World Class Contact Center Strategies for Success: Shedding Light on What Matters Most
What secrets do top-performing contact centers share? How do they keep their employees happy, customers satisfied and company profits soaring? We will explore the strategies that world-class companies have applied to increase performance and satisfaction resulting in higher productivity, lower turnover and increased customer loyalty and retention. Join Connie Smith, accomplished speaker, as she will shed light on what matters most and show you how focusing on the essentials will have the biggest impact on the success of your business, your workforce and your life. We will uncover the commonalities that world-class contact centers share and explore:
- The undeniable link between employee and customer satisfaction and loyalty
- Three critical employee needs that every contact center must fulfill
- How to breed employee collaboration and ownership and the rewards that will follow
- Characteristics of high-performing work cultures and how to shift yours from low to high
- The guiding principles that create amazing customer experiences


The Rules of Employee Engagement
While many organizations believe that employee engagement is not a tangible metric worth measuring, others have come to believe it is a business imperative and their success or failure is partly dependent upon it. Reports validate the latter position by confirming an undeniable link between employee engagement and business performance.

A fully-engaged employee is a person who believes wholeheartedly in the organization they work for and acts in a way that furthers their company's interests. They are committed, passionate, and always go the extra mile. Not because they have to but because they want to. They are deeply connected to the organizations they work for.

Today, four out of five workers worldwide are not delivering their potential to help their organizations succeed. It is mind-blowing if you really think about it. Employees make thousands of choices each day on how and when to get things done and their degree of engagement influences their level of effectiveness to carry out these tasks. What if you could get each employee to work a bit faster, make better decisions or care a little more? What would it mean to your customer experiences, your productivity and your bottom line? Come to this session and hear about how world-class companies have catapulted their performance by applying the rules of employee engagement.


Performance Coaching: The Missing Link to Agent Effectiveness
Did you know that companies who have implemented coaching programs are 50% more likely to have lower turnover, achieve 27% greater profitability and have 56% higher customer loyalty?

Coaching has become one of the most important drivers of agent effectiveness within the contact center yet many have not allocated the time or resource to develop and implement a well thought out program. An effective coaching program is not as simple as selecting someone to conduct side-by-side sessions to discuss "done well's" and "do betters." There is much more to it then that. A coaching program should be a daily routine that is welcomed by all and is integrated into the lifecycle of your contact center. You've developed a training program, implemented a quality monitoring program, now it's time for you to focus on the missing link to agent effectiveness, a coaching program.

At this session you will learn:
- What guiding principles every coaching program must possess
- How to turn statistical transactions into human interactions
- How to coach personality types such as drama queens, aloof agents, attention seekers and authority --challengers
- The art of delivering feedback, addressing conflict and recognizing others for a job well done
- How to build relationships with your most valuable assets - your workforce - and the rewards that will follow
- How to get to the root of performance issues - Is it because they can't, won't or don't know how


Apply Time Management Principles and Increase your Effectiveness in the Contact Center
Log in at 6:45am. 219 new emails, three deadlines, two morning meetings, eight pending projects, one customer complaint, one human resource issue, three interviews and four people lined up at your office door. Do you feel like no matter how much you give it never seems to be enough? You work harder and longer and still you find yourself barely maintaining the daily workflow. It's not surprising if you really think about it. Times have changed and we now live in a connected society where geographical borders have been lifted and communication channels abound. We are constantly being pushed to execute faster, better, and cheaper. Consumers have come to expect higher service levels as well as an explosion of choice. Add to that the state of the economy and we're now asked to "do more with less".

We've got some amazing time management principles that when applied will increase your effectiveness in the contact center. We will show you how to simplify your work load, move from "maintainer" to "gainer" and understand why doing ordinary things extraordinarily well is so critical. Join Connie Smith as she shares how focusing on these essentials will make a greater impact and help you to find a better work/life balance.

Come to this session and learn:
- How to identify and eliminate barriers of performance
- Why perfectionism is not a preferred method of execution
- How to leverage people, process and technology to get things done
- Tips needed to tackle procrastination
- How to avoid "Karoshi", a term the Japanese have coined which means "Death from overwork"


High Performance Culture: Build it and they Will Come
What does company culture have to do with performance? EVERYTHING! The problem is that culture is kind of hard to wrap your arms around. Culture happens around the water cooler. It happens in the mail room. It happens when no one is watching. It is the driving force behind efficiency and effectiveness and the guide to employee and customer satisfaction. Culture is the #1 reason why company initiatives fail. Its power is not to be underestimated.

If this is true then where can you go to get a high performing culture? Well, you can't buy it or rent it and you certainly can't dictate it. You have to build it and it doesn't happen overnight it happens overtime. There are no shortcuts to cultivating culture but there are some fundamental building blocks that if assembled will provide the framework needed to house a high performance culture. If you build it they will come.

This session will explore:
- The essential traits of high performing cultures
- How and why it is critical to engage your employees - The need for understanding multi-generations and their cultural and technical differences
- Strategies that will help you catapult your culture into high performance
- Examples of world class companies that "just get it" and because they do, breed amazing cultures

The Customer Experience and the Human Differentiator
"Differentiators" in the business world can be described as "any tangible or intangible characteristics that can be used to distinguish a product or a company from other products and companies". When most organizations ask "what will make us different" they might look to product, price or market to set them apart. Some decide to be a product leader and focus their efforts on all sorts of features, bells and whistles. Others choose to be a price leader and set the bar on pricing. Larger companies may use their size s a differentiator of market dominance. Sure these differentiators might get customers in the door but will they really make a difference when it comes to the ultimate customer experience that drives satisfaction and loyalty?

We all recall experiences we've had as customers but have you ever stopped to think about what made them so good, bad or downright ugly? Chances are it wasn't the product or the price that you remember; it was the way in which your request was handled, and how it was delivered to you and by whom. It was the human factor. That is what created your customer experience. This session will explore how YOU make the difference between good, bad and ugly customer experiences because YOU are the ultimate human differentiator.

Noteable Leadership: Moving from Ordinary to Extraordinary
Most of us can think back to the greatest leader we ever worked with but few have taken the time to analyze exactly what made this leader so great. Fast forward a few years and we find ourselves in management positions with little training or knowledge of what it takes to also be a great leader. While some personality types naturally thrive in this environment, others struggle to figure out what steps are needed for self-improvement. The challenge shared by both types is that becoming a great leader is not an easy task. It requires hard work, commitment, patience and a passion for self-learning, as well as developing others. If you are a leader who would like to take your skills to the next level, you will not want to miss this eye opening opportunity to self reflect on your current skills and set goals for moving from an ordinary to an extraordinary leader.

Session topics will include:
- Why extraordinary contact center leadership is so difficult and also so important
- The key differences between managing and leading teams
10 actions you can take to develop others
- Common mistakes that prevent people from being great leaders and how to avoid them
- Essential competencies to becoming an extraordinary leader
- How "the diffusion of innovation" impacts our ability to drive change
- How identifying employees through classification types can help you build commitment and loyalty
- We've all heard of the WIFM principle "what's in it for me" but what about us leaders? WIFUL "What's in it for us leaders"? Come to this session to find out.

Calibration: Removing Variation in Quality Monitoring Variation
If you have more than one person who is evaluating your contact center agents, you better be calibrating on a regular basis. Why? Because a lack of calibration can undermine the integrity of your contact center quality program. In fact, many believe that a lack of calibration is the #1 reason quality programs fail. It is not uncommon for one evaluator to rate a particular skill as "meets expectations" while another evaluator scores the same call as "exceeds expectations." Quite simply, people just view things differently. The variance of this interpretation is unfair to agents and can have an extremely negative impact on your center. Implementing a process by which you remove variation in interpretation - calibration - is the best way to prevent perceived favoritism or inequality because it teaches evaluators how to score or grade using the same criteria.

This session will explore calibration best practices in the areas of:
- How to track variance and what percentage you should aim for
- Why a definitions guide is critical to the calibration process
- How to score a subjective skill objectively
- The most common mistakes evaluators make when scoring and how to avoid them
- Guidelines needed for a successful program
- Who should meet, how often and what the process should look like

Guidelines for Developing a Home-Based Agent Program
Today there are an estimated 112,000 at-home agents in the US, and this number is predicted to triple by 2010. Home-based agent programs are exploding as viable alternatives to outsourcing, off-shoring and downsizing. Why? Because centers are able to offer flexible schedules, lower retention rates, cut costs and attract and retain top-performing employees. This sounds great but what's the down side? Well, there is a big one. Over 60% of home-based agent programs fail. Not because they are not a good idea but because there is a lack of planning, resources or know-how to develop a well thought out and executed program.

This session will guide you through what is needed to develop a home-based program including:
- Recommended guidelines for setting up an at-home workforce
- Types of technologies needed to employ home-based agents
- Hiring profile for a good home-body
- How to communicate, train, monitor and evaluate performance remotely
- What pitfalls to watch for and how to avoid them all together
- What ROI can you expect to achieve

If you employ home-based agents, are considering home-sourcing as an alternative to outsourcing, or would just like to learn more about this new employment trend, you won't want to miss this session.

Quality Monitoring Evaluation Form Makeover
Is it time for you to re-evaluate your current form? Do you feel like it is too long and nit picky? Do you wonder if what you are measuring really makes a difference to the performance of your contact center? Are you having a difficult time calibrating your evaluation scores for fairness and consistency? If you've answered yes to any of these questions then this session is for you. Join us as we walk you through the steps needed to redesign your current evaluation form by combining and aligning skills, tossing out those that do not matter, developing skill definitions and applying scoring methodology that makes sense.

Bring your current evaluation form to this interactive and practical session and be prepared to roll your sleeves up as we learn best practices in a new era of creating effective quality monitoring evaluation forms.

Participate in this session and learn:
- How to simplify your evaluation form without losing valuable performance insight
- The difference between "finesse" and "foundation" skills and why they should be scored differently
- How to score subjective skills objectively
- How to develop clear definitions that identify what it takes to accomplish each skill
- Yes/No and tiered scoring, when to use each and strategies for "weighting" skills
- The importance of creating an evaluation guide

Quality Monitoring and Coaching Best Practices
Many areas within the contact center have undergone change over the past 10 years and quality monitoring is certainly no exception. While terms such as "big brother", "check the box" and "catch me doing things wrong" were once associated with quality programs, I'm pleased to say that these are becoming descriptors of the past. Best practice indicates that there is a new quality program in town. One that is well thought out and aligned with business objectives and increases both employee and customer satisfaction.

Come to this interactive best practice discussion where we will explore:
- How the evolution of quality has changed the way we should monitor, evaluate and coach
- What key elements are needed to design an effective evaluation form
- Guidelines for integrating calibration into your program
- How the latest technology can be leveraged for greater efficiency and effectiveness
- Who should evaluate and coach as well as how often
- What "the master of skills over time" concept is and why it should play a critical role in your quality program

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