We’ve spent much of the last year talking to customer service leaders about hiring, retention, and engagement, trying to understand what it takes for a customer service rep to succeed in today’s world.
Many of you have already seen at least a portion of the results of those efforts: our new study, “The Portrait of the New High Performer,” which identifies a high-potential, low-effort rep called “The Controller” that contact centers should be focusing on hiring in order to deliver low-effort service.
However, hiring is only one part of long-term talent management strategy. The smartest organizations realize that post-hiring activities (e.g., onboarding, training, and retention, etc.) are just as important.
After all, reps are expensive to attract, hire, and onboard, and if we’re talking about Controllers, they do come in limited supply. All this means that service organizations need to think carefully about how to create an environment where new hires are learning the right behaviors and feel engaged in their new role, right from the start.
Getting new reps off to the right start is easier said than done. Service organizations focused on hiring Controllers will find that even Controllers need support and a safe environment to learn to apply their natural tendencies to the job.
This is especially difficult in a contact center where, as much as managers and supervisors try to prevent it, new hires start learning behaviors and habits from more tenured, veteran reps starting from day one. Some of these are useful tips and tricks, but others can degrade performance.
We came across a number of different ways to combat this, but Reliant Energy’s onboarding program (see pp. 75-81) stood out to us in particular.
Here’s how Reliant’s program works. Like many new hiring training programs, new hires sit in a separate training environment, shielded from the floor. However, Reliant focuses on three particular components during their program:
- They provide dedicated, well-vetted mentors: Many other service organizations also provide peer mentors or “buddies” for their new hires to learn from. However, Reliant’s peer mentors sit with new hires throughout the duration of the training period to demonstrate good behaviors, answer questions, and provide perspective. These dedicated mentors even embed with new hires once they transition to the floor. Their consistent presence ensures that good cues and signals are always making their way to new hires on a daily, if not hourly, basis.
- They promote relationships between new reps: Reliant knows that the more strongly its new hires bond with each other, the more likely they are to learn from each other and reinforce good behaviors rather than rely on misguided advice from elsewhere. During training, new reps are encouraged to work together through team exercises, friendly competitions, and knowledge games led by peer mentors. Furthermore, reps also stick together for the entire training period, rather than leave training for shifts on the floor.
- They maintain new hire team structure after onboarding: This is likely the most logistically tricky aspect of Reliant’s setup, but is critical to maintaining good behaviors after training ends. Reliant embeds entire new hire training classes into existing teams whose numbers have diminished because of natural internal/external turnover or promotions. Because of this, new reps rely on their existing relationships with each other rather than on tenured reps who may no longer exhibit good behaviors.
Questions about how this works in real life? Take a look at page 80 in our full study where you’ll find a chart of potential operational barriers to Reliant’s program, as well as solutions.
How does this compare to your training/onboarding program? We’d love to hear interesting and innovative ideas in the comments box below.
Related Resources:
- Hiring and Onboarding (Topic Center)
- The Portrait of the New High Performer (Full Study)
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