We have heard it a hundred times, by trainers everywhere, in their training courses and seminars. Tone is everything over the phone, and you really can tell the difference over the phone when someone is unhappy.
Unfortunately, I have been on the end of some very unhappy representatives recently, but I still believe these people are a small minority in our centres. It just makes me very sad and angry at the same time. Every time they get on the phones they are damaging the businesses reputation and as well as the contact centre profession.
What disturbs me the most is that there are contact centre staff out there, who are so very miserable and do nothing about their situation. What’s worse, is what I’m hearing when I’m talking to these people. The only way I can describe it, is that they ‘suck’ their mouths or ‘tis’ me, when I ask a hard question or I request something that is obviously out of the normal scope of their role.
It’s the grumpy tone that you hear in their voice, which means you have all of a sudden turned into an inconvenience. These staff members are also the ones that put customers on hold for too long, which this is another frustration I have. Do they do it because they don’t want to speak to the customer any more than they have too?
Have you had or got one of these unhappy staff members in your team currently?
Again, I don’t have an answer to the issue, as much as we think we recruit great staff, these people sneak through. And I think I have asked the question before ‘How can we stop this type of behavior or trait getting through our recruitment processes’?
I haven’t included people that are just having a bad day, or should I? Is this the start of the end for these staff members and maybe this type of behaviour, works as a warning bell, to the staff and management that they need coaching and guidance?
My words of wisdom message: if you don’t enjoy working in a contact centre, please don’t stay around, please make a proactive decision to move on, don’t stay and be miserable. It’s not healthy for you or the business you work for and I have no doubt it brings team culture down. I’m sure any contact centre management team would be more than happy to help people move on, rather than have to performance manage staff.
My smiley message is: Thanks to all other staff in contact centre everywhere, who love the contact with customers. Who always exceed their customer’s expectation and who are happy and enjoy the role every day in the contact centre environment .
The last question is: ‘How do we clone these staff members’?