We here at KOVA are excited to announce that we have just been awarded a General Services Administration (GSA) Schedule Contract with the federal government! In case you were wondering, the GSA is the centralized authority for the acquisition and management of federal government resources. GSA Schedule Contracts assist federal employees in purchasing products and services.
So why is this such a big deal?
Just take a look at the incredible process KOVA went through in order to be able to make our public safety and enterprise workforce optimization offerings available to agencies connected with the federal government:
In order to be approved for a GSA contract, companies must go through a long process of review that can take months, if not years. The very first requirement is that a company meet some basic standards of strength and reliability. It must have been in business for at least two years, must be able to demonstrate financial stability, must have successful past performance under its belt, and must be compliant with the Trade Agreements Act. Check, check, check, and check for KOVA!
The next step in the process is to have a Dun & Bradstreet Open Ratings Past Performance Evaluation report done. This report is an in-depth review of a company’s past performance, which uses Dun & Bradstreet’s own data and analytic resources together with direct customer survey responses to compile a full picture. As for KOVA’s past performance? Passed with flying colors!
Now comes the most time-consuming part – creating the proposal. There is no standardized application, so each company must put together a detailed proposal including information such as corporate and financial information, past performance, commercial practices, and a proposed price list. Once this proposal is submitted, it undergoes an intense and thorough review by a Contracting Officer, who requests further information and clarification as needed.
KOVA is proud to say that our proposal was approved, which means our company passed the strict review and can now make our public safety and enterprise workforce management solutions available to the federal government’s various agencies and employees.
If that’s not something to crow about, then we don’t know what is!
Now our offerings will be available on the GSAAdvantage! federal online catalog, making them accessible to hundreds of federal customers, including federal and executive agencies, the Department of Defense, the government of the District of Columbia, government contractors authorized to spend federal dollars, and certain other institutions and even international organizations like the American Red Cross, the Marine Mammal Commission, or the European Space Research Organization.
Like we said, we’re excited.
So if you want to take advantage of the same offerings that government agencies will soon have available to them, give us here at KOVA a call today, and see for yourself what all the fuss is about. Our public safety solutions, along with our enterprise workforce optimization offerings, are sure to impress you, and we would be just as excited to work with you as we are to work with them.
There’s no question that it’s challenging to find the ideal employee to hire – one who will be a perfect fit for your individual contact center. With so many factors to take into consideration, such as previous experience, references, education, personality tests, aptitude tests, and interview performance, the decision-making process can be overwhelming. And even when you finally whittle the applicant list down to one, your new hire may still not end up working out after all.
Employee turnover can be discouraging, but there’s no reason to throw your hands up in despair. The temptation can sometimes be to blame the company, or even the industry, lamenting that high turnover is just part of the way things are.
But wait just a minute here! What are you talking about? Your contact center is a great place to work! Otherwise, why would you still be there? For that matter, take a look around you. Why would anyone still be there? We’re willing to bet that you have many loyal, hard-working employees who are perfectly happy in their jobs at your contact center. What you need to do is approach turnover from a different angle. Rather than dwelling on what it is that makes employees leave, you should ask yourself what it is that makes them stay.
Now here’s the really important part. The question is not what it is about your company that makes them stay, but rather, what it is about those particular employees that makes them stay. Your mission, very simply, is to hire more people like them. The following three steps map out the plan:
1. First of all, gather data on your contact center’s successful hires – the high-performing employees who are in it for the long haul. What do they all have in common? Maybe every one of them has had previous contact center experience. Maybe they all scored in a certain range on a pre-employment test your company administers. Check the information they gave when they were hired – even down to seemingly unimportant details like how long their commute is. You want to have a 360-degree understanding of what makes an employee the right material for your contact center.
2. Next, use this information when selecting applicants to interview. Your time is valuable, so if you already know that every successful employee at your contact center had at least two years of previous experience before coming on board, there’s no point in interviewing people without that background. The time you save here can be put into a more detailed and thorough interview process for the qualified candidates.
3. Finally, carefully interview your chosen applicants with success in mind. Sometimes, hiring decisions are made based mostly on “gut feeling.” But first impressions can be deceiving. Be sure to ask each interviewee exactly the same questions, and be as objective as possible when comparing their answers with those of the other candidates. Knowing from the get-go that each applicant already fits your profile of an ideal employee will allow you to enter each interview assuming a successful match, and that attitude can counteract any subconscious preconceived notions masquerading as “gut feelings.”
Once you’ve hired your ideal employees, it’s just a matter of training them and setting them loose to do their thing. And that’s where we come in. KOVA’s Workforce Management System can help you train your contact center employees, monitor the quality of their customer service once they’re in the trenches, and keep you informed throughout the entire process. Interested? Give us a call today.
When you monitor calls for quality in your contact center, what perception do your employees have of the process? Do they feel nervous that they’ll be caught making a mistake? Are they scared they’ll do poorly just once and then lose their job because of it?
Part of an effective monitoring system is making sure that your workforce understands the reasoning behind the monitoring, as well as what will be done with the information gathered. They also need to know exactly what is expected of them when they are being monitored, so that they can prepare. If all these elements are in place, monitoring can be a much less stressful experience for all involved.
So what can be done to improve your call quality monitoring system? Here are five helpful tips.
1. Put the information you gather to good use. You can monitor calls and record data all day every day, but if you don’t do anything with that data, it’s useless. It can be hard to make time to review the information, and then schedule customized training based on the results, but if you don’t, then why are you monitoring those calls in the first place?
2. Focus on the small things. It may seem minor, but monitoring calls to ensure that agents are using the proper greetings, adhering to the agreed-upon call structure, and inserting the desired positive phrases into the call will go a long way towards preventing any individual lapses that can eventually spread through the call center.
3. Solicit employee participation. In order for agents to feel less like Big Brother is watching, and more like a coach is there to help, ask for their input on call monitoring. What would they like to focus on? What would help them feel more confident about the process? What can they practice in order to be prepared?
4. Dedicate one position to monitoring and its follow-up. Supervisors have a lot on their plates already – add monitoring calls and giving feedback and training to the mix, and often, there just aren’t enough hours in the day. But if there is a person whose entire job is collecting the data, analyzing it, and then crafting individualized training and coaching plans for employees, it will get done – and your contact center’s performance will improve.
5. Reward those who do well. Giving recognition or even a small reward to those who perform well during calls is a great incentive for everyone to do their best on every call. A reward will show employees that it is worthwhile to get that training done, so that their performance improves – their hard work will be recognized.
In order to streamline your call quality monitoring process, why not take a look at KOVA’s integrated Enterprise Workforce Optimization Solutions? With our Verint Media Recorder Quality Monitoring, you can easily record calls and then analyze the already organized data. And with our Verint Media Recorder eLearning and Coaching solutions, you can take that data and customize training for your workforce quickly and easily. Contact KOVA to see how we can help your contact center today.
Think back to your school days for a minute. Were you a motivated student? Whether your answer is yes or no, there’s something to be learned from your response. If you were driven to do your best, you probably had some sort of interior motivation egging you on. Your teachers’ initiatives to keep students interested probably helped a bit but for the most part you supplied the determination from somewhere within.
If schoolwork just wasn’t your thing, on the other hand, then nothing your teachers said or did could completely overcome your own lack of interest and motivation. They might have come up with a plan that got you motivated for a short while but it never lasted. Your own attitude and internal drive were the decisive factors in how hard you worked in school.
The same principle still applies to all of us as adults in the workforce today. A manager can only do so much to motivate employees; an individual’s drive to succeed has to come from within. How can managers help their employees to realize this and leverage this knowledge to increase motivation, thus improving performance?
The most important thing to recognize is that everyone is an individual, and different things motivate every individual. These motivators vary based on personality and career stage. For example, someone who is just starting out in a career may be more motivated by opportunities for advancement, while someone who’s been in a field for years may be looking for recognition.
Ask your employees to consider which of the following motivates them more (They may choose more than one.):
1. Opportunities for growth and advancement
2. Ongoing communication and feedback from supervisors
3. Displays of recognition and appreciation
4. A deep understanding of the company’s goals and how their work contributes
Once they’ve identified what makes them tick, employees can craft their own self-motivation plans based on their new knowledge. The simple act of making employees accountable for their own motivation can be an empowering and therefore motivating step for them.
Employees who are driven by opportunities for growth and advancement should confer with their manager to identify possible career paths and map out the skills and experience needed in order to pursue those paths. Managers should assist in finding ways to showcase talents or gain experience in order to move up within the company. The employee should also have the opportunity to take professional development courses that will help them meet their goal in moving up.
Having a series of goals and deadlines for those goals will help keep an employee on track to getting a promotion. And understanding what is needed to receive said promotion will help them develop the skills they need and avoid the disappointment that comes with being ill prepared.
Those who crave communication should discuss with their manager how often they need feedback and which methods of communication they prefer, such as email, phone, or in-person. Managers should encourage employees to schedule bi-weekly or monthly meetings as well as letting them know that their door is always open for conversation. Some employees need more guidance than others, so employees who are motivated by ongoing communication are looking for acknowledgement that they are on the right track. They may also want to discuss concerns and offer potential solutions to fix problems. These should be heard and validated.
Members of your workforce who are motivated by recognition can let supervisors know about their preference by telling them how much a show of appreciation means to them. To create a culture of recognition even among fellow employees, these employees can set the example and make a point of thanking others for a job well done. Recognition does not have to be a grand gesture. A personal note or a “Thank you!” can go a long way for employees motivated by appreciation. For accomplishing a particularly challenging task, consider a certificate or
Employees who need to feel that they are an integral part of the company in order to fuel their drive should meet with their manager to make sure they understand the company’s goals and how their particular job contributes to reaching them. Provide employees with data that shows how their contributions have helped, whether this is in monetary growth or in gaining/retaining customers. Being able to see in numbers their contribution to the company can be a great motivator and make them strive to do better.
By giving each employee the tools to discover and then act on their own individual interior motivation triggers, managers will be doing more to increase engagement than they could ever hope to do using exterior motivators. And in the end it boils down to this: Self-motivated employees feel driven to provide great customer service, which can only benefit the company’s bottom line.
A workforce management software solution like the Verint Impact360 Workforce Optimization Suite provides contact center managers with an ideal way to track and act on employee performance. To set an appointment for your personalized discovery session, click here.
For organizations looking to establish or convert to cloud-based contact centers, addressing security and privacy issues is a critical component of the planning stages to ensure that there are no major security exposures and all compliance requirements are met. For cloud-based contact centers, availability and accessibility from the cloud is crucial. Employees need to be able to carry out their responsibilities and overall business objectives need to be met. Security threats can impede work from getting done and create challenges for management. And if credit cards are being processed through the contact center, there are quite possibly civil and criminal liabilities with any lapses in security. Credit card companies can hand down fines up to $500K per incident of non-compliance. In order to avoid these issues, the top security concerns that cloud-based contact centers must address are:
Contact center application security can be broken into three areas:
Role-Based Security
Role-based security is an important aspect in protecting cloud-based contact centers. It should allow contact centers to give each user in their organization access to features and data based on their role within the organization. A cloud-based contact center application should allow for roles to be designated to users in such a way that access is defined and constrained to prevent any unauthorized access.
Various roles and authorities can be designated to users so that each person can access the features and data needed to complete their work. Access should be determined at read, write, update and delete levels for all data. It can also be set at restriction levels in terms of skills, teams and projects. So, an agent, depending on their role, may be able to see customer details, but unable to update, edit or delete them. A supervisor might have access to view the performance of a team member or his or her entire team, but unable to see the performance of a team in a different department.
Telecom Security
Additionally, the license owners should have the authority to prohibit CSRs from making calls or texts that have not been authorized to unauthorized calling areas. Telecom security measures should also prohibit outbound users while at the same time allow them to make user initiated calls or texts to assigned calling areas to avoid international calling charges. If necessary, it should also prevent inbound license owners from receiving calls from certain calling areas.
Password-Based Authentication
Password-based authentication is also important to give users permission to access any subscribed features. Any passwords stored in the database should be encrypted. Cryptographic algorithms should be used to verify users. There are many algorithms that are proven to secure cloud-based services. If there are repeated access attempts, alerts can be set up and the user should be presented with further authentication.
Most of what goes on in a call center involves listening. Yes, agents do need to speak, as well, in order to resolve a complaint, walk a customer through troubleshooting a problem, or make a sale. But in each and every one of those cases, listening to the customer still needs to be the top priority.
In dealing with a customer complaint, call center agents need to listen carefully to everything the caller has to say, both to get a full picture of the issue and to let the customer feel he’s had his say. In helping a customer solve a technical problem, it’s necessary to listen closely to the caller’s description of the problem, as well as the steps they’ve already taken to fix it themselves, in order for an approach to be decided upon. And in attempting to make a sale, listening is a vital part of the sales process, as the agent determines which product or service is right for that particular caller.
But what is the best way to listen? How can it be made even more effective? Here are seven tips for improving the listening skills of your contact center workforce.
1. Help agents maintain focus. It can be hard for agents to keep from being distracted by coworkers’ phone conversations or other external noises, but it’s of the utmost importance in making sure they fully understand what their callers are saying. Try investing in good-quality headsets that block out all background noise.
2. Teach agents to listen for emotion. Your contact center workforce shouldn’t just be listening to the words a caller is using – they should be listening for the emotions behind them, as well. Sometimes the words and the emotions may not match, and then it may be better to address the underlying tension first.
3. Train agents to ask questions. Anything your employee does not understand needs to be clarified by asking the caller to explain. Otherwise, important information might be missed.
4. Don’t allow your workforce to interrupt callers. Not only will agents not hear the full story they need in order to take action, but interrupting will probably upset the caller, and might even make them lose their train of thought – so that missing information will never be provided.
5. In the same vein, don’t let your employees pre-empt what a caller is going to say. Sometimes people feel they know what someone is going to say – but often, they don’t get it quite right. Teach your agents never to finish a caller’s sentence, or cut them off to tell them they already know what they mean.
6. Train agents to repeat the main points of the conversation back to the caller. It’s a great way for an agent to verify that they have understood what their caller is saying – and it’s a great way to let the caller know that the agent really has been listening.
7. Have agents take notes. While the caller is speaking, it’s helpful if the agent jots down notes on points they want to address, or things they need to inquire further about. This will again demonstrate to the caller that the agent really has been listening, and it will allow the agent to feel more comfortable waiting to speak.
By following these seven simple tips, you can quickly improve the listening skills of your contact center workforce. And once those skills are honed, chances are, the efficiency and performance of your contact center will also improve.
Everyone recognizes the importance of training to the development of an effective contact center workforce. Without it, customer service levels suffer – and so does your contact center’s performance. But what about one-on-one, in-person coaching? How important is coaching to contact center performance?
In order to get the best results from a coaching program, certain factors must be taken into consideration. The coaches themselves need to have been trained in the most effective methods for coaching, or the entire exercise can end up being nothing more than a waste of time. With that in mind, here are the top eight coaching tips for contact center managers.
By putting these eight tips into practice, your contact center’s coaching sessions can become truly valuable elements of your training program. And if you need help implementing a training or coaching program for your contact center workforce, contact KOVA for more information on our Enterprise Workforce Optimization Solutions.
Whether your realize it or not, your call center agents may be your organization's best tool in meeting its marketing objectives. When you look at some of the most successful brands, many of them rely on customer service driven models to increase their bottom lines. And in order to do this -- achieve maximum customer satisfaction -- organizations have to be truly focused on understanding your customer's journey and experience with your brand and deliver consistent engagement across all communication channels and touchpoints.
Customers expect service to be agile and seamless whether the interaction is in-person, mobile or online. It's perfectly natural for today's consumers to begin an interaction with your brand on one channel and end it on another. Additionally, understanding that one customer's recommendation can travel across many digital platforms and have long-lasting, positive effects for your brand is also key to developing a customer service-driven marketing strategy. However, the converse is true as well. The digital life of bad reviews can also having lasting impact.
Marketing benefits greatly from the insights provided by customer service. And while your customer service team is primarily responsible for responding to, and perhaps in some cases, monitoring the voice of the customers, organizations should establish a collaborative partnership with marketing to ensure continuity in brand messaging and the quality of interaction through every engagement. This requires strategic planning and solid execution.
By reviewing customer feedback about products and services regularly, important information can be gathered, reviewed and used to develop new initiatives and campaigns. Customer service agents can also be used as a vehicle to share key marketing messages in each interaction with customers.
At the executive level managing this process of using customer feedback to drive marketing is gaining traction. Call center leadership is able to translate this information up effectively sharing the voice of the customer and offering insight into the channels they are using and how they are using them. This is imperative in the digital age because of the sheer amount of information to which consumers have access. They can very easily go online to compare rates, read reviews and get started with a competitor easily and quickly. Organizations have to be nimble and ready to adjust quickly to retain customers.
It has been said that, marketing is the new customer service and customer service is the new marketing. However, it's important that departmental silos are broken down and synergistic partnerships can be formed. Meeting customer needs and exceeding their expectations using reliable data is now a critical component to managing the customer experience well. It not only leads to a more invested, engaged customer, but also creates more efficiency within the organization.
A focus on building superior customer service should be at the top of your organization's business objectives and CRM is key to making it happen. The long-term benefits of this collaboration go beyond reaching marketing goals. They include achieving multi-departmental goals and the success of departments individually. Additionally, organizations are more likely to maximize profits and increase market share.
As social media continues to play a major role in how companies engage and support their customer's needs, an increasing number of companies are evaluating whether this engagement requires its own department or if it can be incorporated into the existing customer support infrastructure. If call centers handle customer service, the question becomes how, and to what extent social media can be integrated into operations.
It's clear that when it comes to customer support, call center agents are most likely already the best trained personnel to handle issues. They're already familiar with responding to various complaints, inquiries or comments. They know how to handle a high volume of interaction. They are trained to address issues in a timely manner. They know how to implement escalation procedures. They're accustomed to reporting findings. And they're comfortable dealing with the public. But while all of these skills make the call center a feasible resource for handling customer service issues channeled through social media, there are major considerations to vet.
Qualifications of a social media call center agent
The most obvious requirement is that the agent come to the table with some level of understanding of the different social media platforms, how they function and the nature and tone of their conversations. Facebook interaction will look much different than Twitter interaction; Reddit links and YouTube comments will require an altogether different kind of handling. The agent will need to be flexible and adept enough to approach each service issue appropriately based on the social media channel or channels it comes through.
How success is measured will change
Vadim Anikanov, an expert on social media-based customer care, says to measure success you can still adapt the main KPI groups: Quantity, Quality, Customer Feedback, Call Outcome and Call Economics. He explains that the key challenge is correctly determining the base unit – unlike a single phone call, interactions in social media may lack a clearly defined end. It would be fairly normal to see a customer responding to an agent a few hours later, or maybe a few days. It would still be part of the same thread.
Anikanov also says that it is normal to see multiple media shifts within the same interaction. The issue may start on Twitter or Facebook, continue on company forums, do a direct VoIP call or Skype chat or refer to an instructional video on YouTube. All of these communication ‘bursts’ would still be part of the same communication, he writes.
Social media is very human
By its very nature, social media is about personal connections. It's informal and conversational. The agent in this role will have to lose any script-like responses to issues. There will still need to be set procedures and protocol to follow, but their delivery should match the tone of the medium. Stodgy, canned conversation won't resonate in the world of social media and might even cause more damage.
Customers who reach out via social media are different in that they are quite relational. Social media gives your company a unique opportunity to connect with them on a personal level which can be far more valuable than a phone call with an agent. The key to making the most of these interactions, however, is to make sure you recognize early that call center customer service and social customer service won't be carbon copies of each other.
The debate has been raging for some time now, and though petitions have been circulated online, the issue still remains. Should 911 call centers be funded by cell phone surcharges or by taxpayer funds?
In New York State (as well as in seven other states across the nation), the $1.20 cell phone surcharge, which used to be called the 911 surcharge, does not help fund 911 call centers in the cell phone owner’s local area. Instead, these monies go into the New York State General Fund, and counties and cities must dip into local taxpayer funds in order to cover costs for their 911 centers.
Funds of some sort are of critical importance to any 911 call center. In addition to paying staff, these centers must also purchase and maintain equipment in order to continue to provide their life-saving services to the public.
When cell phone surcharges are not put towards the funding of these centers, counties and cities have no choice but to raid taxpayer funds for this purpose, so that services can continue. But taking money from taxpayers to fund 911 centers is strongly discouraged by the federal government – so much so, in fact, that because of this, these seven states are not allowed to apply for several Federal Grant Programs.
If this situation were changed, those extra streams of income would become available to these states. In addition, taxpayer funds could be put to other important uses. And the cell phone surcharge would cover the basic needs of the 911 centers.
Since emergency call centers are always growing and evolving, though, additional funds can become necessary. With changes in technology, systems often need to be upgraded and replaced. And who knows what the future may hold as far as new ways of requesting help from 911 services! Texting, email, and chat are just a few of the possible methods of communication that may soon be incorporated into 911 contact centers.
To cover these extra costs, there is a simple solution. Right now, customers who own prepaid cell phones do not pay that $1.20 surcharge. But prepaid devices account for 42% of cellular sales today. If every single phone that has access to 911 were charged the surcharge, and all those funds went to the 911 center closest to each phone’s owner, it would go a long way towards solving the current funding problem.
The New York State 911 Coordinators Association, a group of 911 professionals from around New YorkState, has petitioned their state senators to push for a change in the legislation that would allow both the allocation of these funds towards the 911 centers, as well as the collection of the surcharge from prepaid customers. But as of today, nothing has changed.
The cell phone surcharges continue to be placed in the NY State General Fund, which is used for such mundane items as hotel rooms and new staff cars for government officials. This just doesn’t make sense.
When a crime occurs or disaster strikes, families need to be able to reach 911 easily, and rely on their services to help them. Without the proper funding, they simply cannot provide those services reliably. Common sense dictates that the cell phone 911 surcharge be put towards 911 services.
