Time to cheer up the contact centre

Abhinit Gogia thought that his colleagues in the contact centre were looking dull and uninterested.  On his way home, he thought of an idea that would get everyone going.

Read on to find out what he did….

The earth revolves faster, I say to myself, while picking up the next call of my day. It’s October and soon we will have our appraisals, I think to myself while wrapping up the last call for the day.

I get up to say goodbye to my friends who will be taking care of customers for the remainder of the day, but there are no smiles.  It’s the same look that I saw when I came in for work in the morning. Everyone looks dull and uninterested, but they have to do what they have to do.

So, I think to myself, can I do something to make a difference?

No one has anything to look forward to, it’s the same calls, the same incentives for cross-sells and the same blank empty white walls.

I reach home and just when I throw my shoes beneath the shoe rack that I bought recently, this model comes into my mind, who I saw on the big advertising banner outside a shopping mall, looking at her huge Tissot watch.

I quickly get on my laptop and Google “TIME IS RUNNING OUT” and I see an image of a girl pointing at her watch. And then I get an idea. I download the image from an image library on my Picasa and I create the following:

I email my boss about it and he agrees to it. I go to the nearby printing shop, get posters made for the centre and the next day, I am up the ladder. And while I am coming down, there’s already a buzz in the centre. My friends who weren’t smiling the day before come up to me and ask me, is there something hot happening this appraisal? I have nothing but a smile on my face and all I say is “Don’t you know?  The boss asked me to do it”.

The end result, the centre’s performance gets better by the day. I was competing for the No. 1 spot with three colleagues when the posters went up. But, by the end of the next month , I am competing with 5 friends for the top slot.

Time is definitely running out; my suggestion to all the managers out there: reach out to your subordinates and do whatever you can to motivate them. If you care, it shows.

Abhinit Gogia is a Senior Customer Service Representative working for a bank in the UAE.