Whomp any brief notes on how to establish or have a good culture in a call center?
We operate in a client facing, high touch environment so while there are differences in our client experience I think some of the basic tenents remain the same.
For instance, have you ever flown American Airlines or Southwest Airlines? Given the choice between the regimented monotone voice of the American Flight Attendant or the singing flight attendant at Southwest it's a no brainer for me. Weird? Maybe but at Zappos how weird are you is an interview question. In fact, one of their people sent me an email not too long ago that reminded me to "keep my weird meter full".
So core values...what are they for your organization? At Zappos weird is good. In our practice, we send humorous books on marriage, age, promotions etc. Our clients probably throw out their birthday cards. They do not toss our book about how houses are blackholes.
We developed our core tenets together. For a call center, I would ask everyone what they believe the core values are? We think these values should be built from the front line up since this is where the best decisions and most customer focused people reside. I know if I were running a call center one thing I would change would be to stop measuring how quickly someone can expedite incoming calls. Instead, I would encourage them to spend as much time on the phone as the customer needs and no scripts. Be yourself.
One other notable example of questions to askon culture change is what they ask at Rackspace "what do we want from work? How do we succeed on a human level? One of the rackers core values is to be a valued member, of a winning team, on a inspiring mission. Pull up one of their youtube videos (the wedding one is great) to see how they roll and the work environment they operate in. Pretty awesome.
How do you want to handle recognition? Pens are boring. Being put in a strait jacket in front of the whole company for delivering great service is weird and just great. My gal's company did a "cake boss" contest using the brands of the company doing a site visit with them. Then again, they're weird. What company has their CEO come out wearing a "party rock anthem" robot head at a company wide meeting turned party after she delivered news of their monster 2011?
Sorry for not being brief but I'd love to hear your thoughts. Being a misanthrope is no way to live or work.