Training in Contact Centers is all devoted to RESULTS based on Goals! HA! That’s funny…

To learn that words don’t teach is the hardest lesson that I know. The world’s management seems to think that the numbers they generate, and the words they use to express those numbers, work. Well, here is the bad news for them, but the good news for you. Words DO NOT TEACH…Only Experience, and Emotional Experience at that actually teaches.

Now, you understood that. So, how would the training department, the marketing department, the Supervisors, the Managers, the Coaches, and the Agents relate to that? I spent my life teaching agents to come from their experience and intention. It never fails to be successful because these words never rely on the STATS. I never have the Agents Set Goals. “First Intention Then Enlightenment.” I teach through experience of personal stories, relationships, and train the Agents to find the emotional need of the customer, the buyer, and even their own. This works because it’s the experience that teaches. When the Agent relates, they own it…they own it because it is theirs.

There is no substitute for Aliveness or the Experience of Agent Satisfaction. There is no substitute for Intention. What you call goals isn’t it! There is no substitute for The Experience of the Customer.

The Customer Experience is so big in all discussions today yet it appears that all the work is being done on the level of technology and not on the level of the HUMAN BEING EXPERIENCE. Doesn’t that strike you as peculiar?

Change the Believer not the belief.

That’s the game to play. Right MINDEDNESS is also big right now. This is the LEADING EDGE of thought. MOLECULES need to change in the training room to suit the new thinking! Not more money to the agent, even though that would be good; not better-quality call check forms with a Positive BENT…but that also would be important. Change the molecules in the Training Room and you will have fantastic results. So, the question is “How do you that?”

Change the Believer means – GO the OPPOSITE way

The customer is NOT the most important person interacting in the call center…THE COACH IS! The Coach has the responsibility for at least 10 agents. Get It? Got it? GOOD!

The training in quotas, goal setting, and results is not the way. Training on INTENTION is, and your agents know this to be true, even if they’ve never heard it before.

The Quality Department doesn’t need three-page forms…they need 6 questions:

  1. Was the Customer “happy and satisfied” with the tone, words, and recommendations?
  2. Was the Agent “energized to serve” the customer though out the call?
  3. What “acknowledgement” would the Agent like to receive?
  4. What “corrections” would the Agent like to make for the future?
  5. How will the Agent do that?
  6. When will the Agent have this done?

SO SIMPLE yet not so EASY

Teach your Agents to “THINK” and to “BE”.  Open their minds to the possibilities instead of the technology driven numbers. Diversity also means the different way of THINKING. Cognitive THINKING is needed. Deductive THINKING, too. WE really don’t want agents to do what we say. We want Agents to know what to do and say. We want them to THINK for themselves. They will grow through this.

Agents quit all too much and too fast. Agents are lonely at their jobs. Agents know how to text, but some don’t know how to relate. Intentional teachers are needed. Where are the teachers and trainers who will teach Agents how to Converse or how to communicate and how to find the emotional needs of their customers??? Find those trainers and take them in…
Aside: This reminds me of an old song by Loggins and Messina and hit record by Anne Murray. “Find the girl who holds the world in a paper cup, go on and drink it up…love her and she will bring you luck.” (Danny’s Song) Find that TRAINER! (MIC DROP!)

Attention all Trainers!  

Start training your Agents on INTENTION. Study how to do that! TEACH THAT and simply add it to your present curriculum! The RESULTS will be better than all the quotas in the world.  Results will be Satisfaction for Company, Customer, and Agents.

Attention all Coaches!

“Make Your Agents feel right and SMART to ‘self-correct.’ They won’t QUIT as often. It will also build their self-esteem.”
And Finally. . .

Attention all Supervisors and Managers!

Train your Supervisors, and Your Management in keeping their promise to “Create a safe-environment” for all who work with them. What a wonderful Call Center World you will CREATE INTENTIONALLY!

Judy McKee – The LAMA Training and The Positive Coach Approach (818)945-5141