By Paul Cooper, Contact Centre Operations Manager – The West Brom

It’s interesting the conversations you have in the middle of the night. As I write this at 2.30am, our Year End processing is taking place and a couple of bleary eyed chaps in our IT department are finishing off the remnants of the pizzas and bottles of pop to try to keep themselves awake.

One of them asked me if we were still using eg work manager®, to which I replied we couldn’t live without it as I have always believed that, as is posted so many times on this site, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it…” Then we got onto the subject of staff measurement.

They couldn’t believe the extent to which we can measure our staff through work manager and our telecoms system, but to me after more years than I care to remember, it’s a way of life in a busy Contact Centre and I should know as my team produce reams of MI for managers on an hourly/daily/weekly/monthly basis. I guess many HO support areas in other organisations are similar in so much as they don’t have the same level of measurement.

This got me thinking… In an age when we measure our most important resource, those at the customer facing rock face who are on the whole at the lower end of the salary scale against:

• quality of work
• effectiveness/productivity
• service standards
• regulatory compliance
• timekeeping etc, etc…

What keeps them coming back every day?? I guess it can’t be that bad a place to work, there is a good atmosphere within the teams and of course they get paid.

However, what will make them want to come back day after day? The best thing for some I guess is the chance to grow and develop their skills, improve their career and increase their pay and someday move to a support team when the amount of time you spend in the loo in a day isn’t as important.

This then reminded me that one of the objectives for the coming year for the Contact Centre management group is to dust down the skills matrices and create development and training plans for our teams.

Before I get too bogged down in it all, and taking the advice of a former manager of mine who said “Never re-invent the wheel” can any of the readers of this blog who have had to create development plans in the past provide any good points to consider and any pitfalls to avoid. We obviously want this to motivate staff to develop which should in turn help the company with peaks and troughs in the various work types we have to process.

Any help would be appreciated…

The 19th October heralded the final focus group of 2010.

The agenda focussed on the potential business improvements that can be made within an organisation and the support that the eg operational intelligence^® suite  and principles can give in realising continuing benefits following an organisations initial investment.

With 10 organisations represented at the event, it provided a fantastic networking and knowledge sharing opportunity on how each business identifies and selects improvements, aligns the software to support these initiatives and how the ‘business as usual’ principles of operational management engages the staff and drives the benefits.

To support these discussions we were grateful for the support of Legal & General who provided a case study on how their Business Improvement Team within the Retail Savings business included the roll out of eg work manager^® as part of their tool set to drive improvements within their business.

As part of the discussions we also reviewed the various merits of a business improvement framework including Six Sigma, Lean and Systems Thinking – and how the system and principles can support this.  Further details on how this can be achieved can be found in a special eg white paper.  To request a copy just complete the form below.

eg would like to thank their customers for continuing to support the Focus Groups during 2010.  Any feedback on what you would like to appear on the agenda for 2011 please leave a response through the ‘add a comment’ option.

Focus group meeting dates for 2011 will be announced Q1 of 2011.

Last time (“You can’t measure my work” versus “What get’s measured get’s managed”) I looked at the tension between measuring variable processes and the value if you persevere in doing this.  It looks like I stirred up a hornet’s nest of feedback – and thank you for it!

I also promised to feedback those views.  Some of these were posted direct to the blog.  But however you fed back to me – whether there on the blog, through e-mail, calls/text or when we met face to face at your office, our Focus Group or Software User Group – thank you one and all!

Let’s start with Debbie Strickland, as she explained about the desire people have in WANTING to achieve the goals you set them based on the measure.  As they strive towards these goals they show their colleagues, themselves and you, HOW they add value.  So make sure you think carefully about WHAT each target is when you set it!  And don’t “micro” manage as you use the measure, but make sure you look at consistent performance over a longer time.

Gary Stone points out the need to measure the right PEOPLE, delivering service in the right way with the correct result.

Even though we measure a process, Paul Cooper reminds us to involve the team.  PEOPLE bring different strengths – so make sure you recognise these strengths and those that deliver QUALITY steadfastly – as well as those who produce volume.

Next time, we will focus on team involvement to support ownership and engender belief in measures, what they show us and the potential to achieve a POSITIVE impact on REALISING tangible business benefits.  Contact me at andrewbaker@eguk.co.uk or sms +44 7785 29 03 46 if you have examples to share too!

As the year comes to a close I would like to reflect on some of the award successes we have had this year, since the topic of awards has come up several times in the blog over the last few months.

The most recent news is that one of our clients, Legal & General Retail Savings, won the Ventana Research 2009 Award for Operational Intelligence.  This is a fantastic achievement and we would like to congratulate Paul Lewis, Customer Services Director at Legal & General Retail Savings, and his team once again.  Read more about this impressive operational intelligence win.

On 3 December the hard work of the last few months truly paid off with the announcement that eg was the winner of the ‘Technology Vendors – Most Innovative Financial Services Solution’ category at the Financial Innovation Awards.  We identified this award as a key target for eg after the category was launched last year as we believed the eg operational intelligence® software suite fulfilled the award criteria so were really pleased with this win. 

Two of our entries, including Nationwide Regional Brands, have shortlisted in the ‘Back Office’ category of the Professional Planning Forum (PPF) Innovation Awards  The competition is closely linked to PPF’s annual conference on 20 April 2010 with the winners being announced at an awards ceremony on the evening.

This week we submitted several entries into the the Financial Sector Technology Awards.  Last year two clients – The Co-operative Financial Services (CFS) and Legal & General Retail Savings – were shortlisted and CFS received a ‘Highly Commended’ for their project with Capita.  Hopefully one or more of this year’s entries will be shortlisted in the New Year.

With our own eg operational excellence® awards in November, being shortlisted in the UK IT Awards and receiving a ‘Highly Commended’ in ICT Cluster Awards, the last few months have been very exciting and we hope further success will follow.  As usual, look out for awards updates in the news area on the website!

At our recent Focus Group at Think Tank, Birmingham, we discussed operational needs for now and the next 6-12 months with our customers.   With a range of operational responsibilities represented, these varied.  However, when it boiled down to it, the majority of delegates needed to understand their business (customers, processes and employees), forecast and then optimise their operation to ‘cope’ with the future.

That made me think, as a Team Manager or Customer Service Manager, what should my priorities be now in the current climate?  Have my needs really changed over the last 12 months?

I don’t think current needs are really any different from what most organisations have always tried to do (some just more effectively than others).  The current economic climate has just put the effectiveness of this process under the microscope.

So where should you start in improving your own organisations ability to manage now and in the future?  Paul Cooper from West Bromwich has already blogged about the challenges of a quantitative and qualitative dilemma.  If we add in the need to understand our customers’ journey, delivering on our promises, case ownership versus functional ownership and the business improvement projects that we have to deliver – oh by the way at a reduced cost -  what should we do?

Back to basics I say!  The old adages are the best – ‘If you cannot measure it you cannot manage it’.  Do you and all of your colleagues really understand your business?

Until you do, your ability to deliver is challenging.  So what pearls of wisdom do I offer I hear you shout?  Well how about these to start with:

• Make sure the information you collect adds value to your customers and your organisation.
• Make the collection of it as easy as possible – but make no mistake that collecting it is important by demonstrating the value of the output for those who have to collect it!
• Focus the measures on understanding your customers, the processes they have to follow and your co-workers who have to manage your processes.
• Engage all your staff in the importance and benefits of the Management Information for them and your customers – it is generally a self fulfilling process.  It then becomes an embedded part of your organisations DNA – the way we do things around here.
• Targets change – so change your focus but retain the balanced set of measures – it means you will be making fact based decisions.
• Make sure you share the information within your business – it’s amazing what impact sharing knowledge about your back office processes does for the front office and ultimately your customer.

The list could go on – but perhaps you could share some thoughts on what has worked best for you?  Leave a comment or email me: jamesblackhurst@eguk.co.uk.

eg would like to introduce Paul Cooper, Contact Centre Operations Manager from West Bromwich Building Society, as our first Guest Blogger.

Having spent the day at an eg user group it got me thinking re the dilemma of Quantity vs Quality.  To me it is a quandary in so much as whilst each should form the basis of a balanced scorecard, how do you balance this?  I’m not sure how you can truly achieve both, as each has such conflicting aims.

Consultants and “experts” over the years have moved their thinking away from quantity towards the quality angle.  When working as a Team Manager 10 years ago, the aim was to shift the bits of paper from the Team Inbox to the team Outbox as quickly as possible.  It wasn’t until I’d been running the team for a while that I realised that these bits of paper represented the real lives of customers – if the team got things wrong then the consequences were more than just a bit of re-work.

Now I have to take the holistic company approach for MI and forecasting purposes, I can understand completely the impact of both, with regards to reworks, complaints etc, etc… When we look at Continuous Improvement programmes the key driver is ensuring that the company does more for less, whilst ensuring that quality is of a high standard.  So the focus remains on Quantity with Quality as an important Output.

The main target for processing staff is their productivity.  Quality scores come second. Whilst we have dabbled with the targets, staff still work to ensure that they achieve 100% productivity at all times.

When a whole culture within a large department has been fostered towards achieving good performance measures and then the experts change their mind, how do you change the culture to focus on quality (within a short period of time), whilst also ensuring that staff do a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay?

If anyone has achieved this successfully I would be grateful if you could share any experiences with me. Answers on a postcard please….

Please leave a comment or contact Paul by emailing ask@eguk.co.uk