Don’t Forget the ‘Accidental Managers’ During a Crisis

Across the contact center industry it’s often the case that team leaders are first-time managers. I call this frontline management, the “accidental managers.” They’re people who find themselves in these positions because they were really good customer service agents or came to a contact center with a miniscule amount of leadership experience from a totally unrelated field. It happens. A lot. But today, it’s a far bigger concern.

By: Dee Nilles, Business Program Director, Centrical

Don’t Forget the ‘Accidental Managers’ During a Crisis

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I’ve seen some really great frontline managers also, who nurture and enable their employees. But it doesn’t mean they are also great at managing people remotely. This is a completely different skill set and not everyone has the muscle to do it well.

In the midst of a pandemic, management training or people skills enhancement is not likely to be at the top of a contact center’s priority list. But it needs to be. The reason is really quite simple. These team leaders are the folks who manage your frontline, those employees who interact directly with anyone who contacts your center. They are the face of your company for your customers. If your team leaders cannot effectively understand and deal with the myriad challenges posed by the health crisis that’s impacting everything and everyone, your contact center is headed for trouble. Big trouble.

Now I do recognize that the natural inclination is to pay lots of attention to the customer service agents, given their direct customer-facing role. And I’m not suggesting that isn’t necessary. It is. But to do so without a parallel effort to aid and equip your team leaders simply puts your entire operation at risk. Considering the stresses already being felt, you can ill-afford to simply forget about your team leaders.

Training with a closed-loop

So, I mentioned training. Of course, any sort of physical gathering is out of the question. No classroom learning at all. That doesn’t mean, however, no learning. The present situation demands you utilize a form of training that is done digitally. More than that, considering how their workloads have gotten and responsibilities have shifted, you need to leverage microlearning; the process of presenting bite-sized bursts of learning that can be easily absorbed so team leaders can quickly adopt it into their work. Especially appealing is the fact microlearning can be done in the flow of your team leaders’ work, for efficiency and productivity. Let me add, microlearning is all the more effective if it is personalized.

One thing about almost any sort of learning activity that drives me nuts is when it’s done without a closed loop feedback mechanism. It is not enough for a team leader to complete the training. There has to be a way to see how well the knowledge is understood and applied. Further, the managers of team leaders need to see how it’s all working; how it’s driving the leader and team to the assigned goals. I like to call this purpose-driven training. And, as I suggested, it can cover things like helping team members get used to working from home to developing and using empathy when chatting with a team member who has an ill family member, for example.

Focus on KPIs that matter

Under normal circumstances, a large portion of team leaders’ work day is spent pouring over data that folds into a collection of KPIs. Sure, I advocate you keep setting and driving toward goals. But let’s be practical about which ones need careful monitoring and analysis at this time of crisis. It’s my belief that there’s a batch of KPIs that are rarely found on team leaders’ assignment sheets or leaderboards. Things like frequency of contact with team members or sending personalized update messages. Those are just two of the types of KPIs that are important during a crisis.

And then there’s the nature of your particular contact center. What sort of businesses or categories do you serve? What’s the collective mood of the customers – at this point in time? Those and other criteria need to be factored in when defining the KPIs that really matter during this crisis. I am also of the belief that for both the team leaders and their teams, the number of KPIs to be given top focus has to be reduced. Like all of us, they’re dealing with so much already. You need to tighten the focus. Avoid “death by data” for your employees and your team leads.

I firmly believe that clear, consistent communications from team leaders – and the next level of management – helps to keep customer service agents focused, calm, and performing. Here too, you cannot afford to forget the same flow of communications to the team leaders themselves. Whoever they report to must act as they’re told to – reach out with frequency to learn how things are going, work-wise and otherwise.

There’s an adage in the contact center business: do right by the agents and you’ll do right by the customers. Today, as we work from home, shelter in place, and maintain social distance, if you do right by your team leaders, you’ll do right by the business of your contact center.