By Kathy Sisk
In the first part of this two-part series, we discussed the skills that an effective call center coach should have. We also covered key motivational techniques to get agents producing. For the next step, we’ll look at developing a comprehensive, department-wide motivational plan.
Your Departmental Motivation Plan
- Set the criteria for winning rewards, ones that are fair and attainable.
- Decide what your campaign objectives are and when you want to reach them.
- Evaluate unforeseen problems that occurred in other reward campaigns to prevent a repeat of previous mistakes.
- Retrace your steps to find out where the source of previous problems came from.
- Determine the specific criteria that agents need to meet to earn the reward you’re offering.
- Be clear on the time frame for starting and ending the campaign.
- Define what is eligible and non-eligible for the reward.
- Predetermine the rewards you will offer based on the difficulty of the campaign.
- Remind agents of how close they are in reaching their goals and alert them if they’re falling short of them.
- Help agents determine any problems and find ways to overcome them.
- Don’t isolate each agent’s results. Instead, publicize their results—such as by using cardboard thermometers hung on a wall with each obtainable goal as measurements shown in red. Find ways to make a positive statement.
- Incorporate an accountability factor into your campaign. This means what, how, and when you will collect data and evaluate results. Define the methods you’ll use to distribute rewards. This includes what role management will play and any fanfare.
A properly designed motivational plan will spur your staff to achieve outstanding results, while a poorly conceived or misaligned plan will have the opposite effect.
Kathy Sisk Enterprises Inc. has forty years of experience providing call center setup, reengineering, assessments, training, script development, and project management services to centers globally.