This morning, I decided to see what the latest Google results for “Contact Centers” were. The results were a little overwhelming…Software, IVR, SaaS, Cloud Computing, Predictive Dialing, CRM, Outsourcing, Business Process Automation…just to name a few. I’ve been in the Contact Center world for 15+ years now and have watched and participated in the evolution of the technology that powers them… going from offering simple ACD Processing to now being able to automate business processes, there has been a huge leap in the technology. I personally think that Contact Centers are no longer a “cost” center; but a must have “value” center for end customers. Contact Centers are driving innovation for end customers who are more educated then they have ever been…customers want to do business-how THEY want to do business….on the phone, via email, text, web chat, etc….it’s a trend that is driving the contact center industry.

So are what are some customer impacting trends that you may want to consider?

Implementing a multi media solution to allow your customers to contact in any way they see fit…
For example: I am a “computer” person, I do 90% of my shopping on line and prefer to not speak to anyone, I am always looking for a web option that will allow me to navigate at my leisure and chat with someone if I have questions….on the other hand, my mom prefers to do 90% of her shopping in person and wants to have a person available at her disposal if she needs assistance. Having both available to your audience can allow you to retain and gain customers because you are providing the options that they value…

Allowing Contact Center agents to work from home…
This is a trend that is really starting to pick up momentum. With technology today, you can manage, train, score and assist agents from a remote location. A lot of times companies can get a higher quality worker for lower cost because you are providing them quality of life benefits by working from home. It’s also a great incentive plan to entice employees to provide higher quality of service and be more available to your customers.

Contact Center Consolidation…
This probably doesn’t seem like a trend, but it truly is….with VoIP, software and CRM products available Contact Center Managers are strategic about opening a new center independent of others. Consolidation of agents based on geography, skills, language, time of day etc can all be overcome and save you a lot of money. Don’t be afraid of taking advantage of technology….

Automating Contact Center Processes…
Business Automation is a trend that is continuing to transform Contact Centers. This solution can take a simple manual process and automate them, making them more efficient and ultimately providing more value to your customers. For example: Time Sheets…you can now take a weekly time sheet, fill it out, and process it through payroll without anyone moving or emailing it to multiple people. It’s about building rules and responsibilities in an automated way so processes are not let behind and/or not completed because someone. Not only can this reduce costs but it can improve customer service as well.

Again, in the past, Contact Centers have been “cost” centers and companies didn’t feel they were driving business…Today, that has completely changed. Contact Centers are areas of business that are driving solutions, trends and change….its exciting to be in this world.

I recently traveled to the windy city on an overnight business trip. After I checked into my hotel room I was astonished to discover that the room had unique breath mints that were designed to match the trendy hand soap. As a marketer, I appreciate the time and detailed effort that goes into building brand equity and the thought behind delighting customers. I was amazed. They had gone above and beyond what I expected from my hotel room… or so I thought…

You see, I had been told that the internet was free to the Hotel’s patrons when I checked in. Well, when I logged on, the hotel’s WiFi sign-on screen told me that there would be a $10 fee charged to my room. Slightly perturbed, I picked up the phone to call the front desk to find out if I had to pay or not. It rang, and rang, and rang… for a very – very long time. Finally, someone picked up the phone with a disgusted sounding voice and asked me what I needed… I asked about the WiFi cost and was told that any fees would be refunded. So, then I proceeded to log on, which was successful. Then I went up to the floor that the conference was being held on and opened up my laptop only to find out that the table I was sitting at didn’t have and WiFi coverage…

The point is, even though they had marvelous breath mints, the hotel miserably failed to deliver on the two things that mattered most to me, prompt service from their staff and the WiFi that I needed to take care of business.

Are you investing in the things that truly delight your customers?

For a small business, knowing what’s happening in your storefront, warehouse, or parking lot at all times can make all the difference in your company’s physical and financial security. In the past, securing your company with video surveillance would have been a daunting, and expensive prospect. But with today’s technology, small businesses can easily and inexpensively implement physical security systems to protect their businesses and employees.

The most common applications for video surveillance systems include:

• Deterring theft and vandalism in your building or parking lot
• View arriving or departing guests at office entrances
• Collecting evidence in the event of theft or vandalism
  • Reduce risk of liability by providing a record of everything that occurs in the workplace
  • Simplify incident investigation by making it easy to jump to any date and time
  • Enhance operational effectiveness by allowing business owners to directly supervise multiple locations from anywhere
  • Add to peace of mind by allowing business owners to receive alerts of any problems and view real-time surveillance video from anywhere
  • Reduce operational costs of supporting separate surveillance and business application networks
  • Improve profitability by providing a tool to understand customer behavior and traffic patterns

An IP video surveillance system operates over the IP network that is already in place and delivers features far beyond what conventional closed-circuit television systems can provide. This also provides tremendous flexibility, ease of installation, and reduces cost.

Cameras: There are a wide variety of high quality, relatively inexpensive cameras today, which provide a lot of flexibility in placement and the areas covered. Business owners can choose camera models with pan, tilt and zoom capabilities. This allows remote monitoring from virtually any angle, providing a cost-effective alternative to deploying multiple fixed cameras. Additionally, some camera models have sensors that can provide excellent image quality even in low light conditions. For ease of installation, there are wireless cameras, or Power over Ethernet (PoE) wired cameras.

Remote accessibility: With an IP video surveillance solution, users can access real-time video from any Internet-connected PC or mobile phone at any time, allowing them to monitor and respond to alarms in real time. They can also receive automatic alerts (including video clips or still images) whenever motion is detected on the premises after hours. Owners can virtually manage the business’s security and  operational efficiency from anywhere, at any time.

Advanced application support: IP based video surveillance solutions include cameras with integrated speaker output and microphone for two-way audio, and input/output ports to support a variety of applications. Customers can link the video surveillance system with door sensors, motion sensors, alarms, lighting systems, phone systems, or virtually any other business system.

Installing an IP video surveillance system can make the difference between saving your assets and risking burglary, vandalism, or employee theft.

A modern-day case study of disruptive change is happening in the legal field and it’s happening right now. And, the rest of the business world should be watching to see how the strong firms survive.

A few major changes have had a major impact on their profitability:

Competition and the Economy: When the economy started slowing and law firm clients began tightening their purse strings, then the laws of supply and demand started kicking in. We haven’t even mentioned the increase in competition. The combination of less clients and more competition has had a dramatic affect on the industry leading to some interesting pricing tactics and a growing importance on efficiency.

The Billable Hour: A quick Google search on the term will bring up phrases such as “Billable Hour Under attack,” “Kill the Billable Hour,” well, you get the idea. The key point is that law firms utilize highly educated resources and used to completely bill them out at an hourly rate. The billable hour type of system didn’t promote collaboration or efficiency because the clients where happy to flip the bill for that inefficiency.  Not any more… the world is changing.

My prediction on what is likely to happen is that commodity type legal services that are easy to standardize and turn into repeatable processes are going to become more of, well, a commodity (reminds me of the fate of travel agents). However, firms that offer highly specialized services and are known for their execution of those services will be able to stave off the competitive forces for a while longer (there are still highly profitable, specialized travel agents in business). Going forward, it will be important to understand the financial impact that even a small percentage of flat rate services will have on law firm profitability.

Efficiency: If your firm offers more of the commodity type legal services, applying lean manufacturing principles and utilizing technology to facilitate collaboration and automate processes is a no brainer. But, if you are in a highly specialized field, you may be asking yourself if you need to go down the efficiency road… This is why I believe so. After the commodity type firms figure out how to squeeze their costs out of their legal services, they will be looking for growth opportunities, (which could be in your field) especially if you bill at a high rate.

We are working on some exciting projects with a few firms helping them squeeze more efficiency and insights out of there communications systems. An example of a few of these projects would be automatically logging time spent on customer calls by integrating phone communication information with all of the back office billing, accounting, and CRM systems. Not only does this help keep track of all of the billable hours spent with clients, but it also gives greater insights into the cost behavior of delivering those services. With those insights, it can help firms determine how to start delivering flat rate services… profitably.

Admittedly, I get up at a ridiculously early hour of the morning…so early, that it’s always dark when I get up.  This morning, as I got out of bed, I noticed blinking lights.  It took me a minute, but I realized that my husband’s smartphone had a green light blinking on his nightstand, and mine had a red light blinking on my nightstand.  I almost laughed out loud as I looked at the two of us with cell phones next to our bed – blinking – demanding our attention (at 4:30 in the morning!).

Today’s technology is powerful in its ability to help us stay in touch with our colleagues and our customers.  I spend my days helping our customers implement this technology to make improvements in their businesses.  I love what I do and I love what our technology can do for them.

However, there are times when you need to hit the pause button- for you and your customer’s sake…the blinking light letting you know that there’s another message for you to deal with…the blinking light asking for your attention…the blinking light demanding your response.  Where is the escape from the blinking light?  I’m not sure I have an answer in this hectic, 24/7 world we live in today. However, at some point today, I’m going to set my status to busy and take a few moments to prepare for the next blinking light.

How about you?  Does the blinking light on your cell phone or desk phone drive you?  Perhaps, some food for thought….

Why vision isn’t a four-letter word BUT your most valuable tool for achieving IT success.

I was reading the book The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes & Posner the other evening and happened on a particular chapter that resonated with me, it was on vision.  Yes, vision.

It is a word that causes many to quiver. If you don’t believe me, take out a piece of paper and write down what you believe your organization’s vision is in 35 words or less. Then, if you are really brave (or naïve), go ask your manager to do the same and then compare notes. If your manager can articulate a vision (nine times out of ten they won’t – that statistic was determined through the completely unscientific method of asking 20 of my peers if they could articulate a vision for their organization) then I’ll bet my lucky penny that your vision doesn’t match your managers.

Here is the opportunity for IT.

Vision is critically important if you are in IT. Technology is being revolutionized at a logarithmic rate (yes, even marketers like me can get a little geeky)… in fact, it’s evolving at a faster pace then just about everything else (if you exclude legislation). If you don’t have a vision for your IT department, you won’t be able to execute in the long run. And, since technology can be one of the greatest points of differentiation over your competitors, your organization depends on YOU getting it right.

If you are in IT and don’t have a vision for your department, it’s time to get started and set an example for the rest of the organization.

If you don’t know where to begin in creating your IT vision, Kouzes & Posner have a few suggestions and questions that will help you start uncovering it.

Imagine the Possibilities: “The greatest achievement of the human brain is its ability to imagine objects and episodes that do not exist… The human brain is an ‘anticipation machine,’ and ‘making future’ is the most important thing it does. –Daniel Gilbert. Start imagining!

Reflect on the Past: Research reveals that if we look to our past before we look to the future, we will actually be able to visualize farther into the future (the Janus Effect).

Attend to the Present: You have to think strategically first before you think tactically. Outline the over encompassing plan before digging into the details.

Prospect the future: “Leaders need to spend a considerable time reading about, thinking about, and talking about the long term view. Not only for their specific organization, but also for the environment in which they operate.” (Kouzes & Posner)

Feel Your Passion: It ain’t enough to know it, you have got to believe it with every part of your soul…

Find a Common Purpose: It’s not enough for you to believe it with every part of your soul… so does everyone else. If they don’t, it won’t happen, period.

Listen Deeply to Others: One of the most important steps in uncovering what the common purpose really is.

Determine what’s meaningful to Others: Kouzes & Posner mention four things that make employee work meaningful:

1)    A chance to be tested, to make it on one’s own

2)    A chance to take part in a social experiment

3)    A chance to do something good

4)    A chance to change the way things are done

Make it a cause for commitment: This pretty much sums it up. “People commit to causes, not to plans” (Kouzes & Posner)

Be forward looking in Times of Rapid Change: IT is changing at an unprecedented pace; don’t forget to look beyond your present situation. That is really the essence of a vision.

If you take the time to develop an IT vision for your organization, then you will set your organization up to go places that it didn’t think was possible.

We’re well under way with one of our largest Avaya-Nortel IP telephony deployments.  200 pallets of equipment later, containing over 7,500 IP telephones; 200 Ethernet switches and enough racks and power backup units to fill over 45 telecom closets.

We’re racking and stacking and beginning the equipment build-out in preparation to start the programming of the IP telecommunication system and redundant core data infrastructure.

We have the green lights in most of the grey cabinets which means all systems go for the next phase of the project.

We are basketball crazy in Indiana…and especially this time of the year.  Indianapolis will have the privilege of hosting the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four this year.  We’ve all done our brackets and we are cheering for our team.  It’s a fun time of year.

Recently, CPI was named as one of Indiana’s Best Places to Work.  I’m really proud of our team.  This is a great place to work.  My ideas are valued, my input is considered, and I’m empowered to make decisions on behalf of my customers.  It was exciting to have our team recognized with some cheering.

How about the team in your contact center?  Are you cheering for them?  In my mind, the most important role for a contact center leader is not budgets or facility or technology…it’s creating and cheering for a great team.  Lots of people say their people are their greatest asset, but do they put that in action?  All over the country during “March Madness,” people in arenas are screaming like crazy as young men and women put basketballs into baskets.  What can you do to cheer like crazy for your team as they put the “basketball” of great service into your customer’s “basket”?  Go have a pep rally with your people today!!

The Avaya-Nortel WLAN 8100 series is getting ready to go through a fairly significant architecture overhaul over the next couple of years. This new architecture is going to enable end-users to achieve up to a 300mb throughput over the 802.11n standard. This is a drastic improvement over current wireless speeds and will allow many more sophisticated enterprise applications over the next couple of years.

The current bottleneck in the WLAN 8100 is actually in the wireless controller itself.  The way it works now is that the wireless controller has a data component that requires all wireless data to pass through the physical controller itself. This constraint runs into bandwidth problems that can cause the speed to fall drastically depending on the amount of wireless traffic that has to go to the wireless controller.

Avaya will be evolving the architecture over the next couple of years to incorporate the data processing capabilities that are currently only available in the wireless controller itself into the core and edge switches. This is a significant change that will allow the core and eventually edge switches to process the data without having to send it all the way to the controller itself—effectively speeding up the throughput of the entire wireless network. The control (security issues, AP profiles, etc.) of the access points themselves will be maintained by the wireless controller.

Avaya-Nortel WLAN 8100 product roadmap

Avaya-Nortel WLAN 8100 product roadmap:

Phase 1: Will be launching the Avaya-Nortel WLAN 8100 series Wireless products.

Phase 2: Will incorporate the data processing capabilities into the core switches

Phase 3: Will incorporate the data processing capabilities into the edge switches

For those who have purchased Nortel’s OEM wireless product line from Trapeze, you may be wondering what is going to happen to you existing equipment. We are please to tell you that Avaya renewed Nortel’s contract with Trapeze and they will continue to sell and support that product line.

Last week on March 3, I had the opportunity to go and listen to the Avaya-Nortel integration road show in Indianapolis. A majority of the information was presented at a very high, vision oriented level, but their vision of future communications is important to understand. For those of you who couldn’t attend, I thought it would be beneficial to recap what Avaya said about their current situation.

What is Avaya’s market focus? Avaya has decided to organize “their” marketplace into three segments: Small Business, Midsize, and Enterprise. This is a much more simplified approach than in years past where they focused on a multitude of specific niche industries. i.e. healthcare, financial services, hospitality, and on and on and on.

Around those three market segments, Avaya will be focusing in on the following four services.

-       UC – Unified Communications

-       CC – Call Center (now referred to as “Context Center” by Avaya)

-       Data – Their portfolio of data equipment that Avaya acquired through the Nortel acquisition

-       Professional Services

The size and scope of Avaya^N

-       Currently Avaya is in 55 countries

-       2100 Employees, approximately 5500 employees hired from the Nortel acquisition

-       4000 Global business Partners

-       32 Global Support Centers

Financial insights:

Since Avaya was privatized in 2007, customers and partners have had very limited insights into the actual profitability or financial integrity of Avaya. At the road show Avaya revealed a few financial metrics that our friendly CFO’s would appreciate…

-       52% gross margin

-       EBITDA is 22% in 09

-       Currently have 692 Million in the bank

Common vision:

Avaya shared that Nortel had a common vision encompassing:

-       A History of Reliability

-       Expertise

-       Communication Innovation

-       Both companies survival of: the regulation and deregulation of communications

-       Both Nortel and Avaya went through the communication technology transformation and arrived at the same place: Analog –> digital –> IP –> Sip

After sharing the history and information on the acquisition, Avaya went on to share their vision of future communications.

Where it’s all going:

-       If it doesn’t already, work will go everywhere with you and it has created a blur in the market place. Believe it or not the trend didn’t start with the iPhone or Blackberry it began with voicemail… think about it.

-       Mindset difference in future management for sure

-       Consumer driven expectations of doing everything on one device

Avaya’s job as communications innovation has changed:

The big thing in communications today is the fact that we are integrating telephony with back-office applications and it requires a lot of custom development. In the near future it will take “weeks in steady of months” and companies will more readily be able to reap the benefits.

The next big thing according to Avaya is going to be persistent contextual communications.

Avaya will be focusing on delivering:

-       “plug and play” communications

-       Powered by SIP

-       Delivering CEBS – Communication Enabled Business Solutions. (Think assembly line for the office)

-       Enabling Effective Contextual Collaboration

• Federating outside of individual companies up and down the value chain to power capabilities such as presence and collaborative conferencing features.

Obviously, Avaya talked about future product roadmaps and one of my colleagues has put together a helpful presentation on the future and availability of specific Nortel Products.

http://blog.commprod.com/avaya/91/

My last blog post looked at the power of a simple candy jar in putting out the welcome mat to your co-workers.  This time I want to look outside to your relationship with your customers by telling you a true story.

Recently, I had to take a business trip to Dayton, Ohio.  Because my meeting started early on Monday morning, I drove over on Sunday evening.  The Dayton Marriott is located right next store to our client’s office, so that’s where I stayed.  We had our meetings on Monday.  While I was inside the building, a snowstorm moved in outside!  By the time my meetings were over, it was obvious that trying to drive home was not going to be safe.  I returned to the Marriott to wait out the snow.

Tuesday morning, I headed out to begin cleaning the snow off my car.  There were two employees of the Marriott in the parking lot carrying brooms.  The one gentleman greeted me at my mini-van.  I told him I had a big snow brush in the car – he could go help other folks.  Before he left, he said, “well, let me get this part because this is the worst!”  With that, he swept the broom across the roof of my car over the driver’s side door.  Now, I could get into the car without six inches of snow falling in to the driver’s seat!

As I drove home, I thought about that simple service provided by the hotel staff…unbelievably thoughtful in my book!  What did it cost them?  Yes, they paid some wages for that “non-hotel” work.  And, for sure, they ruined two brooms!  However, where do you think I’m going to stay the next time I’m in Dayton?  That’s right, at the Marriott!  I was blown away that a business would do something like that for their customers.

The Disney people talk about making magic for their guests.  I don’t know what the Marriott people call “brooming the snow” – but it was magic in my day…an unexpected delight that will bring me back for more.  That’s the power of the broom.

Questions for today: are your front-line people empowered to bring delight to your customers?  What obstacles can you “broom” out of the way to make it easier for the employees to keep customers coming back for more?

Technology is a beautiful thing and it can help your company be more efficient, productive, organized and profitable – BUT it can also alienate your customers.

Think of all the times you’ve called the doctor’s office, the cable company, insurance claims, car dealers, etc.  I’m sure you’ve seen hundreds of examples of irritating technology.  Don’t be tempted to do the same thing to your customers. If you follow the tips outlined below, you’ll be able to avoid the annoying pitfalls that plague so many other companies:

1. Your automated attendant is the “front door” to your company. Make sure it’s user friendly. The first place to start is with the person who does all the recordings. Choose someone with a pleasant and friendly voice.  I don’t mean “commercial quality”, just not a whiny, nasal or monotone voice.  It presents a negative image.
2. Don’t even think about trying to route every possible call type that comes in (for example, press 1 for….press 5 for…..press 9 for…..).  People don’t have that long of an attention span and by the time the 4th choice is offered, they’ve stopped listening and forgot which option to pick. Choose the top 2 or 3 things that people call for and route those.
3. DO NOT provide lengthy broadcast messages for your greeting. When someone calls your company they are prepared to talk, not listen, so chances are they aren’t even hearing the information you’re trying to provide anyway. Besides that, it’s boring, it’s irritating and people don’t want to waste their time listening to it, especially if that isn’t what they called about in the first place!
4. If your company gets a lot of repeat callers, try to avoid changing your menu all the time. Repeat callers learn the short cuts and when you change them all the time, you’re just making it harder for them to conduct business with you.
5. ALWAYS provide a way for callers to exit your automated attendant or voice mail to reach a live person. Maybe none of the options you’ve offered on your menu will solve their problem, and sometimes callers really do need to talk to someone right now, so give them a way to transfer to a real live human being, even if they have to wait in queue first.
6. If you’ve implemented technology that expedites call routing and handling by having customers enter information (phone number, account number, etc.) before the call is transferred to an agent, then make sure it works properly so that when the call is answered, the agent has the requested information and the customer doesn’t have to repeat it. Don’t waste their time!
7. Don’t make callers give you their name, rank and serial number just to make an appointment (think doctor’s offices, field services companies).   If I’m a new patient/client/customer, I first want to find out if you’ve got a date that works for me, I don’t want to give you all my pertinent information before I even find out if I’m going to see you.
8. If a caller has to wait in queue before being answered, let them know an expected wait time, so they can decide if they want to wait or not. Don’t force them into voice mail or to call back. And if they do choose to wait, please provide something for them to listen to so they know they haven’t been disconnected. What it is doesn’t matter as much as that it not be repetitive. If a caller has been on hold five minutes and has listened to the same message that’s only 30 seconds long repeated 10 times, it gives them the perception of waiting much longer. Also, be careful how frequently you provide the “thank you for waiting message”. Every 20 – 30 seconds is far too often.
9. Avoid routing service calls to a voice mailbox. People typically call for service because they want it right now, not whenever you get around to calling them back. Having to go to voice mail makes callers feel their business isn’t that important to you. If it absolutely cannot be avoided, check that voice mailbox religiously and make sure you return calls within an hour ideally, or worst case, the same business day (but that’s only acceptable if you’ve set that expectation in your  greeting , for example “….all calls will be returned before the close of business today.”).

The bottom line is, before implementing new technology or processes, have several people in your company give it a test run. Not just to see if the technical aspect is in good working order, but really try out the “user interface”. It’s been a successful implementation when it makes it easier for your customers to do business with you, and that’s really the whole point.

Today, Communications Products, Inc is proud to announce the achievement of the Avaya Gold Business Partner status. The Avaya Gold certification is an industry recognized designation that indicates that CPI has met rigorous criteria to ensure superior technical competency and the ability to deliver best-in-class customer service and support. CPI designs, engineers, and implements Avaya telecommunication systems to businesses and the federal government across the United States.

Communications Products, Inc. has been successfully implementing advanced, mission-critical communication solutions for nearly three decades. CPI specializes in engineering, implementing, and maintaining advanced business phone, contact center, and structured cabling solutions for customers worldwide. With an unwavering commitment to the success of their customers, CPI has been chosen to solve the most challenging communication questions by many Government agencies and industry-leading businesses.

My 9-year old son wants a dog.  I had a bad experience with a dog once before and I want to be sure this time is different.  I picked up a couple of books from our local library by Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer.  I’m so glad I did!  I’ve learned so much (and can see what I did wrong in the previous bad experience with the poor dog).  Interestingly, I’m also seeing lots of parallels from what I’m reading to the work I do in call centers.

One of Millan’s books is Be the Pack Leader.   He explains that dogs by nature are pack animals.  As the owner of a dog, it’s our job to be the leader of the pack for our dog.  Millan contends that dogs want to follow their pack leader.  So, if you’re the “pack leader” of a contact center, how can you transfer these concepts to leading your team?

Here are my ideas:

1. Help people see where they’re going.  Dogs follow their pack leader for all direction in their lives.  In my opinion, vision is the most essential thing you provide your staff.  Why are they doing what they do?  How do they connect excellence in handling a phone call in your center with success of your business?  Give them a reason to come in to work and leash themselves to a desk with their headset each day.  When they see where they’re going, they’re more excited to follow.
2. Communicate through your energy.  Millan challenges dog owners to lead their dogs with “calm-assertive” energy.  It’s positive energy for the dog.  What positive energy to you communicate to your center?  I’m amazed at the times I come into a contact center and the leader is complaining about “stupid customers,” or “annoying policies.”  That negative energy filters through your staff into calls with those customers.  I’m not saying you can’t have a bad day (you are human after all).  Challenge yourself to actively portray positive energy in all of your interactions directly with your staff.
3. Exercise!  No, I don’t mean hitting the gym.  Millan talks about the importance of exercise with your dog – taking a walk together every day.  You – the pack leader – should be taking a walk with your pack every day, too.  Do you come to work, head for your office, sit behind your desk and wait for the problems to come to you?  Challenge yourself to go walk the floor of your center.  Stop and talk with your “pack.”  Get to know them as individuals.  Building that relationship will pay great benefits over the long run.

Question:  what’s one thing you can do for your pack of followers today?

As I write this, Indianapolis is Super Bowl crazy.  The Indianapolis Colts are preparing to play in the National Football League’s Super Bowl XLIV.  There are posters around town that say “Believe” and there are lots of fans who do Believe in their team.

That got me thinking…as a contact center leader, I’m responsible for a team.  We may not be shooting for the Super Bowl, but every day we have contact with our fans (i.e. our customers).  How does my team respond?  Do I believe they could be Super Bowl bound?  Are there winners on the phone with our company’s customers?

In The 8^th Habit, Stephen Covey writes, “Leadership is communicating to people their worth and potential so clearly that they come to see it in themselves.”  As the coach of my team, how am I communicating their worth to them?

Do I walk through my center every day to say hello?

Do I give them the opportunity to earn increasing amounts of responsibility and to experience greater success?

Do I let them run with ideas and take a risk on trying something new (especially new things that I didn’t think of)?

We can look at our favorite sports team making a run at a championship and Believe (and have lots of fun for the season).

Question for the day:

What have you done today to show your team that you Believe in their Championship Run?