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[T796]The Very Best People

by Mjb, Mjb

The call center industry is an ever growing industry in the Philippines. It is fast becoming the contact center location of choice in Southeast Asia. No wonder, last February of 2006, Dell formally inaugurated their new customer contact center in Pasay City, the Philippines. The first center in Pasay City already employs 1,400 people. Dell, the world's largest computer systems company, has about 25 call centers around the world. Dell was ranked the world's larget PC vendor in 2006. It had 17.1 percent share of the market, just ahead of second-ranked Hewlett-Packard Co., which had 17 percent share.

With its English-savvy population, it is not surprising why the Philippines was chosen by Dell for their call center needs and with Dell signing on, the Philippines has just scored high in its bid to ride ahead in the business process outsourcing boom.

In fact, a call center representative is one of the most sought-after and well-paid professionals in the Philippines today. Not surprisingly, contact center applications come in droves, but only a handful of applicants make it through rigorous evaluations to join the select group who are groomed to interact with clients of big companies.

In any efficient call center organization such as Dell, often the voice on the other end of the phone is the client's first and most important point of contact. The call center agent thus becoming increasingly the all-important voice of the organization. They act as a contact point between the customer and the company. They can be regarded as the builders of the company's image. Outbound call center agents have the difficult task of gathering valuable research information. Due to the importance of these agents, they should have certain competencies to perform their duties sufficiently. As such, it is of prime importance for every company to have a comprehensive training on all their call center agents or representatives.

Training in the call center can makes the difference between an agent's success and failure, the same is true for the entire center. The challenge for call center managers is finding the right balance of training among the variety of experience, talents and skills for the different agents.

Call center training aims to build relationship and find out solutions for grievances. It teaches an agent how to listen, clarify, explain, and manage conversational flow. It also helps in handling complaints, manage upset customers, redress grievances, and hold negotiations in challenging situations. Call center training helps to avoid misunderstandings, pacify customers and soothe situations. With a good call center training, it will enable agents to please all customers in any situation.

However, call center training are not for the agents alone, managers, supervisors, and other front line staff can also gain from trainings that are offered from different groups and companies. They play a key role in maximizing the team's performance. Specialized training is provided to agent supervisors in areas such as goal-setting, team-building, leadership, conflict management, providing feedback, motivation, managing customer complaints, stress management, coaching and counseling, and sales management. There are training programs that focus on culture sensitization, and provide tools and techniques to recognize positive contributions of employees towards achieving goals of the organization.

Needless to say, call center training is designed to improve customer satisfaction, increase sales revenue, raise collection rates and helps to challenge and retain the best people. Indeed, training is a necessary business investment that would determine the success or failure of a company.

As a project lead for a software development company my primary role is to facilitate the implementation of our software products with new customers in a healthcare niche market. Implementation projects are complex and often filled with unspoken expectations, assumptions and demands from customers who do not understand (or accept) the process used by our organization.

Experienced project managers are probably either smiling as they read this, or wondering “what's the big deal?” The big deal is this – unless I can, as a project manager, find the “key” to the customers and people that work on this team, projects I am responsible for will undoubtedly falter and could even fail.

Even as I write this article, I am faced with a new challenge with a particular customer that has me, admittedly, a bit stumped. This particular customer has not responded to all the “usual” tactics, approaches, instructions, or even accepted our help and assistance to collaboratively manage the implementation project. In fact, for the most part, I believe that this customer truly believes that because they have purchased our product that they literally, and wholly, own those of us assigned to the tasks. Sound familiar? I have spent a good deal of time thinking about this project and trying to identify methods and tools to use to bridge the gap with this customer. It is this quest that prompted me to return to some of my reference materials and books where I found something that I wanted to share with you. I hope you find this information as valuable as I.

One of my favorite books, and role models, is Eleanor Roosevelt. Her book, You Learn by Living, is literally packed with words of wisdom, common sense, and caring for the people in her family and public spotlight. In her day, Mrs. Roosevelt was an incredibly dynamic woman who had a profound impact on many people. She wrote about how to get the best out of people. I find these words very applicable for project managers and teams.

“If such a search is to be successful, however, you will need two qualities which you can develop by practice. One is the ability to be a good listener. The other is the imaginative ability to put yourself in the other person's place; to try to discover what he (she) is thinking and feeling; to understand as far as you can the background from which he came, the soil out of which his roots have grown, the customs and beliefs and ideas which have shaped his (or her) thinking.” (page 136)

This very simple paragraph made me sit back and take notice! Have I been a good listener to my customer and their needs? Did I truly hear them, or did I passively listen? And, have I done everything I can to put myself into their situation and try to learn and understand what their basic needs and expectations are? Do I really understand how their operations and goals have affected this project? Am I supporting the customer in their need to transition to a new system and to effect positive change and improvements to their business?

After spending some time in introspective review I find that I have probably not been as diligent as I should have been with this customer. The good news is that all is not lost and I can immediately apply these principles (and questions) to my communication and work with the customer. Realistically it is going to be harder and more complicated to “fix” any damage that has been done because of my lapse in active listening. Is it worth it to try now, when the project is almost done? Absolutely!

If you find, after reading this scenario, that you are also in this type of situation, whether it be the same industry or not, then perhaps you want to ask yourself some of the same questions I have asked of myself. Are you being a good “miner” and working with people to get the very best out of them in order to see a project or task through to a successful end? Are you being a good listener? Are you understanding of where the customer's needs and expectations are coming from? Take some time today to ask yourself these questions and to effect change in your communication and style to get the best out of people that you lead!

Article Source : Pg. 61

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Both Mjb & Michele Webb are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Mjb has sinced written about articles on various topics from Business and Finance, Writing and Panic Attacks. is an award winning call center that provides live 24x7 and 365 days call center outsourcing services for companies of all sizes and industries.. Mjb's top article generates over 368000 views. to your Favourites.

Michele Webb has sinced written about articles on various topics from Adwords, Perfumes and Marketing. . Michele Webb's top article generates over 8100 views. to your Favourites.