Top 8 Questions to Identify Your Level of WOW

Begin the New Year off right and focused to your goals. Many of us hope to maximize performance, elevate the Customer experience, be more productive and increase revenue, but how do we create this level of WOW? It all begins by bringing together all those leaders within your center that impact performance (including Supervisors, Trainers, Recruiters, QA Analysts, etc.) to explore your level of WOW. First, introduce WOW as not just an event, but rather an entire culture. WOW is an evolution - always striving for the ultimate achievement of your goals. A WOW culture embraces:

• Evolving to the highest possible performance.
• Committing to the values of integrity and personal accountability.
• Seizing every opportunity to serve.
• Inspiring the passion in others.

1. Do members of your organization know what WOW is? HINT: If you hear, "That call was okay…" or "That call sounded good…", then your calls are not WOW and you are not getting the greatest results. A WOW experience meets the needs of the Customer, the organization and the Employee.
2. Are you holding everyone accountable for WOW standards? HINT: If you hear your Supervisors saying, "Well, that's just the way she sounds…" or "He just came back from vacation…", then you are accepting mediocrity and not getting the greatest results. Reflect on the InterWeave mantra - "What you tolerate becomes your standard."
3. When you watch or listen to your Representatives interact with your Customers, do you feel an unbelievable, unequivocal sense of, "WOW, that was awesome!"? HINT: If your Representatives simply go through the motions, assisting Customers only with their most basic needs, then you are not achieving the greatest possible results.
4. Do your Representatives LOVE your contact center? HINT: If you hear grumblings of unfairness or lack of support, then your Representatives are not WOWed and in turn, are not WOWing your Customers.
5. Are your Supervisors true mentors and the drivers of performance improvement? HINT: If you look out onto your floor and see your Supervisors pouring over reports, filling out timecards or away at meetings, then your Supervisors are not interacting with your Representatives and driving performance results.
6. Do your Supervisors infuse change into your business on a daily basis? HINT: If your Supervisors "check off boxes" and simply react to the latest escalations, then you are not getting the greatest results.
7. Do your Supervisors focus on the behaviors that drive the metrics in your center? HINT: If your Supervisors simply exclaim, "Lower your AHT and raise your Quality score…", then you are not achieving the greatest results.
8. Are your Supervisors coaching to behaviors instead of attitudes? HINT: If you hear your Supervisors tell their Representatives, "You are so friendly…" or "You need to sound more professional…", then your Supervisors are focusing more on emotionally-based perceptions instead of on the distinct, identifiable actions that will achieve results.

• Expand your strategic communication plan to share your WOW vision.
• Create behavioral based standards that embrace your new definition of WOW.
• Hire Representatives that exceed these behavioral based standards.
• Transform the roles of your Supervisors to make mentoring their primary focus.
• Establish clear Supervisory standards to ensure that everyone is held accountable for driving performance change.
• Revise your processes to confirm that they support WOW Customer experiences.
• Construct a quality assurance process that is focused on proactively identifying opportunities for driving change.
• Design a strategic coaching process that will achieve results.
• Maximize the use of technology to optimize your organization's resources.
• Implement a measurement process that will track the results of your WOW journey from the perspective of your metrics, your Employees and your Customers.

Provided by InterWeave President Kimberly King who shares more in her new book, "Is Your Call Center Really WOW?" To order or download the complete WOW Self-Assessment visit InterWeave at www.interweavecorp.com.

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INDIA SETS UP WORKER DATABASE TO FIGHT FRAUD
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10909439/from/RSS/

WORLD'S LARGEST IT SERVICE AND SUPPORT EVENT
HDI, the world's largest membership association for IT service and support professionals and the premier certification body for the industry, today announced that the HDI 2006 Conference & Expo - "Get Connected" (http://www.thinkhdi.com/hdi2006) will be held March 19-22, 2006 at the Opryland Resort in Nashville, Tenn.
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E-MAIL FROM OFFSHORE AGENTS: HOW (AND WHY) TO E-MAIL USING "AMERICANESE"
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http://www.contactprofessional.com/issues/article.asp?ID=302

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In this webcast, Tom Pisello explains how companies can generate an ROI figure by accounting for the hard and soft benefits along with the costs associated with deploying VoIP.
http://www.bitpipe.com/detail/RES/1131716788_829.html?src=hdl_contprof

THE SERVICE OPTIMIZATION CHALLENGE: BALANCING SERVICE COST AND SERVICE LEVELS
This paper discusses some of the factors that contribute to operational inefficiencies in field service and examines some traditional remedies for the problem. The paper also looks at the impact of these traditional remedies on the service "balance sheet," and discusses how a service optimization perspective can have significant positive impact in an organization.
http://www.bitpipe.com/detail/RES/1130773925_970.html?src=hdl_contprof

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