August 7, 2015
”When you look at the average consumer company today, who knows the company best?" Chances are pretty good that it might be the people who work in the contact center. After all, they are the front-line workers. They spend their days talking to customers, listening to complaints, smoothing out kinks, solving problems, and answering questions about products and services.
This fact raises an interesting question: Is the contact center the best possible place to train for more senior-level positions within a company? Quite possibly, according to a recent article by Forbes’ Contributor Blake Morgan.
“Working in the contact center isn’t easy,” Morgan wrote. “The contact center is where product flaws are identified. The company can gather valuable feedback on how to improve products and services. This is where the company gains an understanding of the persona of its most valuable stakeholder: the customer.”
Think about it: according to sales, advertising, and marketing, everything about the company and its products and services is rosy. It’s a bit like learning about real life while visiting Disney (News – Alert) World. Marketers rarely come into contact with people who didn’t like the message they sent out. When users don’t like a product, they rarely pick up the phone to call the sales department. They call the contact center to voice complaints, make suggestions, or demand solutions. Effective contact center agents must find a variety of ways to appease customers and retain their business, and they need to draw on the knowledge they’ve already gained by helping other customers through similar situations.
At least a few Fortune 100 executives would seem to agree. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos once famously said, “Everyone has to be able to work in a call center.” Bezos revealed in a 2013 interview that he requires thousands of Amazon managers to attend two days of call center training each year, and he attends the sessions himself. The goal is to truly understand customers’ perspectives, what they want, and what they expect in the future. There’s a reason call center turnover is often very high: the jobs are often poorly paid, and the work is also very demanding. If you have contact center employees who have been with your organization for years, consider promoting them and leveraging their deep insight into your organization.
“In the contact center, right from the start you’re at the bottom of a steep hill you have to climb,” wrote Morgan. “Every day you pick up the phone, Twitter (News – Alert), email, chat, or in person, and you know there will be people who are unhappy about something related to the product. This is the harder path. No matter how bad things get at the contact center, nothing will teach you as much about your products and services.”