"THE ART OF WAR" On Call Center Team Performance

Let’s face it. Each of your call center, your account and even within your call center team, the whole place is a battleground. Call center war for stats, commendations, appraisals and especially promotion. What matters in this call center industry are the numbers. And that’s in general. Your team performance and your individual stats is what you will be judged by. Some of you may have been striving hard to increase conversion, collection and quality. Some might be in the battle of decreasing their AHT. Take a second, lean back and think. Have you have been strategizing how you can beat the “top performer” or beat the “Best Team of the Month”? If you haven’t, then you need to read this. If you have but your strategy is still not effective, this is going to be an awakening for you. If you haven’t read the ancient book of Sun Tzu, you may start reading now because even though it was written thousands of years ago, its principles are still applicable in almost all aspects of professional life.

Call Center Blogger is going to write this call center post in increments as the book involves a lot of interpretation and it would be a huge amount of time to put it all in one sitting. Call Center Blogger will also divide it in chapters according to Sun Tzu’s book and more importantly quote an excerpt that I feel is applicable to call center situations. I will also relate how I used its principles and how my competitors have used it against me effectively as well.

But first we must identify who is who and what is what:

Your enemy – could be your call center co-agent who you compete for stats and promotion. Or it could also be the other call center teams who you also compete for stats, shift bidding or awards.

Your battleground –is your team, your call center account, and/or your stats.

Chapter 1 – Laying the Plan

“All warfare is based on deception. Hence when unable to attack, we must seem unable; when using out forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when we are near, we must make him believe we are far away. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder and crush him. If he is superior in strength, evade him. If your opponent is choleric in temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak so he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.”

This is I feel has the biggest relation in terms of Individual and call center Team Performance. Strategy is wholly a deception game but in a good way. Call Center Blogger was once a Team Manager before in a big call center. I was one of only two pioneer team managers for our call center newest account. Needless to say, it was WAR for call center stats and approval from the beginning. The account was brand new and we only had 2 major stats to think about at first. But later on as the call center account grew we had to deal with four. I leaned back and analyzed the since the account was fairly new and it needed more customers, the call center client and our OM would be impressed if my team had the head start and be number 1 in Inbound Sales and get them more customers. So I strategized and convinced my team that we will focus on Sales rather than Tech Support which was the other stat. And so it was effective! For the first 2 months or so in my call center, we were “killing” the other team easily. And so I rested on my laurels and continued with my team strategy. Call Center Blogger had all reports available to him and he reviewed it on a daily basis to see how our team was doing in the call center competition. I had no doubt in his mind that they will always be on top because of my strategy. But slowly while I was distracted, the other call center team slowly gained ground on sales and they were besting us in the other stat, Tech Support. I still kept with what my team had going and did not worry about Tech Support stat because I believed we are going to still beat the other team through our sales. So we didn’t mind having a mediocre first call resolution (FCR). Week by week, the “enemy” grew stronger on Sales but we were still way ahead in that department. Meanwhile, they solidified their hold on FCR. By the time of the last week of the month, they only had half of our Sales but WAY ahead in FCR. At that time, it was too late for us to recover with FCR and catch up with the “enemy”. Needless to say, by the end of that month (the call center account’s 3^rd month) we got beaten by the enemy by a slim margin.

This is how THE ART OF WAR was used against me. I did not realize the enemy can catch up on us because we had a “strong front” in Sales. Call Center Blogger's team was not able to man the rear (T.S.) and that’s where we got beaten.

More to come………. On the next days!

Posted in: CallCenter Advices