Excerpted with permission from "Managing and Motivating Contact Center Employees" by Malcolm Carlaw, Peggy Carlaw, Vasudha K. Deming and Kurt Friedmann. Published by McGraw-Hill, December, 2002, ISBN 0071428925. ©2003. For more information about this book and similar titles, visit McGraw-Hill. Visit Amazon.com to purchase.
Managing the Mood in Your Contact Center: How to Lift Morale
Why is Morale so Important?
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| Guidelines to call center morale and motivation |
Here's What We Know:
The manager sets the tone for the entire department. Morale is contagious. Different things motivate different people. Environmental conditions affect morale. Motivations change. There's no magic formula or 100 percent guaranteed approach to creating high morale. Maintaining high morale is as much about caring as it is about caution. When employees' needs are met, they tend to be willing to do what you ask -- and more. Increasing morale makes good business sense. |
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It's not impossible to have high productivity and decent bottom-line
results in an environment where morale is low, but it is unlikely. As
you'll see throughout this book, our approach is that you should care
about how your call center employees feel, if for no other reason than because it's
the right thing to do. But if you're not yet a convert to that way of
thinking and that style of management, we've got some other good
reasons for you to care about morale.
High morale in a contact center environment can lead to:
- Increased job satisfaction
- Lower turnover rates
- Higher productivity
- Reduced absenteeism
- Higher ownership of customer concerns
- Less job-related stress
- Increased identification with the company's mission
- Higher customer satisfaction
- Increased customer loyalty
- Strong "ambassadorship" (for example, through referrals) from
your employees to their family, friends, and acquaintances
It's good for you, it's good for them, it's good for the bottom line.
In a survey conducted by David H. Maister, the author of Practice What
You Preach, it was found that happy divisions outperformed
unhappy ones by as much as 42 percent. What's more, just
think of all the time, effort, and expense of hiring and training new call center
employees that could be saved if you could just keep your current
employees happy!
You Know It When You See It
High morale doesn't necessarily mean an absence of tensions, disagreements,
or challenges. These are -- and probably should be -- present in
any dynamic working environment. And it doesn't necessarily mean a
complaint-free workplace. As we've all experienced at one time or
another, complaints are often good ideas having a bad day.
The morale of your call center will be conveyed to customers through the
words, actions and attitude of your frontline employees.
However, when morale is high, the team invests its
time and energy in finding solutions rather than creating
problems. Employees show respect for one another even if
they disagree. Despite the inevitable challenges of working
life, in a high-morale environment employees take pride
in what they do and as a result give their best effort. They
go the extra mile for the team or for the customer. They
look forward to coming to work and they attempt to make
the workplace an enjoyable environment for themselves and others.
Read the rest of this excerpt and download Chapter 1: Managing the Mood in Your Contact Center: How to Lift Morale
Read other excerpts and download more sample chapters from our CRM and call center bookshelf
To purchase the book, visit McGraw-Hill or Amazon.com.
