Change thought for the day: “Home agents – if you’re not doing it, do it. If you are doing it, it’s time to expand it. All of the excuses to not do it are gone.”

Customer service thought for the day: How many of you encourage customers to call your center? Don’t we generally look for ways to direct people to our IVR, website…some form of self-service? We want to avoid the more expensive phone call, right? Zappos puts their 800 number on every page of their website because they WANT you to call them. They say that every phone call is 3-5 minutes of uninterrupted time with their customer. How’s that for a paradigm shift for you?

How do you turn talent into successful performance? That is a challenge for the leader of any organization. I know we all certainly deal with it in our contact centers. According to Garrison Wynn, our staff members need to know they’ve been genuinely listened to and heard. That connection – taking the time to genuinely listen, forms the foundation of your influence as a leader. The act of listening to your staff builds trust for you. That trust then enables you to lead your group through change and other challenges. Don’t you think that sometimes we look for a fancier or more difficult solution? It’s not any more complicated that this – listen to your people. By the way here is one quote I especially liked from Mr. Wynn’s talk: “If you criticize other’s ideas too much, they’ll never use your ideas, no matter how good they are.”

If you’d like to see more of what’s happening at the conference, go to www.contactcenter2011.com/live.

First, there has been LOTS of talk about social media and what we should be doing with it in our contact centers. Over and over though, I keep hearing one theme – Customers are saying, “give me consistent answers across all channels.” Your phone calls, emails, facebook posts and tweets need to all support the same message. That’s easier said than done given that the channels don’t always belong to the same part of an organization. I don’t have the secret key to this challenge. I’m hearing that it’s something we’ve all got to be aware of and work to figure out for our organizations.

Second, we all have agents in our organizations. Most of us have some type of quality program to help measure the work those agents do. I heard something today that really made me think – “QA is really brand management.” Think about that for a minute. Your QA staff listens to what your company (i.e. your agents) says to your customers hundreds of times a month. How would you change your QA form if you wanted to measure how well your contact center is supporting your company’s brand? That was a paradigm shift for me!

Finally, on the technology front, it’s always interesting to talk about new tools folks are using to improve their contact centers. Here was a bullet that really jumped off a slide at me today: “Proactive outbound calling is the hot new differentiator.” Hmmm…do you offer this to your customers?

If you’d like to see more of what’s happening at the conference, check out the website www.contactcenter2011.com and click on the “Live” box.

I arrived at the Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville, Tennessee to attend the Contact Center Association 2011 conference. I came in one day early so I could visit with friends and family. Unfortunately, I had a terrible cold and a very bad case of laryngitis. I could not talk above a whisper. My sister and I were having dinner at one of Opryland’s restaurants. Our waitress, Paula, could not help but notice my plight – she had to lean over to hear me order dinner! After she took our order, she returned to the table with a mug filled with warm water, honey and lemon. She said, “I thought this might help your throat.” I was blown away that someone would care enough to do such a kind thing (and it did help my throat!!). But, Paula wasn’t finished. As we were finishing up our meal, Paula came back with a “to-go” cup and lid. Inside, she had put more honey and lemon. She said I could use the coffee maker in my room to add hot water to the cup to drink before I went to sleep. I was truly astonished. What an amazing thing to do. As I’ve reflecting on the experience, I’ve identified three things that made it happen:

First, Paula took time to see me as a person. Now, someone with laryngitis so bad they can’t talk above a whisper might stand out a bit to a waitress, but she could have just gone on with her night. Her “job” was to get food to my table. She went beyond her job…to Paula, this was a relationship, not a transaction. She went much deeper than the business at hand (getting food to my table) and met a much greater need for me.

Second, she took time to take the extra step. Paula didn’t stop with one mug of medicine for my throat – she made me two! It didn’t take her long, but it was clearly “above and beyond.” She was motivated to do a little bit more to make a difference for her customer.

Third, she works for an organization that approves of extra effort. Clearly, Paula is a caring person. But just as clearly, Paula works in a culture that rewards taking the extra step. We can probably all think of an organization where a manager would have yelled at Paula for giving away the honey and lemon. Instead, for the price of the honey and lemon, the organization made a huge statement. They mean it when they say, “we are committed to meeting your desires and exceeding your expectations.” They allow people like Paula to succeed.

Hopefully, the crazy early-spring weather hasn’t given you a cold and laryngitis. However, the next time you see honey and lemon, ask yourself, “Am I building a culture that would allow the ‘Paulas’ of my organization to astonish our customers?”

What other things do you think contribute to creating astonishing experiences?

This statewide survey and awards program was designed to identify, recognize and honor the best places of employment in Indiana, benefiting the state’s economy, its workforce and businesses. The 2011 Best Places to Work in Indiana list is made up of 34 companies in the small/medium-sized list (15-249 employees in the United States) and 36 companies in the large-sized list (250+ employees in the United States). CPI has been named one of the Best Places to Work in Indiana for 2011.

Cliff Arellano - CPI President and Founder Receiving an Award for one of Indiana's 2010 Best Places to Work.

- Have at least 15 employees working in Indiana;
- Be a for-profit or not-for-profit business or government entity;
- Be a publicly or privately held business;
- Have a facility in the state of Indiana; and
- Must be in business a minimum of 1 year.

Companies from across the state entered the two-part process to determine the Best Places to Work in Indiana. The first part consisted of evaluating each nominated company’s workplace policies, practices, and demographics. This part of the process was worth approximately 25% of the total evaluation. The second part consisted of an employee survey to measure the employee experience. This part of the process was worth approximately 75% of the total evaluation. The combined scores determined the top companies and the final ranking. Best Companies Group managed the overall registration and survey process in Indiana and also analyzed the data and used their expertise to determine the final rankings.

CPI will be recognized and honored at the 2011 Best Places to Work in Indiana Awards Dinner coordinated by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, May 5th. The final rankings will be announced at the event. In addition, all ranked companies will be featured in the May-June issue of the award-winning BizVoice® magazine.

Up to now, most organizations are working toward “unifying” their own internal communications to take advantage of a number of strategic benefits (increased efficiency, higher customer satisfaction, etc.) However, in my opinion, one of the biggest communication innovations on the horizon is unifying communications up and down our value chains (suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and eventually consumers themselves).

You are probably asking why? Let me explain:

Lessons learned from another discipline:

Many years ago, built on the concepts of Six Sigma and Lean process improvement, manufacturers began realizing the value of JIT (just in time) principles.

What is JIT?

Imagine that you ran an assembly line that puts together computers. A JIT process would deliver a new hard drive from your supplier to your person on the assembly line at the precise moment that it needed to be installed on the new computer.

Think about the implications of JIT… First, it completely eliminates the need to keep any inventory of hard drives (envision the cost of purchasing and storing 100,000 hard drives). Second, if there is a change in customer demand (bigger hard drives for instance) you are stuck with the inventory that then has to be sold at clearance prices.

You can only imagine the amount of coordination it takes between suppliers, manufacturers, and resellers to achieve JIT processes. In some cases it actually led to the suppliers and manufacturers building their factories right next to each other.

Ok, enough about JIT… What is the corollary for unifying communications throughout your value chain?

In just the same way that JIT principles eliminate “waste” in the manufacturing process, unifying communications throughout the value chain could eliminate a lot of the wasted communication delays that impede projects, anger customers, and cost organizations tons of money.

In today’s age, collaboration, coordination, and speed (on a global scale) make up the foundation for building a competitive advantage in the marketplace… and… as the complexity surrounding your products and services rise – the ability to quickly mobilize all of your resources up and down your value chains (suppliers, manufacturers, resellers) quickly and efficiently could be the difference between success or the logo graveyard.

Still not making the connection?

Here are two examples to spark your creativity on potential ways that unifying communications throughout your value chain could revolutionize the way you do business.

1. Pretend that you are a software reseller that sold a complex accounting program to one of your customers. And… after installing the latest software update you completely shut your customer’s entire accounting system down. You can’t figure out what the problem is and none of your employees can solve the customer’s problem.

Traditionally you would have to call the software developers support number and file a request for help, which will then go through several layers of management and eventually be assigned to a tier 3 developer who can actually resolve your customer’s problem. Throughout this time consuming process, the customer is “down” and both yours and the software development company’s brands have been tarnished.

Now imagine unified communications throughout the value chain.

Once you realized that the software problem was beyond your ability to solve you looked at the “presence” of all of the software developer’s available tier 3 support personnel and then instantly placed the call to the exact person who was available and who could solve your customer’s problem. No trading voicemails, no communication delays, no mile-long email strings… just in time access to the person who can solve the problem right then and there.

2. Suppose you manufacture bulldozers and as a result of a recent marketing campaign learn of a construction company who needs 7 new bulldozers. Typically what would happen is that your regional sales person would call the first local distributor that came to mind and the send the lead to the distributor’s sales manager who then passes it to a rep in rotation… you get the idea. It might take hours, or in some cases, days for the lead to be followed up on by the distributor.

Marketers will tell you that the quicker a lead is followed up (in some cases as fast as 2 minutes) the higher the chance of winning the business

Now imagine unified communications throughout the value chain.

As soon as the lead comes in, your company can see the “presence” of all of your local distributor’s bulldozer sales people and instantly assign that lead to a rep who is available to follow up almost instantly. Imagine the effect on sales…

I don’t know of vary many organizations that have actually unified their communications throughout their value chain. Why? Because it is hard, costly and time consuming. However, just like the organizations that solved the JIT problem by building factories next to each other… the day is on the horizon.

Will you be ready?

At the event, 20 high-school women from around the state were honored for their achievements in technology. They were selected for their computing and IT aptitude, leadership ability, academic history, and plans for post-secondary education.

I was completely awestruck at the achievement and drive of these young ladies.

Lindsey, one of the recipients of the NCWIT award.

Among these 20 young ladies were:

• Valedictorians
• National Science Olympiads
• Computer programmers
• Our next generation IT innovators

We have a lot to learn from these young women… The drive, determination, and energy that they approach life with is a model for us all to follow.

If you would like to support NCWIT’s work, click here.

That change completely re-engineered the skill sets employees needed to be successful during that time period. Multi-year apprenticeships quickly reached obsolescence (with the exception of very high-end offerings) to other in-demand skills such as cost accounting, management expertise, etc.

I believe there is a similar disruption coming to the IT profession.

That disruption is being driven by organization’s changing views of technology. In the early mainframe days, technology was having such a revolutionary impact that organizations were spending lots of money into technology projects. Today, businesses are approaching technology investments and the people that support them much more strategically… ROI, KPIs, etc.

If you are in IT, What is going to be the impact on your job?

My recommendations for the next-generation IT person:

1) The next generation IT person is going to need as much EQ (emotional quotient) as they do IQ. Realize that your skills are going to include more than writing code or supporting software. I’m not talking about more certifications… I’m talking about the soft skills such as emotional intelligence and empathy.

2) Customer Service Skills – internal and external

3) Business knowledge – the next generation IT person isn’t going to have the luxury of just knowing how to make technology work. They are going to have to be able to understand and translate technology strategy into business terms including: finance, marketing, strategy, and supply chain.

Are you ready for the change?

In the IT realm, change is one of the few constants that we can count on. It doesn’t matter if you are a CIO looking to launch a high-stakes business process improvement initiative or a network administrator who needs to pilot the latest virtualization technologies you have to secure buy-in for your project to succeed.

Understanding how ideas get killed and Kotter’s method for successfully leading change initiatives could help you secure the buy-in necessary for you great ideas to succeed.

Kotter’s Method for Leading Change

1) Gain attention by allowing the attackers in and letting them attack.

2) Win the minds of the relevant audience with simple, commonsense responses.

3) Win their hearts by showing respect.

4) Constantly monitor the people whose hearts and minds you need.

5) Prepare in advance.

The Four Strategies People Will Use to kill Great Ideas

1) Fear Mongering

2) Death by Delay

3) Confusion

4) Character Assassinations

Consider yourself prepared… Go be the change.

If you would like to see John Kotter’s webinar on securing buy-in, here is a link.

Did you know that beyond inventing the electric light, Thomas Edison filed 1093 U.S. patents as well as transform everything from electric generators to motion pictures?

As IT becomes more and more important in differentiating our organizations from the competition and delivering value to our customers, more weight will be put on IT’s shoulders to innovate. It’s going to be challenging. For some it will be impossible. That’s why there will be significant opportunities for those who succeed.

So, as you continue taking your IT department to new levels, here are some words of advice and inspiration straight from the master himself:

However, there is a tremendous opportunity for CIOs to make a direct impact on revenue generation. I was inspired by a quote from GM’s CIO, “What I’ve challenged my team with is… forget about Windows 7, forget about virtualization and VoIP phones. I don’t want to hear about that stuff. Go do that! That’s cost of entry. What are we doing to sell cars?”

What does that mean?

For GM’s CIO the conversation has shifted. It’s not about the technology enabling platforms (Windows 7, virtualization, and VoIP phones), they are already doing that, it’s about how those technology investments can be leveraged to generate revenue for the company. What is GM doing? Developing simple things like mobile applications that speed up their leasing process (enabling GM to make more money… faster. Which is powered by their virtualized environments and their VoIP call centers).

What about you?

What is IT doing to move your products/services? How are YOU moving the business forward? That is the real question that CIOs need to answer for their company and for themselves.

2. Worst. Oversell / under deliver
Better. Undersell / over deliver
Best. Deliver exactly what you promise

3. It’s your responsibility to understand what the customer really wants.

4. Listen… ATTENIVELY

5. Empathize with their situation

6. Communicate. Communicate… and Then Communicate. If you ask a customer to send you a document, let them know that you’ve received it.

7. Be Genuine / real / human… don’t hide behind a script.

8. Take personal ownership of the customer resolution. Personally make sure that it has been resolved.

9. Resolve the problem… QUICKLY

10. Follow up… ALL THE WAY… EVERY TIME

11. Take responsibility for your company’s actions. APOLOGIZE

12. Don’t even think about making up an Excuse

13. Learn from the master, Sam Walton. Give your customers the benefit of the doubt

14. Don’t take it personal

15. Keep your cool

16. Get feedback and FIX the problems

17. If you are a manager, your frontline people will reflect the way you treat them

18. Make your customers feel important

19. If your customers leave a message, send an email, mail a letter, or contact you by carrier pigeon. Answer them ASAP – that means IMMEDIATELY. Even if it’s 5:01

20. Learn from other’s who are known for giving great customer service i.e. Zappos, Nordstrom, etc.

21. Continue improving.

If you are responsible for making technology investments for your firm, you must have a complete understanding on where your true priority is. There are three things that you need to think about to determine the level of priority that is placed on technology at your companty…

There are three things that can help you determine if you are a 1, 2, or 3 on the technology continuum.

- Your Customer’s Expectations

- Your Competitive Advantage

- Your Competition

Customer’s Expectations: Delivering on your customer’s expectations is critical to your long-term success or failure… Can you define what your customer’s expectations are in 15 words or less? Are you prioritizing your technology investments around your customer’s expectations?

If you are a small bakery, your customers might expect your bread to be deliciously amazing every time they take a bite. To deliver on that expectation you will make a level 3 investment in your cooking technology and ingredients before you will in a highly sophisticated Customer Relationship Management solution. If you sale disgusting bread, no CRM system in the world is going to save you…

On the other hand, if you are a hospital, your customer’s expectation is to get well soon… A critical piece of that equation is the communication infrastructure that makes it possible for nurses, doctors, and technicians to collaborate and communicate and solve patient problems. Meeting those customer expectations could require a technology investment that needs level 3 commitment.

I’m going to ask… Are you matching your customer’s expectations to your area of technology priority?

Your Competitive Advantage: The level of technology investments that you make should directly align with your competitive advantage.

If your competitive advantage is being the lowest cost provider in your field, then making a level 3 investment in technology that does not help you maintain your low cost market leadership will undermine your competitive advantage.

You might ask, well Walmart has a technology infrastructure that rivals most governments AND they also boast the lowest price? What’s going on? For Walmart, the key is investing in technologies that lower the cost to bring merchandise to market. That involves having one of the most sophisticated distribution technology infrastructures on the planet. At Walmart, anything that doesn’t lower the cost to their customer’s gets a level 1 investment.

So, at your business, it’s critically important to align technology investments with your competitive advantage.

Your Competition: If you have already aligned technology investments with your customer’s expectations and your competitive advantage, you are ahead of most. The key is keeping your eye on the technology horizon for disruptive technologies that could either:

1) Transform your customer’s experience (even if your customers don’t know what that is yet)

2) Overturn your industry.

To be ready, you have to continuously innovative and seek out technology innovations that solve your customers problems AND align with your competitive advantage.

So, are you a 1,2, or 3?

Here are a couple of things to think about:

1) Do you want your voice solution to integrate into your back office applications, i.e. CRM, ERP, Billing Systems, Contact Center etc? If this is important or not important to your long-term plan, it will help you quickly qualify/disqualify products that can not provide integration points. Understanding the depth of integration into your business can help you drive what technologies make the most sense for your unique company.

2) Whiteboard, whiteboard, whiteboard… how will the solution physically fit into your environment? Architecture of the solutions is significant… some take a hardware approach/multi point and others take a software approach/single point solution… on a spreadsheet they might look the same but white boarding the solution can give you many further insights.

3) How will the solution grow and change with your business? …not only from a product development prospective but were is their company going? Is it growing or expanding?  Were will be in 10 years….

Technology can be a very powerful tool that can deliver a significant competitive advantage. Spend the time up-front uncovering what is important to the unique needs of your business… Are you an orange?

I’m glad I ignored her.

Sometimes we talk about people seeing life as a glass half-empty or half-full…I’m the half-full type!  We approach the people who are part of our contact center teams with that half-empty/half-full attitude.  There are some managers who make every decision assuming that the staff was out to do the worst to their company.  They have punitive policies and communicate an incredible degree of mis-trust to their people.  The trust glass is definitely half-empty.  And, you know what?  They get a half-empty performance out of their people.

I prefer the half-full approach.  That’s not to say that I’ve never had a staff member who wasn’t a poor performer – I have.  The difference is that the “trust-glass-half-full-manager” deals directly with the person and the issue.  The glass-half-full person doesn’t implement a policy that punishes everyone because of one person’s bad decisions.  Sometimes, it’s harder this way…but it’s worth it.  Demonstrating trust for your people will generate trust from them in return.  When you make a mistake (and you will!), trusting people will forgive you and continue to follow you as a leader.  You trust them…they trust you.  That creates an upward spiral of success.

Question for the day: Would your staff say your trust “glass” is half-empty or half-full?  What one thing could you do today to show your staff that you trust them?

This statewide survey and awards program was designed to identify, recognize and honor the best places of employment in Indiana, benefiting the state’s economy, its workforce and businesses.  The 2010 Best Places to Work in Indiana list is made up of 28 companies in the small/medium-sized list (25-249 employees in the United States) and 42 companies in the large-sized list (250+ employees in the United States). CPI has been named one of the Best Places to Work in Indiana.

To be considered for participation, companies had to fulfill the following eligibility requirements:

- Have at least 25 employees working in Indiana;

- Be a for-profit or not-for-profit business or government entity;

- Be a publicly or privately held business;

- Have a facility in the state of Indiana; and

- Must be in business a minimum of 1 year.

Companies from across the state entered the two-part process to determine the Best Places to Work in Indiana.  The first part consisted of evaluating each nominated company’s workplace policies, practices, and demographics.  This part of the process was worth approximately 25% of the total evaluation.  The second part consisted of an employee survey to measure the employee experience.  This part of the process was worth approximately 75% of the total evaluation.  The combined scores determined the top companies and the final ranking.  Best Companies Group managed the overall registration and survey process in Indiana and also analyzed the data and used their expertise to determine the final rankings.

Communications Products, Inc. will be recognized and honored at the 2010 Best Places to Work in Indiana Awards Dinner coordinated by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, May 6^th.  The final rankings will be announced at the event.  In addition, all ranked companies will be featured in the May-June issue of the award-winning BizVoice® magazine.