term survey begging usually applies to customer service surveys, but it could apply to product reviews too.

Companies should embrace negative reviews as an opportunity to fix a problem. 

Keep in mind that a majority of customers don't complain about minor issues. And, if you do receive a complaint (or a negative review), it's very likely that many other customers don't feel the same way.

So, embrace negative reviews as a way to improve both your product and your reputation. They key is handling them properly.

I wrote this post about responding to negative reviews on Yelp and this post about using negative Yelp reviews to improve your business. Both can be adapted to handling negative product reviews. 

Ten Ways to Fix Contact Center Turnover

Attrition is the biggest contact center challenge in 2016.

That's according to this research from Strategic Contact that outlined the top contact center challenges for 2016 . You could probably change the year and the result would be the same. High turnover is always a problem in contact centers.

This post outlines ten proven ways to improve contact center attrition rates. But first, check here to run your turnover numbers and see if you really have a problem. 

You should know the answer to three questions:

  • How much does turnover cost?

  • What's your annual bad turnover rate?

  • What's a reasonable target rate for bad turnover?

These numbers will tell you how much your contact center can gain from improving turnover. They're probably the first thing your CEO or CFO will look at if you want to invest in fixing this problem.

1. Conduct Stay Interviews

Don't wait until your best agents give notice. 

Schedule stay interviews with your top employees. Consider conducting stay interviews with a cross-section of other employees too. These are interviews designed to find out what keeps your employees from leaving. (Here's a great overview from Inc. Magazine.)

The goal is to learn exactly what factors prompt these agents to stick around so you can keep doing those things. You also want to learn what might cause them to leave.

 

2. Raise Wages

A client of mine was notoriously tight fisted when it came to employee wages. He quickly changed his mind when I showed him this chart:

It showed the $12 per hour average wage he was paying his contact center agents was at the bottom end of the pay scale compared to the range for similar jobs in the area. Paying at the bottom of the pay scale created two problems:

  • His company couldn't attract talented employees at that wage.

  • Any talented employees he developed quickly left for an easy raise.

In my client's case, raising wages to $14 per hour quickly paid for itself in three ways:

  • He recruited better employees who needed less training.

  • He recruited better employees who were more productive.

  • Employees stayed longer because they were more satisfied with their pay.

 

3. Hire For Culture Fit

Let's face it - not every person will love working for your contact center.

The trick is finding, and hiring, the people who will. This might be a problem if you tend to lose a lot of agents within their first six months. 

One tool that can help you do this is called an Ideal Candidate Profile. This describes both the skills and cultural attributes that an employee must have to fit in with your contact center.

You can use this worksheet to create your own Ideal Candidate Profile.

 

4. Improve Training

Great hiring won't help you keep employees if they don't get sufficient training. Poor training programs can create turnover in a number of ways:

  • Agents never get the confidence to do their jobs correctly.

  • Agents never get the skills to do their jobs correctly.

  • The training is so bad that agents quit before finishing.

Many contact centers can reduce their new hire training time by 20 - 50 percent while getting better results if they simply adopted more modern techniques.

Toister Performance Solutions helps clients design new hire training programs, but you can also make many improvements on your own. The starting point is setting good learning objectives.

You can also read my article, 5 Ways to Train Contact Center Agents Faster.

 

5. Create Career Ladders

Many contact center agents don't view their job as a career.

It's often seen as a stepping stone to something else, or perhaps a good way to earn some money for a short period of time.

A career ladder is a defined path that spells out ways for employees to grow within your organization. For example, many contact centers have different agent tiers. A new agent can earn progressive responsibility and pay by getting promoted into higher tiers.

In other companies, agents are actively recruited into other departments. 

Whatever the case may be in your organization, creating opportunities for your agents may entice your most talented people to stay longer.

 

6. Identify Toxic Leaders

Take a close look at your turnover rate by leader. Are agents quitting certain leaders or teams at a much faster rate than others?

An abnormally high turnover rate could signal a toxic leadership style. That individual leader may benefit from additional coaching or training. Or, they might not be cut out to lead people in your company.

The flip side is also helpful. Take time to study leaders whose agents rarely leave or frequently get promoted and see if you can identify what they do differently.

 

7. Focus on Short Commutes

The length of your employees' commutes might have an impact on how long they stay.

This fascinating post suggests that 30 minutes is the maximum time contact center employees are willing to commute. The post also cited research showing that employees with a commute of 10 minutes or less are 20 percent more likely to stay with your contact center six months or longer.

There seems to be a little more tolerance for longer commutes if employees are taking public transportation.

This data suggests that contact centers should employ a hyper-local recruiting strategy, embrace more work at home options, or both. 

 

8. Empower Your Agents

ICMI released a study last year revealing that 86 percent of contact centers don't fully empower their agents.

Empowerment is closely connected to attrition. One of the things agents consistently say they dislike about their jobs is the inability to do what's necessary to help their customers.

Employee empowerment isn't easy, but you can use this guide to get started.

 

9. Stop Demotivating Agents

Contact center leaders have focused on motivating their agents for as long as I can remember. 

They try incentives, slogans, and snazzy banners. Gamification is the latest agent motivation fad. None of it seems to really work.

That's because agents don't have a motivation problem. The issue is demotivation. Agents become steadily demotivated the longer they're on the job.

Take a look at this data from Benchmark Portal:

Good agents fundamentally want to help people. Make it easy for them to do that, and they're more likely to stay. Make it hard for them to help customers, and they'll probably quit.

Here's some more compelling data about why agents don't need to be motivated.

 

10. Do A Real Engagement Assessment

Many contact centers do an annual employee engagement survey. 

Contact centers do these surveys because they understand the link between employee engagement and retention. Unfortunately, most of those surveys are a waste of time. 

The way these surveys are designed, they rarely lead to actionable changes that can take a meaningful bite out of agent attrition.

I've had success with a counter-intuitive approach that doesn't rely on employee opinion. It instead takes a hard look at the underlying processes that drive engagement.

One client used this assessment to cut their turnover by 50 percent and save $150,000.

You can do the conversation starter assessment yourself. Or, let's talk about a more comprehensive version.

 

What About Culture?

You might be wondering why I didn't suggest improving your contact center's culture.

The trick with culture is it's a pretty squishy concept. However, if you look carefully at my recommendations, you'll see that they all contribute to a strong culture.

In other words, follow these suggestions and you'll be on your way towards building the type of culture that attracts and retains talented agents.

Does Your Customer Service Team Have a Turnover Problem?

Employee turnover is a constant worry for customer service managers.

This was a huge topic for ICMI's conference advisory board, a group that gives input on programming for ICMI's contact center conferences. I serve on the board and we recently had a planning call for the 2016 Contact Center Demo and Conference. A significant portion of the meeting focused on contact center attrition.

Individual customer service leaders have been sharing this concern with me too. It's also a hot topic on the Inside Customer Service LinkedIn group.

The challenge here is separating facts from feelings. Turnover feels bad, but the customer service profession generally experiences higher turnover than other industries. 

Do you have the facts that tell you whether or not it's really a problem? And, if it is a problem, how big a problem is it?

I've put together this guide to help you find the answers to these questions.

Source: Chris Griffith

Source: Chris Griffith

How to Calculate Employee Turnover

You can start by calculating your overall turnover rate using this formula for a particular time period (one year, one month, etc.):

Employee Separations / Active Employee Count = Turnover Rate

For example, let's say you had 40 employees leave and you have 100 active employees (on average) over the course of one year. Your turnover calculation would be:

40/100 = 40%

It's also helpful to calculate your bad turnover rate. Bad turnover is when an employee is either fired or quits the company entirely. Good turnover is when an employee leaves the job for another opportunity within the company, usually a promotion.

So, your bad turnover rate formula is this:

(Employee Terminations + Employee Quits) / Active Employee Count = Bad Turnover Rate

Let's say you had 40 employees leave, but 10 of them were promoted into other positions within the company, 5 were fired and 25 resigned voluntarily. 

Your bad turnover rate calculation would be:

(5 + 25)/100 = 30%

 

Is Turnover a Problem?

Once you've calculated the turnover rate, it's time to find out if turnover is really a problem. 

Keep in mind that nearly every customer service team will experience some employee turnover. What you really want to know is whether your team's turnover rate is normal. There's two ways you can look at this:

One option is to compare your current turnover rate to historical trends. For example, you might be concerned if this graph represented your team:

But wait! That graph just shows overall turnover. Let's see what happens when we separate good and bad turnover trends.

Here, it looks like bad turnover is relatively steady, but we're doing a better job of feeding talent into the company.

Another option is to compare your turnover rate to market averages. The tough part about this approach is good data can be hard to come by. 

Industry associations sometimes publish this data based on member surveys, but it may or may not be region-specific. Your local chamber of commerce might publish this data, but it may or may not be industry-specific.

The other problem with these external benchmarks is they typically don't separate good turnover from bad turnover, so it's all lumped together.

Whatever benchmark you choose, it's fair to make some assumptions. The goal is to find a reasonable normal turnover rate that you can compare to your own turnover percentage.

You probably don't have much to worry about if your turnover rate is normal or below normal. If it's above normal, I recommend setting a goal for improvement based on the difference.

Like this:

  • Current bad turnover rate: 30%

  • Normal bad turnover rate: 20%

  • Goal: Reduce bad turnover by 33% (down to 20%).

 

Is Turnover a Costly Problem?

High turnover seems bad, but it's important to determine how much it's really costing you. Putting real dollars and cents on the issue will help you make the business case for any necessary improvements.

You can use this turnover cost spreadsheet to calculate the true cost. The spreadsheet looks at many expenses associated with turnover:

  • Training costs

  • Hiring costs

  • OT costs due to short-staffing

There's a section there for both hard and soft costs, but I recommend focusing on hard costs. Using real dollars has much more credibility with executives.

My suggestion is to run two calculations:

  1. Calculate your current bad turnover cost

  2. Calculate what your turnover cost would be if your bad turnover rate was normal

The difference between the two calculations is your potential savings from improving turnover to a normal rate.

Here's an example:

Let's say your turnover cost is $4,200 per employee. Here are the two calculations at 30 percent (present rate) and 20 percent (normal rate):

$4,200 x 30 = $126,000/yr

$4,200 x 20 = $84,000/yr

So, $126,000 - $84,000 = $42,000

This means you could save $42,000 per year just by lowering your bad turnover rate to a normal level. That's probably a figure that would get your boss's attention.

So, how do you reduce turnover? 

I'll cover some ideas in a post next week. If you aren't already, you can subscribe via email so you won't miss a post.

The Biggest Reason Why Employees Don't Do What They're Told

Jose came out to my house to replace a corroded section of gas pipe. Before starting the job, he placed a small fire extinguisher near the work space.

Jose explained it was a new safety procedure. Technicians were required to have a fire extinguisher nearby for all gas repairs.

I marveled at Jose's diligence. 

He had being doing this job for more than 25 years, yet he was following a new procedure even though his boss wasn't watching. 

Many employees, especially those with a lot of experience, find themselves cutting corners. They get set in their ways and don't like to change.

It's frustrating when employees don't do what you ask them to do. You email a new procedure or share an important customer service tip in a staff meeting but employees don't do it. At least not consistently.

The big question is why? 

In many cases, it comes down to how the task was communicated. Here's what can go wrong and how you can fix it.

Communication Assessment

Just for fun, let's do a little communication assessment.

Imagine you had to communicate a new policy or procedure to your employees. It's not overly complicated, but it's something that employees should start doing right away.

Which of the following communication methods are you likely to use?

  1. Email or other written communication.

  2. Visually demonstrate the new procedure for employees.

  3. Discuss the new procedure with employees using open-ended questions.

  4. Observe employees using the new procedure to check their understanding.

  5. Verbally explain the procedure to employees.

Most managers rely on written communication like email. They might throw in a dash of verbal communication, but they're unlikely to rely on other forms.

Here's how Jose's manager communicated the new safety procedure.

  1. He provided everyone with a written copy of the procedure. 

  2. The procedure was verbally explained in a team meeting.

  3. The explanation was aided by using a fire extinguisher as a visual reference. 

  4. Employees discussed the procedure's importance. 

  5. The manager verified that employees were following the procedure whenever he visited a job site.

Jose's manager did two things that many leaders don't. First, he used multiple methods of communication to reinforce the message. Second, he ensured that the communication was two-way, so that employees were active participants.

This may seem like a lot of extra work for the manager, but it's essential to take time to make sure employees get the message.

 

Communication Goals

Employees often don't do what they're told to do because their manager has miscommunicated the task. 

Managers should have two goals when they ask an employee to do something.

  1. Ensure understanding

  2. Gain agreement

First, you want to be sure your employees understand what you want them to do. That's difficult to achieve with one-way communication like email. 

Jose's manager used the team discussion to ensure that everyone understood the new procedure.

Second, you want to gain your employees' agreement. To achieve this goal, you often need to get employees to understand why you are asking them to do something. Once again, two-way communication is far more effective than one-way communication.

Jose agreed to follow the new procedure because he clearly understood why it was important. He'd been around long enough to know why it made sense to have a fire extinguisher handy when doing work on a gas line.

 

Additional Resources

Miscommunication is just one of many causes of poor employee performance that can easily be fixed. This quick fix checklist can help you find other root causes too.

Customer service leaders often use my weekly customer service tips to reinforce good customer service skills with their teams. The tips arrive via email, but managers augment that written communication with two-way dialogue in team meetings and one-on-one discussions.