Customer care employees bring valuable insights from front lines to other departments.
Today organisations are facing great difficulty in sourcing and retaining best employees and this is cited as a key challenge for talent management. Customer contact centres can be a great source of potential talent with a unique view of the customers. Businesses that develop and cultivate customer care talent can develop a talent pipeline while reducing costs and improving customer satisfaction.
The nature of customer care is changing. Simple transactional issues are being handled via self-diagnosis tools. Complicated problems, upset customers are being handled by select customer care employees as they require expert skills and knowledge. However, employee benefits have not reflected this reality. The promotional avenues are limited and attrition is very high. By taking more time to improve frontline talent, companies can reduce the attrition rate and develop a pipeline of talent for the organisation.
A pipeline of talent.
There is no better training than learning to talk to frontline customers. This gives them a deep understanding of what matters to the customers. By building on this deep insight of the customer over a period of time, employees can make a transition to other functional departments in the company.
Some companies are rethinking the role of the contact centres and staffing the same with highly skilled employees who empathise with customers and address the customers needs with empowered quick solutions. These employees can gain valuable insights which can then be shared with other parts of the company. To speed up the process, companies are expanding the talent pool from where they recruit. Advances in collaboration tools and WFH models are also increasing the talent sources.
Reduce costs
The cost of training a customer service employee is substantial as they have to become fully trained on the range of products as well as in complaint resolution methods. The main areas that require training include expertise required, training required, agent tenure and geography. Increasing retention would help in reducing costs and improved morale. They can also be considered for a lateral transfer to other departments reducing the overall recruitment costs. Hiring from within is always more efficient and improves the overall employee satisfaction within the organisation as well as attract more and better-qualified personnel.
Improve customer satisfaction
Better customer service is directly correlated to overall revenue and organisational health. It is clear that customer care executives are in touch with customers all day and they know more about customer needs than anyone else in the company. They are the first to know customer issues or process inefficiencies. Promoting employees from contact centre helps embed a deep sense of customer and product throughout the organisation.
Redesign talent hunt for the contact centre.
Companies should recruit their top talent for contact centre though it is an entry-level position. A well-defined career path can help attract better talent looking to make a career in the company rather than as a passthrough. One they are given the right training in skills and coaching they can contribute to the various functions within the company over a period of time.
Get the right people - the first step is to understand the knowledge, attributes, skills and experiences that a contact centre will need to thrive at the entry-level. Use advanced analytics to assess and identify characteristics. Analysis of demographics, skills, job experiences, online assessments can give a better understanding of the candidates skillset and mindset. Once the candidate is recruited, effective engagements can help reduce the attrition rate.
Create more opportunities for growth and career progression A well-planned training program would ensure success for the employee in their current assignment and beyond. Training should help employees develop skillsets and knowledge to prepare them for a higher role within the company.
Conduct assessments Employees should be assessed on an ongoing basis to better understand their aptitudes, interests and career growth. The assessments can help make a recommendation on roles that the employee is suitable for in future, with a clear outline of required steps to reach these goals.
Build a formal coaching program. Based on the assessment, companies can create a coaching program to introduce the employee to various roles and responsibilities. Wherever possible, coaching should be embedded throughout the day with inputs from the team leader. The training can be tailored to coach and broaden their focus to include development goals that support the preparation for a future position.
Reskill employees In the increasingly dynamic world today, employees are required to have different skills. Reskilling may involve a mix of in-person skills, digital learning, on the job experiences, conferences, visits to other areas which will expose them to day to day responsibilities.
All training programs should be customised based on assessments, and on-demand with delivery models suited to the employee learning style. Ideally, these training plans could be used to build over time rather than once in a while.
Monitor progress, promote advancement. Analytics can play a vital role in creating opportunities for development. Complete data on the employee along with analytics can help identify employees who are most likely to leave and design effective retention and upskilling programs.
Share with the employees' Many employees may be unaware of the career opportunities available. Companies should widely communicate the various options for career growth repeatedly to ensure everyone is aware of the options.
Sharing stories of employees who have moved up is another way of highlighting the growth opportunities. Career growth can happen by learning new skills, qualifying for a pay-rise, promotions to a higher role, lateral transfer to another function.
Examine how employees can learn and grow in their current role. Companies should have an employee-to-supervisor development program, improve their skills and enhance their value to the team. Peer training can also help in identifying the potential of the employees. managers should constantly look out for high-performing contact centre employees for leadership openings.
Putting into practice.
These strategies will help companies that have in-house contact centres and it will depend on the companies size, geographical spread. It should be tailored to fit the companies operations.
Organisations can benefit from intentional talent management. Early identification and development of talent allow employees to become more effective and analytics-based talent management would pay off by reducing the employee churn and reduce costs for the company.
Customer care: The future talent factory
by Eric Buesing, Vinay Gupta, Sarah Higgins, and Raelyn Jacobson
McK 2020/06
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