Category Archives: Training

Communication: Everyone’s Talking About It

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How do consumers communicate with an organisation? How do organisations communicate with consumers?

Today, consumers can talk to a brand representative over the phone, through email, and online through social networks.  But amidst all the discussions over “multi channel” customer service, whatever happened to good old fashioned face-to-face?

A large utilities firm is putting faith back in this method –equipping call centre staff with video links to create more face-to-face contact with customers – as they believe it has the power to encourage current customers to stay and lost customers to return.

But should we all be including face-to-face in our “multi channe” strategies, if it has the power to increase customer loyalty?

Perhaps examples from other industries can demonstrate the true potential of face-to-face communication, like o2.

Last Thursday, the Percepta UK marketing team attended Dunning Design’s monthly “Communications Breakfast”, hosted by o2.  They presented “o2 Ville”, a collection of innovations designed to help consumers cope with all their communication demands.  o2 Money senior partner Martyn Wallace opened the presentation with a demonstration of how many of us could begin paying for products or services using an internet enabled mobile device, rather than with a debit or credit card.  And even as one audience member questioned the speaker on the problems o2 may encounter with the battery life of such devices, most attendees seemed taken by the idea.  Tim Craven of o2 Wifi then took over the floor to explain how the organisation plans to provide dedicated nationwide Wifi hotspots, providing internet access for consumers, whatever they are doing, wherever they are.  Moreover, this would be available for everyone, regardless of your mobile network.   

Lastly, o2 Health associate Julian Rolfe introduced “Side by Side”, an innovative scheme which allows clinicians to speak to their patients hundreds of miles away, and share medical information such as MRI scans and x-rays with other medical professionals.  o2 suggests that the technology can save on unnecessary and often time consuming travel.  A pilot “Side by Side” scheme was rolled out by o2 and NHS Western Isles in 2011, and immediately made an impact to the lives of both patients and clinicians in this remote area.  Some statistics to highlight this impact include:

  • 67% of clinicians said that their ability to diagnose patients had increased
  • 80% of clinicians said that they were able to see patients sooner and with greater ease
  • Travel was reduced by 9 hours for some patients
  • Around £6500 was saved on travel throughout the trial period – and was put toward other resources
  • Patients’ satisfaction scores recorded over the pilot scheme was higher

Overall, NHS Western Isles found that service capacity had improved greatly over the trial period. 

As we left the presentation, I began thinking about how this technology could service other sectors as well as health. 

For NHS Western isles, the need for face to face communication over any other form was clear, but could it be used alongside other methods?  Could businesses begin to use such technology to reach out to their customers, and create a stronger bond? Communication, after all, is the key….let me know your thoughts on this.

Launching the Intern Scheme

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After many moon’s worth of deliberation, debate and deferment, Q4 2010 saw the arrival of our first ever company internship scheme.

The programme was ushered in, without any great fanfare or trumpet-blast, rather quietly under cover of darkness – something that we do not lack in the long winter months on our island.  I wonder if, at least in part, the low-key introduction was due to the element of uncertainty that accompanies any new venture or initiative, especially one in which we have no historical track record or experience to draw upon.

Given that the first cycle of the project is still ongoing and the available scope for discussion is wide-ranging, I have decided not to attempt to cover all aspects of the subject today, but rather make a start, and where better to start, than at the beginning? – That is to say, with the recruitment and selection…

The candidate CVs had been pooled, it was time to prep and conduct the interviews.  Given that we had no specific in-house materials, I turned to the web, admittedly finding only a relative paucity of helpful online resources compared to standard interview guidance materials and templates.

The format and the structure were a concern; it would be perhaps unfair to impose a full-blown competency-based interview or technical assessment on the candidates given their lack of professional experience and I wasn’t convinced that this rather starchy format would give them the best opportunity to showcase their talents either.  We therefore developed a fairly loose format which was a hybrid of competency-based, conversational, subject-related and off-the-wall questions.

The interviews

We spent an entire day interviewing for the two vacancies – namely social media analyst and junior consultant/ researcher.  The profile of the candidates was exclusively post-graduate and my initial fears around the appropriateness of the interview methodology were dispelled.  In the main, the semi casual interview format seemed to work and both the interviewers and interviewees were able to get a feel for each other.  The candidates were of a very high calibre and indeed we could have filled each post twice or three times over.  When it came down to brass tacks, no different from any other interview, it was a combination of the fundamentals and the little differences (or ‘magic touches’ as we call them) that decided the successful candidates for us: 

  • Results-focused
  • Initiative, attitude and creativity
  • Personality ‘fit’ – could we see them working in our professional services office?
  • Applicable skill and degree subject – were they able to communicate a passion for what they did?

Surprisingly, one of the biggest differentiators was in the area of corporate research – the question centred around how much had they researched us and to what extent were they conversant with our web-site, blog, goals, vision, values and client base?  Four to six years in academia is indeed impressive, but if the sum total of research given to winning a prospective role is a five minute skim read, then perhaps not every lesson has been learned?

I would really like to hear from you on any similar initiatives that you’ve been involved with and what your experience was.

Kenny

From Audacity to Zoho, is there a place for Social Media in Learning and Development?

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Social Media is a huge subject at the moment. More and more social networking sites pop up weekly along with new and improved ways to communicate with your “friends” by tweeting, microblogging or by simply posting on their wall for all to see.  And its not only in the personal world. Social Media has crept its way into the business world too, proving to be a hugely plausible marketing tool, ferrying companies; including Percepta, right into 21st Century technology.

Last year, I had my first real taste of genuinely how far and wide Social Media really is.  I was sat in a coffee shop with my sister, who was a bit distracted by something on her iPhone. I asked her what she was waiting for….. Did you know that University lecturers no longer call or even email to cancel classes, they tweet their instructions @ their students? No, nor did I. In fact the majority of her contact with University, aside from actual lectures, was through Social Media of some sort, whether it be essay titles and deadlines posted on the University E-room board or Lecture podcasts posted onto their RRS feed site.

It got us thinking. If there are social media tools that are useful for business operations, and if Education functions are already using social media in one form or another then surely there must be tools that would work for Learning and Development functions too. Right?

After a few clicks and a Google search or two it became clear that from the simple for example social bookmarking sites, like Delicious – where you can set up group favorites pages so that everyone has access and links to the correct and same information, to the more involved i.e. social networking sites, like Facebook - used in a way for people to share best practice, there are a multitude of ways to use social media to reach your audience on an entirely different level.

And the best thing about all of these sites? By and large they are FREE! Access to course authoring tools (Udutu), social communities, blogging, file sharing, video sharing, RSS feeds, is just a click away. There is an absolute wealth of tools that until recently I had truly never heard of. Social Media where have you been all my life?

In all seriousness though, social media has been on the periphery of business and more specifically Learning and Development for a while now:

“We are moving towards a knowledge-era model of education with large scale social networks involving complex communities and individual identity construction” Wenger 2004

Not only is it a fun and exciting new way to do blended learning, but it is an absolute necessity. For the “Net Gen” or Millennial Generation social media is their bread and butter. Chuck a folder with induction information in front of them, cue dramatic sigh and vacant stare, however sit them in front of a computer, with a blog of live experiences, a Wiki page for warranty and a Podcast on the very same induction material and you have found the key to switching them on.

So for the team in Learning and Development the door has been opened to a whole new world of tools to reach our delegates and we have already begun our exploration into how we can make this work for us.

What does the future hold? Who knows, maybe the next training session you attend will be held over your iPhone, or the next product update will be found on Facebook. One thing’s for sure, paper is a thing of the past and iPads are the future.

Roadmap For Intercultural Customer Service Management

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In today’s business world, almost every management expert knows the phrase “Think globally, act locally.” The more important questions are ‘How exactly do you behave according to that phrase in an international environment?’ ‘How are you acting locally while managing an international team including a number of nations and an even higher number of languages serving different countries, without forgetting the global aspect behind it?’ In business life, another hurdle appears when different individual cultures clash with the corporate culture of the existing team.

Those and other questions came to my mind when we took over the Belgium market. Since then, the team I am operationally responsible for in Germany consists of 55 employees, three brands, two locations, five different nations including six different languages.

So, in order to drive that piece of business into a success, I started to draft a Roadmap for Intercultural Customer Service Management which mainly consists of the following steps:

Cultural Awareness

The basis of intercultural management is awareness. Before creating an international team, you have to be absolutely aware of the fact that there might be different cultural attitudes beside the personality and human nature of each of the team members. Moreover, the target market for which you provide your service might be very specific according to its customer base or other geographical, historical, political or other environmental challenges. Try to know and understand them before you create your strategy for that market.

Cultural Management

Influenced by different cultures, the expectation of different team members of how the team should be managed might vary. American and German team members might evaluate management capabilities on the basis of brilliant results and French team members could lay higher emphasis on the efficient use of resources*. Depending on the mixture of the team, you have to learn the best way of management without forgetting that culture is just one aspect beside the personality and human nature of your team members. However, the possible different expectations of how the team managed also include presentation style or different understanding of visuals.

Culture versus Processes

If you design the right processes for each market, be aware that processes that have been developed as best practice in other markets might not work in another. This is dependent on the different type of customer culture as well as on the culture of the team. If the process doesn’t feel right for your new team and thus it does not work, you have to find the reasons and either develop your team or the original process into a new one to generate success.

Motivation, Reward and Recognition

If you want to motivate the team, but also reward and recognise them for their success, you have to act carefully according to the cultural environment. Overall, there are too many specifics for all countries to mention. However, some key aspects you should recognise are the differences in long-term orientation, power distance, individualism and uncertainty avoidance between different nations and cultures e.g. you will not motivate somebody with a low individualism by giving them feedback in public, even if it’s good feedback. Moreover, you will not easily suggest a team to take over responsibility and case management for their customers if they have very high uncertainty avoidance.

To put it in a nutshell, there is no clear or strict rule on how to manage an intercultural team in Customer Service. The basis for your progress should be awareness as it helps you to understand and base your management upon that. Using a very strong corporate culture, that is the basis of all we do at Percepta, so we have managed to create an international work environment that combines several European cultures from Germany and has been honoured with each of those services being among the best premium providers within Europe for our customers and clients.

I would love to hear from anyone who can share their own experiences of managing many cultures so please feel free to leave a comment below.

*Garatt-Gnamm, N. et. al., Efficient Managers in Cruzéby et al., Images, Cultures and Communication, SIETAR 1997, p. 118

From Contact Centre to Profit Centre in 5 easy steps

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I joined Percepta in 2000 as the business was being created after 13 years of working in the automotive industry managing costs and budgets…needless to say the transition was both strange and exhilarating! Strange because I was providing services on the other side of the manufacturer/supplier ‘model’, and exhilarating due to the company size and culture breathing life into great ideas, finding ways of turning concepts into reality quickly and innovation becoming a habit and not something just to be planned in. In my time with Percepta we’ve come up with 5 essential steps to turn contact centres into profit centres, and I’d like to share them with you today.

1. What drives the business?

So many centres are measured by average handling times, abandonment levels, average speed of answer etc but in reality those on the other end of the phone have little, if any, understanding of them. By doing something as simple as listening to the customers and what hurts/motivates the business we could find the real critical measures. These tend to be satisfaction, loyalty, saving, revenue…always something the clients and customers want to talk about in their day to day business.

One of our customer service centres uses customer loyalty as their critical measure, resulting in the team developing a whole new range of ideas on how to link the resolution of customer issues with the purchase of a new product. I suppose the question you really have to ask yourself is “is the business better off if I improve this measure”. If you’re unsure of the answer – it’s not a critical measure!

2. Critical Measurements in Service Level Agreements

Even if you can’t control them 100%, they need to be included! If you aren’t prepared to risk your neck then you’ll never change the mindsets on what’s important. This step took some gigantic leaps of faith for us and the client! We were agreeing to be measured and paid, by things we weren’t in complete control of but this has led to us feeling what our clients feel…if they suffer from a product recall or brand damage, so do we; but we work together to resolve these issues.

3. Costs

We’ve had to open our minds wide on this one and make sure we understand all the costs associated with our operations…not just the obvious ones but all the real costs too just like the financial accountants would. By doing this you begin to see how much each operation is responsible for spending and what the upside has to be to make it viable.

We took the same approach in understanding the benefits of the operation on our business and how to measure this in financial terms so everyone agreed with the calculations. Some are about money we have avoided spending…others are about the increased sales we’ve influenced, but all are in financial terms. If you don’t know the true costs and benefits the operation won’t get profitable on its own. It takes dedicated focus by everyone involved to achieve it.

4. Balance

Like many organisations we’ve balanced scorecards for almost everyone in the company, and these are used to align people to the operational objectives. The success of these is to ensure that the Critical measures are translated into the primary drivers of their success so that everyone knows the contribution that they can make overall.

Our operation in Europe proves that this system works. Every member of the operational team can tell you their contribution to the Critical Measure of Customer Satisfaction for the last month, 3 months and even six months! On top of this, they could also tell you their financial expenditure, volume and quality measures…they know when they are doing a job that’s making a difference to the business.

How many businesses do you know where everyone involved is focussed on the business benefits?

5. Success

Everyone likes to be rewarded and recognised for achievements. We have taken this and implemented it into our business, but linking it to the critical measures of business. We have a club that employees become a member of when they achieve certain levels of customer satisfaction. 75% of staff are in these and want to maintain their status and go further. By making it fun for the employees and recognising their achievement we have reinforced the importance of the measures and have made sure that on any piece of correspondence they feel they can make a difference to the customer.

How does your business go about turning their contact centres into profit centres? Or how do you go about motivating the people within your company to achieve results? Let me know your thoughts below and don’t forget to share this post with your colleagues by clicking the ‘like’ button

Making Training Work For You

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In the week that new rights for employees come into force, allowing flexible working options for training, I thought it topical to talk a bit about training and learning in the workplace – and share some of my views on why it can work so well.  And, importantly, why we believe our team shouldn’t want or have to go elsewhere to learn!

If you have been exposed to planning workplace learning at any level, you are likely aware of the many debates over how to measure a return for what you invest, how to make sure that the learning is effective and how it can make a difference to the day to day running of the business.  Many L&D Managers up and down the country spend much of their time balancing these elements as if a fine art, with some proclaiming it is not entirely possible, and others believing they have cracked it – with still more to do.

I have to admit, over six years in L&D with Percepta, barely a week went by without these points cropping up, on top of the usual design and delivery method discussions; and dealing with the one or two managers who demanded training “to make things better” without really knowing what the issues were, and then having that winge when things didn’t quite turn out as they hoped.  Training isn’t the answer to everything, but it can certainly make the difference.

We have spent a good number of years refining our business, with training at the heart of our message.  We really believed from the start that good investment in training was worth it – and (as we love to say from time to time) we were right!  Percepta had created – with plenty of thought and effort, trials and workshops – a really effective training system that worked at every level.

So how did we do it?

  • We talked – to every Manager, at every level to really understand their objectives and what a good business ‘looked like’. We also facilitated focus groups covering all employees across our business to understand what they wanted to learn, what they needed to do their job well, how they liked to learn and when they would like to do it.
  • We planned – for many days (and nights), discussing and creating a matrix of skills & competencies, roles and performance measures. We mapped each of our existing course objectives to these elements to build a portfolio of learning tools and identified where we had gaps i.e. where there were skills that were not covered in our training.
  • We sold – our plans to our customers for input.  And importantly, we gained their buy-in for our learning service.
  • We developed – every one of our programmes to meet objectives, for a variety of learning styles and each with a varying priority (based on the needs of the business and the people).
  • We delivered – not just our training, but we were able to show the improved performance as a result of our well-rounded training programmes.  Each programme measured with pre and post performance reviews and manager feedback.

You know, it did take us a long time to get this system working effectively.  And I have summarised quite simply the steps we took above.  But overall, it was worth it.  For me, as the Lead for L&D, I was able to show the business how we contributed to our collective success. Importantly, I was also able to show our excellent L&D team the difference they made each time they took our work to the customer.   For our customers, they received targeted training that would help with skills and performance and could see the difference in the people and in their results.

Our principles remain with us today, ten years later (to the very week as it happens – I can’t make a contribution this week without saying Happy 10th Birthday to Percepta). So much so, that we now take this training excellence to our partners.  It would be selfish not to.

Many businesses will likely experience a number of flexible work requests for learning.  I happen to think that much of the training, certainly where related to personal and business skills, could be offered and fulfilled in-house, or at least coordinated by the employer.  If not, then it is really important that the business understands why employees are going elsewhere.  There is nothing wrong with learning from external expertise, just so long as your employee doesn’t have to go elsewhere, to learn about someone else’s business, because you haven’t thought about it.

I could go on, as my colleagues will tell you.  But I will hand over to you and look forward to hearing and reading your views!

Take care

Alan