On Sunday nights since there is not much else to do I usually end up sitting through Undercover Boss on CBS, right after The Amazing Race. If you haven’t seen this show, it is a reality series following Executive level management, CEO or President, as they go undercover in their own organizations. Sounds like a dream come true, right?
It is… sort of.
I’ll skip over the fact this show seems to look for feel good moments instead of actual business innovation, and just go to the episode tonight covering GSI Commerce and their CEO Michael Ruben.
One of the things that I took notice of immediately is his visit to a call center and specifically working on the Level III escalation line. Third level of service for upset customers. Mr. Ruben works with two employees, one named Adam who is amazing, and Danielle, who is not so much. I’m going to focus on this last interaction, because I think it underscores some of the issues facing call center environments today.
Danielle encountered a call in which a customer was promised a price and through a fault of the company was not able to receive that price. Since the sale ended, the only option is to purchase at full price and then issue a rebate. As predicted, this did not sit well with the customer, as it rightfully should not.
The problem is Mr. Ruben, at least in how the show aired (I will give the benefit of the doubt and say things may have happened that were not shown), is that Mr. Ruben identified the symptom rather than the problem.
Symptom: Employee is rude to a customer because the customer will not accept the offer given.
That is a symptom. The real problem:
Problem: The system only allows employees to follow very tight protocols that do not line up with customer expectations.
See, for CEOs, Presidents, and any other executive level managers out there, many do not see the problem, only the symptom, and they treat the symptom. The employee was retrained and eventually no longer worked there.
Mr. Ruben identified the symptom, treated the symptom, and then found the symptom working its way back. Why?
THE PROBLEM STILL EXISTED!
Most people who work in middle to upper-middle management, in my humble opinion, are either clueless or controlling. They either cannot see problems right in front of them, or, they see them but they do not care: operations will continue the way the feel they should go.
The solution to the problem was not to retrain the individual, but to identify what is preventing that individual working in a tier three support level from fixing the issue. In this case it was a company mistake that kept a customer from receiving a promised sale price. At tier three, if the operator cannot override the price then a huge problem exists: a lack of empowerment.
Call Centers in general suck for two reasons: there is no empowerment, and, there is overkill on metrics. Employees cannot solve customer problems if they are not capable of actually fixing the customer problems (and not saying “Call corporate because I can’t help you”, which is unfortunately the truth in many cases). A customer cannot receive a published sale price due to a company problem? Override the price, apologize, and eat the shipping. Instead of dancing around a rebate. This is endemic of every call center I have ever worked at: no empowerment. I won’t even get into the overkill on metrics tonight.
The point is I really wish people in any sort of management role would get it through their thick skulls that restricting an employees ability to solve issues does nothing but hasten burn out and cause customer turnover. Losing customers and employees is something that should be seen with disgust by anyone in executive management. Instead it is an acceptable part of business to many.
Any time a business loses a customer, the business has failed in a way that is unacceptable, regardless of the reason. Yes, the customer may have been so demanding and uncooperative that seeing them walk feels like a blessing, but a real hard look needs to be taken to find out why that customer had any reason to be that way. Sure, some times it is absolutely impossible to meet customer demands (like not having to navigate a phone tree at all), but it is possible to lessen the impact (having only two levels of a phone tree, or one).
Same goes with losing an employee. Is the workforce management scheduling set up in such a way that there is no breathing room? Is it set up to only allow one person out of 500 to be off sick or vacation at any time? Is the system working against the employee? Do they not have the empowerment and decision making latitude to actually solve problems? Are they measured on a plethora of KPIs? Is the environment designed to be both hostile and stressful? If a manager can answer yes to any of the above questions, they have committed epic fail and need to rectify the situation immediately.
Business management, while seen as this incredibly difficult task that only someone with a degree can understand, is not all that difficult. It is only as difficult as a manager or executive makes it. The right recruiting, the right training, the right empowerment, the right structure, the right workforce management, the right benefit and compensation package, and the right work environment can all work together to create a perfect storm of success. However if any one of those items is off, the business will trudge through. They may make a profit, they may increase sales, but at what cost?
It is asinine that after working in several different environments I have yet to find someone in management with an BSB or MBM that understands this concept, or, are humble enough to take suggestions from those who work with them and for them.
American businesses will continue to struggle until managers and executives get away from the idea that winning today is the only battle, and move towards winning long term being the battle worth focusing on. Anyone can get through today, however, can you set the operations of your business or division to be able to succeed not 5, 10, or 15 years from now, but 100 years from now? Can you lay groundwork that will allow exponential growth, mimimal employee and customer turnover, and a stress free environment? If you can’t, the degree you earned isn’t worth anything and it would be a good idea to find a new career in something else.
Just the opinion of a former low level supervisor that had zero employee turnover and clear stable growth for his entire tenure.
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Fixing Symptoms instead of Fixing Problems
On Sunday nights since there is not much else to do I usually end up sitting through Undercover Boss on CBS, right after The Amazing Race. If you haven’t seen this show, it is a reality series following Executive level management, CEO or President, as they go undercover in their own organizations. Sounds like a dream come true, right?
It is… sort of.
I’ll skip over the fact this show seems to look for feel good moments instead of actual business innovation, and just go to the episode tonight covering GSI Commerce and their CEO Michael Ruben.
One of the things that I took notice of immediately is his visit to a call center and specifically working on the Level III escalation line. Third level of service for upset customers. Mr. Ruben works with two employees, one named Adam who is amazing, and Danielle, who is not so much. I’m going to focus on this last interaction, because I think it underscores some of the issues facing call center environments today.
Danielle encountered a call in which a customer was promised a price and through a fault of the company was not able to receive that price. Since the sale ended, the only option is to purchase at full price and then issue a rebate. As predicted, this did not sit well with the customer, as it rightfully should not.
The problem is Mr. Ruben, at least in how the show aired (I will give the benefit of the doubt and say things may have happened that were not shown), is that Mr. Ruben identified the symptom rather than the problem.
Symptom: Employee is rude to a customer because the customer will not accept the offer given.
That is a symptom. The real problem:
Problem: The system only allows employees to follow very tight protocols that do not line up with customer expectations.
See, for CEOs, Presidents, and any other executive level managers out there, many do not see the problem, only the symptom, and they treat the symptom. The employee was retrained and eventually no longer worked there.
Mr. Ruben identified the symptom, treated the symptom, and then found the symptom working its way back. Why?
THE PROBLEM STILL EXISTED!
Most people who work in middle to upper-middle management, in my humble opinion, are either clueless or controlling. They either cannot see problems right in front of them, or, they see them but they do not care: operations will continue the way the feel they should go.
The solution to the problem was not to retrain the individual, but to identify what is preventing that individual working in a tier three support level from fixing the issue. In this case it was a company mistake that kept a customer from receiving a promised sale price. At tier three, if the operator cannot override the price then a huge problem exists: a lack of empowerment.
Call Centers in general suck for two reasons: there is no empowerment, and, there is overkill on metrics. Employees cannot solve customer problems if they are not capable of actually fixing the customer problems (and not saying “Call corporate because I can’t help you”, which is unfortunately the truth in many cases). A customer cannot receive a published sale price due to a company problem? Override the price, apologize, and eat the shipping. Instead of dancing around a rebate. This is endemic of every call center I have ever worked at: no empowerment. I won’t even get into the overkill on metrics tonight.
The point is I really wish people in any sort of management role would get it through their thick skulls that restricting an employees ability to solve issues does nothing but hasten burn out and cause customer turnover. Losing customers and employees is something that should be seen with disgust by anyone in executive management. Instead it is an acceptable part of business to many.
Any time a business loses a customer, the business has failed in a way that is unacceptable, regardless of the reason. Yes, the customer may have been so demanding and uncooperative that seeing them walk feels like a blessing, but a real hard look needs to be taken to find out why that customer had any reason to be that way. Sure, some times it is absolutely impossible to meet customer demands (like not having to navigate a phone tree at all), but it is possible to lessen the impact (having only two levels of a phone tree, or one).
Same goes with losing an employee. Is the workforce management scheduling set up in such a way that there is no breathing room? Is it set up to only allow one person out of 500 to be off sick or vacation at any time? Is the system working against the employee? Do they not have the empowerment and decision making latitude to actually solve problems? Are they measured on a plethora of KPIs? Is the environment designed to be both hostile and stressful? If a manager can answer yes to any of the above questions, they have committed epic fail and need to rectify the situation immediately.
Business management, while seen as this incredibly difficult task that only someone with a degree can understand, is not all that difficult. It is only as difficult as a manager or executive makes it. The right recruiting, the right training, the right empowerment, the right structure, the right workforce management, the right benefit and compensation package, and the right work environment can all work together to create a perfect storm of success. However if any one of those items is off, the business will trudge through. They may make a profit, they may increase sales, but at what cost?
It is asinine that after working in several different environments I have yet to find someone in management with an BSB or MBM that understands this concept, or, are humble enough to take suggestions from those who work with them and for them.
American businesses will continue to struggle until managers and executives get away from the idea that winning today is the only battle, and move towards winning long term being the battle worth focusing on. Anyone can get through today, however, can you set the operations of your business or division to be able to succeed not 5, 10, or 15 years from now, but 100 years from now? Can you lay groundwork that will allow exponential growth, mimimal employee and customer turnover, and a stress free environment? If you can’t, the degree you earned isn’t worth anything and it would be a good idea to find a new career in something else.
Just the opinion of a former low level supervisor that had zero employee turnover and clear stable growth for his entire tenure.
This entry was posted by Brad on March 21, 2010 at 10:29 pm, and is filed under Commentary. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.