Call Center Management Featured Article
Tips for Improving Interpersonal Relationships in the Contact Center
One quick look at television programming, bookstores and the Internet shows that we spend a great deal of time, energy and money navigating our personal relationships. We spend much less time thinking about our work relationships. This is ironic, because we probably spend at least as many waking hours with our coworkers than we do with our families.
Relationships in the office or contact center – between managers, supervisors, executives and rank-and-file workers – are an important determination of what the office culture will be like. Will it be suspicious and tense? Supportive and warm? Fiercely competitive or cooperative? Like a family that gets along, or a family that’s always at odds?
Improve the Contact Center Culture
Contact center culture is a difficult-to-define concept, but it can often determine the quality of customer relationships, the pace of employee turnover and even the emotional health of its occupants. For this reason, call center management needs to be sure it’s cultivating a positive culture.
“In a study of what makes a manager effective, the quality of their relationships was found to make the biggest difference to their success,” wrote Mary-Clare Race for the web site Workforce. “Understand how to do relationships well and everything else becomes easier. Feedback is better received, delegation of duties becomes more straightforward and employees find it easier to cope with change.”
While a positive contact center culture is a complex metric to achieve and measure, its positive effects are obvious.
“Individuals who report good relationships with their managers are healthier, happier and have more fulfilling careers,” wrote Race. “They perform better, put in more discretionary effort, are more innovative, more resilient and more likely to stay with the organization.”
Eliminate Bullying
The number of Americans who report bullying at work is on the rise. According to a report conducted by the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, 19 percent of Americans have suffered abusive conduct at work; another 19 percent have witnessed it; 63 percent are aware that workplace bullying happens. Bullying, whether it’s from supervisors or coworkers, is one of the most common reasons employees leave their jobs. Contact center managers should have zero tolerance for any type of bullying, abuse or unwanted personal attention.
Show Appreciation
Workers whose efforts are acknowledged and rewarded stay in their jobs. This builds a more knowledgeable, stable, experienced workforce that will benefit the customer experience immensely. If you don’t already have one, build a formal structure for appreciating employee efforts and rewarding them. Be creative and ask for input from workers, so it doesn’t become one more program employees roll their eyes at.
Encourage Teamwork
Employees can do a lot for one another. Ask more experienced agents to mentor new hires, for example, or help other agents with new skills. Structure agents to work in teams, and be sure to organize some call center-wide activities that people actually want to attend. (Hint: nobody wants to stick around after quitting time on Friday.)
Strong interpersonal relationships are what build a positive contact center culture. Call center management has a responsibility to build these relationships and eliminate problems that erode the positive dynamic.
Edited by Maurice Nagle