How can you build a team culture that makes your call center stand out?

The most important first step is to ensure that all staff know and embrace this truth: The work you do is worthwhile. When people understand this, it is the beginning of a culture shift. There are ways to educate and demonstrate to your team that their work is worthwhile.... Customer testimonials are one great method for this.

In my experience of managing contact centers, the under-listed measures need to be put in place. 1. Internal staff happiness through various initiatives that show you care about the well-being of the staff. Happy staff, happy customers. 2. Performance driven- ensure there is a transparent performance process in place to celebrate top performers and help the poor performers to improve and be ready to show them the way out if there is no improvement 3. Training must be continuous. 4. Create a career path for the staff 5. Ensure they are decently renumerated

In my experience, explaining how each rep is helping our customers, and that level of help goes a long way to selling our products and services. In essence each representative is a salesperson, with every interaction.

The way you make a difference in a call center is "one agent at a time." No program or process will make a difference if it is not personalized to the individual needs. When your leaders understand this and are willing to get into the trenches to implement real change, then you will see true culture grow.

In my experience knowing the type of team players also plays a major role in building/sustaining team culture. It would help you know who to hire and who not to.

In my experience building a successful team consists of: 1st the right candidates, 2nd training, training and training somemore, 3rd follow through in on-site training, 4th building up employees and making sure to be across-the-board with coaching and praise within the team, Lastly building the right morale for the team and being transparent in all goals , policies, and representations of the company or brand name and make it clear in how it affects the business and employees livelihood alike.

The expectation should be that they solve the customer's problem. They you need to build systems to support that. Too many CS teams are expected to be miracle workers, but have no capability or power to do anything meaningful If you then measure performance in terms of problems resolved and feedback is based on finding ways to solve the problems that weren't; then with the right people in place job satisfaction is higher and quality, professionalism, and ethics become almost self-fulling.

Give everyone the same goal. (This applies to teams everywhere) If you're using a metrics system like OKRs then everyone has the same 'North Star' and teams can see how what they do moves things in that direction. If the goal for CS is: Provide the highest possible level of service. Does measuring calls per hour help achieve that? People will act around what you're measuring. If you want to foster collaboration and trust, you need to have metrics that facilitate that. (Again - this applies to all types of team)

I have always been a very direct and transparent leader . I have found that if I want my team to have the same level of expertise to do the job I have hired them for, I must train them at that level and with the goal to train them essentially to take my position at some point wether it's my position personally or in another part of the company. I have watched so many times , good candidates come into roles for companies I have worked at and get belittled , humiliated and bullied into giving up their strive and dedication to becoming a top employee by managers with insecurities, political behaviors or personality conflicts. Ultimately companies pay the price because they lose valuable employees to unskilled, poorly trained managers.

I find that defining clear values and expectations would be best, promote open communication. Invest in ongoing training and development also recognize and reward excellence this foster a supportive and inclusive environment. Encourage teamwork and collaboration, empower employees to make decisions and continuously gather feedback and adapt. Prioritize work-life balance and employee well-being too.

I have found the best way to motivate and inspire your team is to get out there right along side them in the middle of the everyday tasks and hurdles. Being part of the team and not lingering above the team shows humility, respect and that you care about the success of your team members . People in general will bend over backwards for the success or your team in the company if they know they are valued , wanted there and that we as managers give them that morale boost consistently and fairly across-the-board . Being across-the-board in training, promoting and discipline is very much key in building a successful and hopefully life long team.

In Japan there is a concept called Hansei. In essence, It means to look back with deep regret at one’s actions in order to improve. At our company, we use daily or weekly Hansei’s to identify/understand our team’s moments of struggle or failure and then use candor/feedback to Identify ways to improve in the same way. This needs to be custom fit to your team and company culture, but the end result is remarkable. As people, we all want to be valued and we all want to improve. Even in a “call center job” you can have a dynamic and energetic culture.

To build a strong team culture in your call center, you can start by setting up regular culture surveys and creating an anonymous suggestions box where employees can freely share their thoughts. Get a diverse feedback review committee on board to help identify areas that need improvement and come up with action plans. Keep the conversation going with regular culture meetings, and be sure to assign specific people or teams the responsibility for making these plans a reality. Always keep the lines of communication open, be transparent about the progress, and remember, it's an ongoing journey, so don't be afraid to adjust and fine-tune your culture as you go along.

In order to build the right team culture one of the first things you need to do is to get to know your people on an individual level: their journey to date, their goals, their struggles and pain points. And from there you lead with empathy and collaborate, helping to see how what’s important to them is what’s important to you, and how their role can contribute to their success.

In my experience, I never thought I’d join a contact center, at all. Covid changed that and brought me to one of the toughest areas being an agent could work in: unemployment. I started as an agent and shortly after was given opportunity to manage my own team. I set my expectations early on, created SOP’s to set them up for success and held everyone accountable. We were only required to have a meeting once a day but I held two for my team, 1 in the morning to cover the constant updates and changes we were getting and one at the end of the day, for them. What new issues or questions they had, listening to their feedback/stress/highs/lows and genuinely caring for them as people. That is how you make deeper level connections. Then consistency.

I took over a big box store in West Texas with high shrink due to theft internally and externally. All skimatics needed reset, employees scarce I had 2 of 12 needed. I figure out were to improve first and what could wait. Ultimately I 1st recruited a great team, trained within the man hours VS. Payroll alloted with effectiveness priority, the hours of operations, time management of resetting the entire store, cash handling and POS training. In the end the store and team prospered and the store was able to remain open and profitable with very low shrink s well as good customer satisfaction surveys. I then began fixing other stores, recruiting and training teams for success . This made me a turn around manager for the company.

I think the HBS (I can't remember the edition) also did a good number on this. Know the different persona of the CC staff and match it to the job requirements to improve job moral and fit. With employee satisfaction up, attaining a culture fit becomes easier.