CUSTOMIZING SERVICE THROUGH ATTITUDE TRAINING

The content, duration, scope and style of most customer service training varies considerably and is o en integrated with a number of organizational development initiatives: front-office design, market research, new technologies, organizational structure and strategy and, importantly, the customer.

There are also differences in customer service training with some being comprehensive and systematic through a tailored approach that is incorporated within employee development and reward systems. Other programmes, however, might involve a major corporate ‘event’, be bought off the shelf, or have employees sent on residential or oneday programmes. The focus of programmes also varies from developing techniques and a service culture, to changing attitudes 

This movement towards character formation rather than training is said by some writers to represent a ‘sea change’ in organizational practices and requirements. Rather than imposing bureaucratic practices, employees are empowered to use discretion which then personalizes the customer interaction and provides a ‘new authenticity’.

In effect, there are two models for handling calls. The first involves a very structured and systematic approach that restricts the adviser to a limited range of responses – this is the ‘production line’ approach. The second approach is to develop skills and attitudes and to give advisers a considerable degree of personal freedom in their handling of calls. This approach is o en used for more complex and high-value interactions and is called the ‘empowerment’ approach.

Advisers’ attitudes to customer service training

In some quarters there is a view that customer service training is merely a form of ‘sham empowerment’ designed to increase the workload for advisers, but in fact most employees are very positive about the training. There may be some organizations that adopt a cynical approach but where this is the case there will be no genuine buy-in to the principles of customer service by advisers, with the result that customer satisfaction figures are unlikely to improve.

In practice, most people a ending customer service training recognize the value of it and fully support the intentions. In a study of supermarket managers and staff, ‘no one spoke negatively about the value of the initiative. . . and the majority were enthusiastic’.

All employees should regularly a end customer service training and not just advisers. One of the continual gripes heard by trainers is, ‘You should get our managers to a end these courses, they are the ones that need it!’

ATTITUDE | New Employees

In some cases qualifications are a requirement as in the case of those working in the insurance industry or nursing. In many other situations qualifications are less prized because there is o en no clear correlation between them and the ability to successfully undertake the work.

As the call centre sector develops and matures, traditional industry indicators such as industry bodies, recognized skills and competencies, qualifications, etc will provide structure and shape. These developments will make the industry more formalized and transparent; however, in the interim, recruitment, induction and training processes o en have a greater significance in identifying suitable candidates.

To add complexity to the situation many of the skills used in contact centres are tacit ones hidden deep within people, making it hard for them and observers to describe what skills are being used. For this reason recruitment is o en based on identifying people possessing these inner skills and then selecting them.

Developing broader social knowledge and the ability to recognize a nuance in the voice of a customer and respond appropriately is not something that can be trained in a few weeks of induction. It is possible that some of these tacit skills may only be developed over a very long period of time. It is for these reasons that many employers seek people who possess a wide experience of life, eg running a household and bringing up children.

In addition, managers also seek well motivated individuals who possess a caring attitude, high levels of confidence; are ‘bubbly’ or lively; have a natural ability to talk, develop rapport and smile down the phone. For people who work in technical support, communication skills are less highly valued. Instead, the ability to problem solve is considered more important. In fact, the people in these roles are considered less likely to possess the ‘bubbly’ personalities.

Time and again there would appear to be a consistent message from employers – personality and particularly attitude are the most sought after attributes in job applicants. What is most remarkable is that many of them consider attitude to be something that is very difficult to train. One hotel manager stated that:

We didn’t actually look for people with experience. . . because we felt that wasn’t particularly important. We wanted people that had a personality more than skills, because we felt we could train people to do the job.

Managers at Telebank expressed similar feelings about the innateness of personality, motivation and enthusiasm:

Customer service, that’s not a skill. That’s in you. It’s the attitude towards customer service.

I firmly believe that if you have a CSR who has the right attitude and approach, so long as you’ve got somebody who’s willing to learn, who will be receptive to their feedback and sees it as an opportunity to develop themselves, then I believe that you can get them to where they need to be. 

This emphasis on attitude is also valued in other industries:

The US’s only consistently profitable airline, Southwest Airlines, has been known to turn down a brilliant pilot because he or she was rude to a receptionist. Its mo o is summed up by the phrase, ‘you can train skills, you cannot train attitude’. 

This emphasis on recruiting attitude might be interpreted as meaning that there is little room for training; however, this is not the case. While there may be rough diamonds with a positive attitude in the job market there is still a considerable need for developing these talents and shaping them so that they can be effectively applied in call centres. The remark by the woman entering hospital for a neurological condition sums up this perspective: ‘I don’t want to be operated on by a natural born surgeon, I want someone who has received all the training and has many successful years of experience!’

FINANCIAL SKILLS AND TRAINING AT ING/POSTBANK ZAKELIJK

Inge Sieben and Andries de Grip

Background

Compared to CSRs working in other Dutch contact centres, CSRs at ING/ Postbank Zakelijk require a high level of skills to do their job adequately for a number of reasons:

• Working at a bank: Financial products and services are often more complex than ordinary retail products.
• Dealing with mainly business customers: Business products are thought to be more complex than consumer products.
• Complying with internal and national laws: Compliance is very important at ING/Postbank Zakelijk. Privacy regulations require that CSRs do not reveal any information on customers to others. In addition, the 2004 Law on Financial Services was introduced to protect customers being given financial advice. For example, benefits and risks of financial products have to be explained to the customer. CSRs who deal with stocks have to pass a national exam (optietoets), because only qualified agents are allowed to give stock advice to customers. Moreover, CSRs who deal with mortgages have to pass an exam each year.
• Working at a ‘one-stop-shop’ contact centre: CSRs have to answer all kinds of questions from all kinds of customers. This multi-skill approach demands that they have knowledge about all banking products and services. They handle about 80 per cent of the calls themselves, the rest is transferred to the midoffice.
• Increased focus on cross-selling: CSRs have to provide excellent service and be good in sales at the same time. When there is an opportunity for selling, they have to take it. This is not easy, as the contact centre started as a service centre. The transition from service to sales, the high speed of the work, and the targets set make it difficult for older employees (who have worked in the contact centre from the beginning) to cope with these changes. Postbank Zakelijk therefore started a campaign to see if these CSRs are still working at the right place. With interviews and personality tests, unit managers together with CSRs determine whether it is a good idea to stay in the contact centre, or to move to the back office, or to start looking for another job, inside or outside the bank.

Managing and developing high level skills

To address the above challenges of high level skills ING/Postbank Zakelijk also uses their STER-K (STRONG) model:

S: Sales (creating sales opportunities)

T: Accessible and committed (customer-oriented)

E: Honest and reliable (clear)

R: Outcome-oriented (proactive)

K: Quality (professional, customer satisfaction).

At one time the induction programme lasted six weeks but it was found that not only did the CSRs forget content, they also learnt a lot by doing. However, this created challenges because customers expected CSRs to answer all kinds of questions. There are now more integrated and continuous forms of development and career paths, which have seven steps:

1. In the recruitment and selection process, ING assesses candidates on skills and adaptation level – this is the extent to which someone is capable of acquiring new knowledge.
2. After hiring, CSRs take an entrance test to establish their start level.
3. CSRs follow basic training for half a year, which consists of several phases of training and working. E-learning will play a role here too. Coaching has an important role and all CSRs have a coaching plan made by their unit manager.
4. Permanent education of CSRs: the unit manager coaches on content and skills.
5. Development of CSRs who have the abilities: they can follow training to move to the staff department or sales department, or to become a unit manager.
6. If there is no development possible, then CSRs will work to become certified. Official learning standards will have to be reached in order to increase CSRs’ employability.
7. CSRs leave the ING/Postbank Zakelijk contact centre after the development route (step 5) or the certificate route (step 6).

In offering the certificate route, ING wants to become an officially recognized ‘learning company’. Collaboration is sought with a regional educational centre (ROC), which means that CSRs can get a secondary vocational education (MBO) certificate. In this way CSRs will have a clearer career path and may leave the contact centre with a certificate or career opportunities.

Evaluation

In the end, training evaluation will be at a higher level too. At the moment, training is evaluated at Kirkpatrick’s level 1 and 2 (CSRs’ satisfaction with training and subjective information on what they have learnt). In the future, ING would like to evaluate training at level 3 and (finally) at level 4: the application of skills learnt during training in the job and the effects of training on CSRs’ performance.