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Nearly
400 participants in the Call Center
Learning Center online poll identified their top three
management challenges for 2006. Over 1150 votes
were cast in the recent online poll conducted by the Call Center
Learning Center to reveal the top management challenges for call centers
in preparing for 2006. This series will focus on the top five
challenges identified by participants. The
complete results
of the online poll are also available.
#3 Challenge: Successfully managing change in your call center
Change is a basic fact of life
for call centers. Whether it is staffing changes, technology and
system enhancements or the consolidating of centers, it is very likely
that your call center is experiencing some sort of change initiative.
In fact, successfully managing change was
identified as the number three challenge
for call centers in preparing for 2006.
Change initiatives in call centers can be accelerated by a number of
business drivers, as revealed in Prosci's latest
call center
benchmarking study. Participants identified
five top business
drivers for change:
- Customer service
The need to maintain or increase the level of customer service,
including speed of answer and the quality of the customer's
experience (first-call resolution rate).
- Efficiency and cost control
The need to improve efficiency and productivity to reduce costs,
deal with budget constraints and comply with staff reductions or
freezes on hiring.
- Business growth
Increased products and services offered, cross-selling, and an
overall increase in call volume result in business growth.
- Competition and trends
Market trends and conditions force a need to stay ahead of the
competition.
- Changes in strategy
A changing company strategy driven by management and cultural change
pushes change in the call center.
No matter how well you plan and manage the initiatives in your
contact center, the resulting change will create stress and resistance
in the organization. That is not necessarily an indication that
something is wrong; it is just a reality of business and how people
react to change. So how can you successfully manage this stress
and resistance to maintain a healthy, productive work environment?
Research shows that there are repeatable steps to improve the outcome of
organizational change - we call it change
management.
Why manage change?
Whether you are an executive, supervisor, coach, consultant, project
team leader or manager of any type where your job is to manage people,
you likely have experienced resistance to change from employees.
However, you may not recognize the role that you can play in
preventing
that resistance and leading change. Most managers do not make this
connection until they have personally experience failure in an important
change project.
"I should have communicated better."
"Next time I will involve more people."
"If the CEO had just been more public in his support..."
"I was undermined by managers who felt threatened by this change
and did not understand the vision."
These common reflections by business leaders after an unsuccessful
initiative have one common theme: each represents a failure to
manage
the people side of change. They are not alone. In a general
study of companies implementing major business changes, 327 project
leaders, consultants and managers answered the following question about
their project overall:
"If you had the change to do it again, what would you do
differently?"
The most common response was:
"Utilize an effective and planned change management program."
With the amount of change happening in call centers today, managing
change is becoming one of the most critical competencies your center and
organization can build. While organizations are increasingly
exposing their employees to change, they are not teaching managers,
supervisors and other leaders how to effectively manage the people side
of change.
What is change management?
Managing the people side of change does not take a Ph.D. in
psychology, or involve just "touchy-feely" exercises, but this is often
the perception of professionals not exposed to what change management
is, how to use it when introducing change and the benefits of a well
thought-out strategy for addressing the human side of change.
Change management can be viewed from two perspectives - from those
implementing the change and from the recipients of change. Your
view of change management varies dramatically if you are the executive
demanding the change versus the call center agent who may be unsure why
a change is even needed.
Organizational change management is the perspective of business
leadership from the top looking down into the organization. The
focus is around broad change management practices and skills that will
help the organization understand, accept and support the needed business
change. The emphasis is on communication, training and the overall
culture or value system of the organization.
Individual change management is the management of change from the
perspective of the employees. They are the ones who ultimately
must implement the change. The focus for individual change
management is around the tools and techniques to
help employees through
the transition. Managers and supervisors must provide the coaching
required to help individuals understand their role and the decisions
they make in the change process.
Overall, change management is about helping people through change.
It is the process, tools and techniques for proactively managing the
people side of change in order to achieve the desired business results.
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