I admit right up front that I am missing the “sales gene”. Selling is something that I have to work hard at, not something that comes naturally. I’ve been to a lot of training, and I make an effort every day to put it into practice. Over time it does become easier and, dare I say it, even kind of fun. But one thing that just doesn’t come easier seems to be asking for help. And maybe that’s why I sometimes struggle in sales.

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One of the things you need to do to sell is to “network”. There are all sorts of ways to do this but all of them involve getting out of the office and mingling with and meeting people. The ritual involves smiling, asking people what they do (while you mentally rehearse your 30-second speech) and then explaining to them in half a minute what it is you are selling. Then you exchange business cards and move on to the next smile. Sometimes you even meet someone who cares. After the event you throw away the business cards. This is the typical Chamber of Commerce event.

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The situation is somewhat better in regular networking groups that meet frequently and offer you a chance over time to really get to know the other members, understand their businesses and learn how to steer appropriate referrals their way. They are more focused on building relationships than collecting business cards. But even here, there is this emphasis on quickly explaining what you do and then letting everyone else have a turn.

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I was at a networking lunch today that I attend on a weekly basis, and I made a startling discovery.  People LIKE to help you! They often just really are not sure how best to do it. Instead of my standard networking spiel, today I shortened it to a few seconds (after all, most of the people there had heard my “30 second commercial” enough times to deliver it themselves) and then said “I really need your help. Here’s how you can help me.” And I told them. Very briefly, very clearly and very specifically.

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The results were startling. People stopped their routine to ask me questions and request more detail. My allotted time came and went and people still wanted to know more. Three of them promised to connect me with people they thought could probably use my help. Two more agreed to meet for coffee later in the week so they could find out more about what I did, and let me know how I might be able to help them. It was by far the most productive sales day I ever had with this group. All because I decided to just ask them for help and tell them exactly how they could assist me.

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I don’t know if this was a fluke or if it is something fundamental about people and selling. But from now on I intend to  make asking for the help I need the centerpiece of my networking effort.

In the USA employee turnover averages about 12% (and in the call center industry about 35%) and about 75% of “new” hiring is done to replace an employee who left, according to a 1996 study by William H. Pinkovitz, Joseph Moskal and Gary Green. Of course this was well before the current economic meltdown and certainly turnover has declined as people cling more tightly to the “security” of a paycheck. But downturns end and we can expect the numbers to trend back toward their typical values, possibly after a post-recession “spike” as people begin to bail out of jobs for ones they consider better.

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The cost of all this to a company is commonly estimated at about 150% of annual wages/salary (and 200%+ for sales and managerial positions), but obviously this will vary from industry to industry and even company to company within an industry group. In his article “The Cost of Employee Turnover“, William Bliss, President of Bliss & Associates, a Wayne, NY consultancy has enumerated the various components of turnover costs and concluded that replacing a $50,000 a year employee can easily cost a company $75,000 or more. Any way you slice this cake its big money.

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But what does this mean to you? What are your numbers? The Pinkovits, et al article provides a nice cost calculator that you can use as a starting point to make one of your own. Its worth the effort. It might just be a real eye opener.

In his excellent book First Things First, personal development guru Stephen Covey introduces the concept of a “Law of the Farm”. In a nutshell, this suggests the commonsense principle that if you want to reap wheat during the harvest season you had better be planting wheat now and caring for it in the interim. If you want wheat, you better not be planting corn. If you aren’t planting anything then don’t be surprised if your wheat crop is scanty.

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In his FurstPerson blog, Jeff Furst points out that those of us responsible for filling seats at a call center are very much in a “Law of the Farm” moment. Because the call center industry is one of the few that is still doing significant new hiring it is creating an upsurge in the number of job applicants walking into call center HR offices. He suggests that call centers use the current economy and general hiring slowdown  to become much more selective in who we bring aboard, with an eye toward improving performance and reducing turnover over the long term.

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This is good advice not only for call centers but for any industry that is fortunate enough to be looking to hire additional employees right now. This includes healthcare, insurance, home and garden maintenance companies, wireless telephony organizations and many sectors in the retail industry. You will also find that there are sales jobs open nearly anywhere. Anyone in the happy position of needing to hire should be viewing it not only as a short term applicant boom, but as an opportunity to pick and choose people who will be assets to the company for the long haul.

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What steps ought hiring managers be taking right now to ensure a great harvest during the coming recovery?  Mostly the obvious ones.

1. Remember that everything is temporary. Eventually the economy will improve, the applicant pool will shrink back to more normal levels, and a lot of those “easy” hires will be leaving to take what they see as “better” or “more interesting” work.
2. Take the time now to know…. I mean to really KNOW…. what it is about your top performers that make them your top performers. Frame this in measurable, objective terms that examine not only their job skills but the attitudes, behaviors and interests that help them to excel.
3. Use this information to create verifiable “profiles” of your most successful and valued employees and put your profiles to work for you in the selection and hiring process.

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A little extra work now will reward you with a bountiful harvest later.

Ok, so we have probably all felt married to our job at one time or another. But seriously? Would you?

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In a February survey of  about 1,250 US adult employees working full or part time, some 15% professed such love for their work that they said they would be willing to marry their job. According to staffing automation software and performance management consultants Taleo, of Dublin, California, this is up from 9% at the same time last year.

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Given the current economic travails depressing the employment market, that is not really such a high number and smart employers are looking past the current glut of applicants hungry for any work they can find to the tightening that is sure to follow with the inevitable recovery. A 2004 Yahoo poll (when times were better and opportunities were abundant) found that nearly half (47%) of US workers were ready to change jobs “at the next opportunity”. Those numbers have fallen to about 25% in the current employment environment (with 13% now “actively looking”). The consequences of a large increase in employee turnover just as demand finally starts to accelerate are significant and go far beyond the obvious increase in hiring costs. For example, what it the impact on a company’s productivity, or even its ability to meet its production requirements, if 25% - 50% of its best and most experienced workers leave over a short period of time?

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Employers may not be able to make in-laws of their employees, but  now is the time to be laying the groundwork for retention programs that will at least keep them in the family when happy days are here again.

It is hard to get out of bed in the morning any more without being deluged by reports of massive job losses and layoffs. Whole industries seem to be shedding employees like autumn leaves. Unemployment at more than 7%; monthly lob losses in five figures; long lines at job fairs; Congress tripping over itself to “rescue” failing companies as the talking heads solemnly invoke Depression era images of breadlines and unspeakable financial disaster. But if we can take a little break from preparing for the end of “life as we know it”, a startling fact emerges. Some companies are still hiring! Some industries are still growing! There ARE jobs out there. But where?

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According to The Herman Group, a management consultancy focused on future trends in hiring, employment and workplace issues, companies are hiring in a variety of industries right now. “Companies are still hiring,” notes their 28 January Weekly Trend Report.  Among the specific companies cited are Whole Foods, Boston Consulting Group, Scotts Lawn Service, and Fortune Magazines “Best Place to Work” NetApp. Not only are individual companies still seeking employees, but whole industries continue to create jobs. The insurance industry, health care providers of all sorts, wireless telephony companies and … yes… call centers are all still hiring.

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Looking down the road a bit, the report suggests that “highly skilled workers will continue to enjoy opportunities no matter how high unemployment goes.” And regardless of your opinion of the government’s “economic stimulus” plans, massive spending on infrastructure projects are certain to be a part of any legislation. This bodes well for heavy construction and the many industries that support it. Alternative energy projects and “green” initiatives will also likely thrive under the new regime in Washington.

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None of this is to say that times aren’t hard right now. As Ronald Reagan famously said “When your neighbor loses his job, its a recession. When you lose your job its a depression.” But lets not lose sight of the fact that setbacks and challenges are not the same thing as a lack of opportunity. Even in these discouraging times, jobs and opportunities continue to be available.

I was recently speaking with a client about a persistent turnover problem that they were having with their front line service delivery staff. This was a small organization of about 200 total employees and half of them, more or less, were front line customer facing people. Turnover in this position was about 25%, not enough to be alarming but sufficient to keep Human Resources scrambling to recruit people fast enough to stay fully staffed (which they rarely were). We spent some time looking over the numbers and eventually decided that they were spending just a bit less than $90k every year on the turnover problem between hiring costs and training and lost productivity.

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Now in the days of tossing in $150B “sweeteners” to get a $700B bailout bill passed, $90k may not seem like a lot. But it is money spent year after year and producing absolutely no benefit. In fact the turnover was a serious drain on resources and a negative factor on morale, so the real  number was probably on the low side. But here is the thing…. when it came down to talking about investing a little time and money (and it truly was a little), they decided they were “too busy” just trying to hire people to be “distracted” from that to fix the problem causing them to be too busy hiring. Still with me here? And they did not have “the luxury” of picking good hires, they had to hire anyone who was remotely qualified to keep up with the turnover.

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Too busy scrambling to deal with the symptoms to fix the problem causing them to be too busy. Now I have to acknowledge that fixing the turnover problem would not be easy. In the short term things might get worse, and the pain might be greater. But 9 months or 12 months or 15 months later the leak would be plugged and the problem would gradually shrink down to something minor. In effect, they decided they would rather just keep dealing with the issue forever and throw the money out the window every year than make a focused effort to fix it. I wish this were a unique circumstance, but it is not. I have run into some variation on this theme many times in many organizations and in many different functional areas.

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Is there just something about people that makes them prefer to suffer along forever with “the devil they know” than to endure a short term pain and have it over with? I would sure like to figure out a way to motivate an organization to make the change when I find this sort of situation. But in over 20 years of consulting I have not found one yet. If anyone out there has, do share.

On April 15, 1912, the White Star Line’s luxury passenger liner RMS Titanic struck an iceberg off Newfoundland. The ship sank in two hours and forty minutes, taking the lives of over 1,500 passengers and crew. The sinking stunned the world because Titanic was not only the largest passenger ship in the world at the time, but every aspect of her design was intended to make the ship “unsinkable”. So certain were the architect (who was on board when the ship sank) and operators of the ships invulnerability that they disregarded the recommendation of the builder to carry sufficient lifeboats for all aboard by using a new (and more expensive) type of davit and carried only enough for about half those on board. The rest is history.

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What has this got to do with customer service? Quite a lot, according to Stefan Michel of the Thunderbird School of Global Management. Michel has coined the phrase “The Titanic Effect” to describe companies who are steaming along blissfully unaware that they are sailing through a sea of customer dissatisfaction icebergs, utterly convinced that everything is fine and that they are not subject to or impacted by customer satisfaction issues. Often with similarly spectacular results.

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In a brief podcast interview with the Wall St Journal, Michel outlines the common indications that a company may be cruising into an iceberg:

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• Customer service process improvement processes that do not include sales, marketing or top executives in a meaningful way.
• A tendency to rush to fix the blame instead of the problem.
• Making the same service mistakes over and over again.
• Employees who are frustrated with their inability to meaningfully resolve customer issues.

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Michel speaks in terms of a process he calls “service recovery” and gives a few examples of companies who suffer from the Titanic Effect, and some who have avoided the icebergs. Worth a listen. You can also read a companion article by Michel and co-authors David Bowen and Robert Johnston here.

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The lesson here is that 3/4 of the iceberg is under the water and it is all too easy to ignore it until it is too late.

It seems intuitive that satisfied customers are good for business. Customers who have good things to say about our products and services and who return to purchase again and again are normally thought of fondly as a very good thing. Certainly disappointing customers or, worse, angering them by providing service that fails to meet their expectations is considered a poor idea. But is there any hard evidence that improving customer satisfaction actually improves the bottom line? Does the value of a company rise with improving customer satisfaction?

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It turns out that there is a substantial volume of research that indicates that just such a relationship does exist, and that the financial impact of improving customer satisfaction can be significant. A 1999 study entitled “Customer Satisfaction and Shareholder Value” by Mazvancheryl, Anderson, and Fornell established that a 1% improvement in customer satisfaction (as measured by the American Customer Satisfaction Index) produces a 2.75% increase in a firm’s market capitalization. This may not sound like a lot, but for a large company it can be enormous. For example, Microsoft Corporation has a market capitalization of approximately $256 billion (June 2008). A 2.75% improvement in Microsoft’s ACSI rating translates into more than $7 billion of additional shareholder value.

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A study by Gruca and Rego entitled “Customer Satisfaction, Cash Flow and Shareholder Value” concludes that “The positive effects of customer satisfaction on future cash flows are both statistically significant and managerially relevant. For the average firm in our sample, a one-point increase in customer satisfaction translates into a $55 million increase in net operating cash flow in the next year. That same one-point increase in customer satisfaction results in a reduction in the variance of future cash flows of more than 4%. Such outcomes boost the value of a firm to its shareholders.”

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These are big numbers. And they clearly demonstrate that customer satisfaction improvement programs are not just a good idea, they are also a good investment.

A few weeks back, one of my clients suggested I look into a company called MetricNet. We’d been discussing the topic of “benchmarking” and he had been impressed with what MetricNet was doing in that regard. So off I went into Web World to look them up. Turns out they are fairly new with fairly impressive credentials, including an Ex-VP from META Group. Their site was simple, well laid out and informative, and their mission in life, they said, was “to provide you with the benchmarks you need to run your business more effectively.” I am not really a cheerleader for call center benchmarking, but I was intrigued. There was an invitation to learn more by signing up for their Webinar, so I clicked the button, filled out the registration, got my confirmation back and put it aside.

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Later that day I received an email (a real email from a real person) informing me that my request to join the webinar had “been denied by the organizer” and that I was no longer registered. That seemed odd. Perhaps it was oversubscribed, or there was some other perfectly reasonable explanation. So I wrote back to the sender to say that I was interested in the webinar and would he (yes, he) please either register me or explain why my request was “denied”. No response. Not that day. Not the next day. Not ever.

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I figured that was that. But no. I began getting regular emails asking me to register for their webinar. I wrote back explaining what had happened, and asking for either an explanation of the denial or to be removed from their mailing list…. since clearly I was persona non-grata for some reason. Again, this was to a person, not a generic email box. No response. Not that day. Not the next day. Not ever. So now I am regularly invited to participate in a webinar that the sponsor denies my participation in for reasons they do not care to explain.

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So is there some point to all this besides me whining? Two come to mind.

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First, automation is our friend in the call center world. We could not do our jobs without it.  But much like the autopilot in an airplane, automation should never be left to run the business without adult supervision. We need to check it, regularly, to make sure it is doing what we want it to do and think that it is doing. This is especially true when it is interacting with our customers (or potential customers). Do we really want an automated process to be annoying them (or worse) and not even be aware of it? I am thinking most of us would say no. Yet how often do we test our automated response mechanisms to see how (and what) they are doing?

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The second thing I am going to do as a result of this experience is to monitor my Spam folders more carefully to make sure that nothing important gets flushed with the Viagra ads, incredible opportunities from Nigeria and fabulous work at home offers that flood into it daily.

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As for MetricNet, all I want at this point is to be off their mailing list.

If you are responsible for hiring and retaining employees, or for helping your staff to reach its full potential, you need to be aware of the “Gallup Q12“. The Q12 is a set of 12 questions designed to measure employee “engagement” with their jobs. The Gallup organization defines “engagement” as working with passion and feeling a profound connection to the organization. Engaged employees are the ones who drive innovation and move organizations forward. “Disengaged” employees are the opposite. They are so unhappy in their work that they spend a good deal of their time undermining the efforts of their peers and poisoning the atmosphere with negativity.

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Here’s why you should care. In a study of over 1.5 million employees in the United States, Gallup discovered that only about 30% of the workforce was “engaged”. Nearly 20% were”actively disengaged”, and more than half (54%) of employees were “essentially checked out…. putting in time.”

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Can we afford to have 70% of our workforce so dissatisfied with their jobs that they are no longer even trying to contribute or do their best? According to a recent poll of 2,600 workers conducted by web portal Yahoo, almost half (47%) of your employees are are actively looking to find a new job in the next 12 months. Unless you really believe that Jet Engine Staffing (stuff em in the front door, burn them up and spit them out the back) works and are unconcerned about the enormous cost associated with turnover and low worker productivity, the Q12 is worth becoming familiar with. And putting to use.