Jonty's Tips

Jonty shares a mix of contact centre learnings, observations and shared experience.

Be careful of targets

People will often find a way to trick the system so that the target is met, but the underlying problem is still there.

See it – Do it!

Encourage everyone that if they see something that is broken (for example a broken process) they take ownership to make sure that it is fixed.

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The Law of Jonty

If people want self-service they use the web.
If they pick up the phone they want to speak to a person.
“The Law of Jonty”: Don’t confuse the two.

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Customer role plays

Carry out customer role plays. These can be useful for induction training but may also be helpful when bringing in a new process.

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Barriers to contact centre homeworking

In our December 2011 webinar we did a poll of the biggest barriers to contact centre homeworking. 47 people voted.
Three main barriers were managing staff remotely, security and other priorities.

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Mistakes happen – now learn from them

If you want your centre to progress, you need to let your team know that it is OK to make mistakes, as long as they learn from them. In this case actions really do speak louder than words.

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Take away the Average Handling Time target

This only gets in the way of doing the right thing for the customer.

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Streamline the ID and Verification Process

Look to see if you can streamline the ID and verification process. Do you need to ask so many questions?

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Listen to what your callers are telling you

If you start listening to calls, you really get a lot of information on what your callers are telling you.
One of my favourite is to put a batch of calls onto your iPod or onto the CD in your car, and listen to them on the way home.
They give you some very good indicators of [...]

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Help newcomers settle into the company

Assign an experienced member of staff (a ‘buddy’) to help new staff members settle into the company. Make sure that you choose wisely or you may find that bad practice spreads through the new recruits.

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