Secrets To Contact Center Success

Josh Ballantyne is the Insurance Manager at Kiwibank. He's spent 13 years in the financial industry - working with some of New Zealand's largest insurers and companies - and has created huge performance transformations in multiple sales campaigns he's been responsible for.

He's got great tips on how you can achieve the same.

Top 3 Tips:

1. Put yourself in a positive mindset - you can lift performance (11:26).

2. Identify what behaviours distinguish your high performers from your average performers. Train all agents to use them on every call (12:12).

3. Praise agents every time you observe them using these high performance behaviours (12:55).

You'll Learn:

• The key advantage you have in your contact centres - over any other channel - when it comes to lifting performance (04:37).

• How many behaviours distinguish your high performers from everyone else. The number will surprise you (07:05).

• The surprising transformations in Josh's agents, which happened at the same time they lifted performance (09:05).

• How much more praise than correction Team Leaders need to give agents, so agents reach their potential (13:11).

Get the full show notes here: https://bravatrak.com/josh-ballantyne-podcast

Connect with Josh on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshballantyne/

Get your free copy of Game On here: https://bravatrak.com/game-on-book

Jane Horne is a Customer Service Representative at TSB Bank. She was awarded the CCNNZ (Customer Contact Network New Zealand) National Contact Centre Agent of the Year award in 2020. Her traits and mindset are exactly the ones to look for when you're recruiting CSRs.

Jane's Top 3 Tips:

1. Having enthusiasm and passion for working with customers is vital (05:41).

2. Being skilled at asking open questions like "what", "how" and "tell me about" separates high-performing CSRs from average performers (07:06).

3. Consider all customer service based backgrounds when it comes to recruiting CSRs, not just people who've worked in a contact centre before (11:10).

You'll Learn:

• The best tip Jane was ever told, which helps her prioritise customers waiting in the queue, and respect their time (03:12).

• The four pairs of shoes Jane packs in her bag each day, and how they help her bring her best-self to the job (04:24).

• The quick and easy way Jane saves time and stress during her work day (09:40).

Get the full show notes here: https://bravatrak.com/jane-horne-podcast

Connect with Jane on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-horne-b400501b4/

Get your free copy of Game On here: https://bravatrak.com/game-on-book

Amanda Law is a Recruiter and Principal Consultant at Cultivate Recruitment. She has more than 11 years in the recruitment industry, and has spent most of the that time recruiting for contact centres.

Her expertise means she's got some incredibly useful tips when it comes to recruiting your perfect contact centre agents in the current environment.

Top 3 Tips:

1. If you can, run a blind recruitment process - which basically means not reviewing CVs - and trust in your interview process. You'll avoid discounting people who are fantastic for the role (10:33)

2. When it comes to interview questions:

   1. Break down your competency-based questions into parts to avoid confusing candidates. For example, instead of asking "tell me about a time when you've had a difficult customer that you've had to deal with. What was the situation? What was the outcome? How did you feel about that?", ask each part at a time (12:08).

   2. To find out what a candidate's motivations are, get a workplace story out of them. That way, you'll be able to find out what makes them tick (13:41).

3. Make the candidate experience a stand-out one, that's smooth and fun. Then you'll have the best chance of them choosing your role as opposed to choosing one at another organisation (14:50).

You'll Learn:

• What changes have happened in contact centres over the last few years, that have turned the skill requirements of your call centre agents upside down (01:56).

• The common mistake many contact centre leaders make when it comes to candidates' salary expectations, and how to easily solve it (06:42).

• The key things that your candidates are looking for in your business - that you might not be aware of - which determine whether they want to work for you (16:39).

See the full show notes here: https://bravatrak.com/amanda-law-podcast

Connect with Amanda on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-law-b45143a4/

Get your free copy of Game On here: https://bravatrak.com/game-on-book

Angela Wynn is the Head of Strategy at ASB Bank. She's spent the last 20 years in the finance industry, within sales, service, and strategy roles. Most including big change management projects.

She's the most incisive strategic thinker I know. Today, she shares her tips from one of her change management projects around how to increase customer service in your contact centres, while increasing sales revenue.

Top 3 Tips:

1. Take the time to understand what your customers want, and what looks like in what your agents do. It's vital to put your assumptions aside (07:28).

2. The more positive feedback your managers give their people, the better. All of us think we give a lot of it, but when you track it, you may realise you're not giving as much as you thought (07:55).

3. Establish an operating rhythm around when you expect your managers to coach, and track it. It's easy to assume people are doing what you're wanting done, but they may not be (08:33).

You'll Learn:

• The key part of operating rhythm Angela credits for lifting performance (04:58).

• How you can lift sales by improving customer experience (05:24).

• The shift Angela made in their recruitment of Centre Manager and Team Leaders, which made all the difference in creating long term improvements in customer service and sales revenue (09:40).

Show notes: https://bravatrak.com/angela-wynn-podcast

Connect with Angela on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angela-wynn-51847a14/

Get your free copy of Game On here: https://bravatrak.com/game-on-book

Robin Carter-Stuart is the Nominated Representative Coach at TSB Bank. He's worked in the contact center industry for the past decade, mostly as a Team Leader, a technical trainer and as a sales quality analyst. He's got a super strong understanding of how your Quality Analysts can contribute to building a world-class coaching culture in your centers, so you lift performance.

Full show notes: https://bravatrak.com/robin-carter-stuart-podcast

Connect with Robin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robincarterstuart/

Get your free copy of Game On: https://bravatrak.com/game-on-book

Sheryl North is the Consumer Programmes Lead at Spark New Zealand. She's spent the last 25 years in the contact centre industry, and was responsible for setting up and running Spark's highly successful Agents at Home programme from 2010 to 2020. She's got a number of great hard-won tips for how to manage remote teams to get the best from them.

Full show notes: https://www.bravatrak.com/sheryl-north-podcast

Connect with Sheryl: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheryl-north-25a76536/

Get your free copy of Game On: https://bravatrak.com/game-on-book

Georgia Irvine is a Customer Service & Call Centre Recruiter at Tribe Recruitment. She has great insight into the industry trends about what employers are looking for. She's got some great tips about how to get placed in the contact centre manager role you're wanting.

Top 3 Tips:

1. Above anything else, employers of call center managers still look for strong people leaders. In other words, people who can build a strong culture, be an advocate for their contact centre or customer service team and develop and nurture relationships across the wider business (09:46).

2. Look at the strengths, experience, and competencies outlined in the description of the role you're wanting to land, and come up with examples of your achievements which tie in with these (10:56).

3. Take the time to think about where you want your career to go, and what role you want to have in the future. That way, in your job search and discussions with agencies, you'll be much more likely to find the role which is right for you (13:02).

You'll Learn:

• The shift that's happened mainly in the last 12 months, which has split contact centre manager roles into 2 categories. You'll discover what these categories are, and what to do so you're able to get the role that's best for you (01:43).

• The skill sets employers are now looking for in the contact center managers they hire (03:37).

• The new KPIs and metrics which employers are now wanting their contact centre manager hires to improve, so you can be a step ahead of your competition (07:11).

Show notes: https://bravatrak.com/georgia-irvine-podcast

Connect with Georgia on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgiairvinecandidatemanager/

Get your free copy of Game On here: https://bravatrak.com/game-on-book

Bridgette Dalzell is the General Manager of Customer Connection Hubs at Bank of New Zealand. She's spent the last 25 years involved in customer experience, customer service, and customer sales. And she's led teams across New Zealand, Australia, India and the Philippines.

Top 3 Tips:

1. Have a really good data set of understanding why your customers are calling.

2. Have a team of people dedicated to doing call listening.

3. And then come up with a strategy around what is your low hanging fruit and how you'll measure it.

You'll Learn:

• How Bridgette has dealt with unprecedented high call volume. And how she's taken 14,000 calls out of her service contact centre in the last few months - while improving customer experience (including for high volume callers) - by pushing customers to self-serve and digital (01:43 and 04:31).

• How to address any concerns around the cost of having a transformation team, so you can make a rock-solid business case for having one (08:09).

• The way to guarantee your customers' experience is kept top-of-mind in every meeting (10:40).

Full show notes: https://bravatrak.com/bridgette-dalzell-podcast

Connect with Bridgette on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bridgette-dalzell-b582b86/

Get your free copy of Game On here: https://bravatrak.com/game-on-book

Welcome to the Secrets to Contact Center Success. The podcast which connects you with the latest and greatest tips from the best and brightest minds in the industry.

But before I tell you a bit about myself, let's talk about you. More specifically; the value you can expect to get from regularly tuning in.

My focus is on interviewing experts in the contact centre space, to share with you the best secrets for solving the challenges that you're facing.

The reality is that whatever problems you're currently facing in your contact centers, someone else has faced them as well and overcome them. Someone else already has the answers. And I want to connect you with those answers to shortcut your path to success.

Each episode will cover a contact center improvement project - or a change management initiative - that a contact center leader has lead, which was highly successful.

See the full transcript here: www.bravatrak.com/welcome-to-the-podcast