Improving Customer Service Processes

People, processes and problems in service

I get a call from a call centre customer executive that there is a problem with my payment against my credit card. This is the beginning of the numerous calls, mails, personal visits which will be carried out by me in the next few days to resolve the problem. Different parts of the bank are handling different things for the same customer that’s me. Poor me I am told to do different things by different people. Poor customer executives of the call centre, they get bombarded by me for nothing they can do. They just are following a process. They cannot solve problems

We are getting letters from the DPs asking us to present ourselves in person with our PAN cards for verification as per SEBI guidelines. Now, my friend is overseas. I ask the bank executive what do we do in his case. He has no clue. His manager, ditto.

The cell companies are worse. Wrong bills, wrong addresses, the small enterprise of ours has faced all these problems. Account manager, account executive, Collection executive, Call centre executives, no no one has resolved the problems. They occur month after month.

Mails come with the standard reply – “This is an automated response. Your complaint id is 420. You will be contacted shortly” How short is the shortly supposed to be. Is anyone tracking the duration fo the shortly.

Calls from the call centres are a gem in customer service, the starting and the end that is. Starting – “Welcome to One-more-cell-company, what can I do for you Sir?”. The ending – “Is there anything else I can do for you Sir? Have a good day Sir.” Everything between the start and the end is a mess.

Problems are remaining problems. I feel things are getting worse as far as service to customers are concerned.

The main reason for all this is a mess up between processes and people. We are failing to differentiate the two. The purposes, advantages, capabilities and limitations of people and processes are confused.

Processes are met to ensure the policies, initiatives are carried out in a manner where there is least amount of problem to the customers.
Yet problems will occur.
People should be meant to solve these problems which come inspite of processes.

If we expect processes to take care of problems too it will not happen. That’s where the trouble starts.

The main reason for all the problems in poor customer service is that there is little harmony in the engine supposed to serve and earn business.

First, the processes are not in place. We are used to announcements on policies first. New initiatives are announced. No process is in place. This is a day to day affair across organisations, public and corporates. It is easy to announce new products, initiatives, policies, but without the processes in place they don’t take off or create a mess. Worst affected by this callous attitude of “policy first, process later” are the executives who are directly facing the customers. They are flooded with all sorts of queries. But they have no clue about these. They are not told what is happening. They do not know how to answer the queries of the customers.

Second, the processes which are created are not dynamic. If there is any change in the assumptions or the environment, and it will be there, the process is not able to take care. Response required to make the changes in the processes are slow. Again the people at the customer end are left to face the tune.

Third, the people who are facing the customers are not quipped to solve problems, provide solutions. They have between trained to speak courteous words and give data. No, they are not problem solvers. You ask them anything beyond data and how you need to resolve your problem and all they can do is record your problem and someone will in their opinion get back.

Problems will occur. Organisations should build the assumption that processes will not suffice. There will special situations, special individual cases which will not be common and not foreseen. However, these will have to be handled and for this we need people who are equipped with good knowledge and holistic view of the processes, good analytical and problem solving skills and empowered to take decisions and make exceptions.

Fourth, let us keep room for face to face interaction. Smiles, eye contacts, discussions go a long way in resolving problems than the emails and phone calls (different people at different times for the same issue).

Processes should ensure problems are minimal. People should be able to solve the minimal problems when they come up.

Here are some suggestions:

1. Let us have a moratorium on new policies, products and initiatives till we know that the existing ones are working fine.
   
2. New policies, initiatives, products should be announced only after the process is in place. In fact when announcing the policies, products and initiatives, the process should be announced.
   
3. The date of roll out for the customers should be only after all staff at the customer level is fully equipped about the process and procedures related.
4. We should have a certain percentage of executives/managers at different places who are specialists empowered problem solvers. Like what we have in the police. The normal policemen are meant to ensure law & order. But to handle special situations there are specialists trained personnel.
   
5. We should have contact centres at different locations where people can walk into. Even the distance learning universities/institutes/centres have contact centres to ensure there is this personal touch and contact. Where there is service, personal touch cannot be done away with.

Right People are the Resouces to Take Companies Forward

Enterprises, associates and employees

We keep hearing this – people are our biggest asset. It is clichéd. I don’t think people mean or meant it so much as it was propogated. Maybe people were trying to believe in it, internalize it by saying and hearing this more and more.

Nevertheless, I have had the experience of experiencing this first hand. Enterprises are made of two kinds of people – associates and employees. There is a lot of difference in the two.

Starting an enterprise has taught be many more things than I had learnt before, not the least of which was about myself. Biggest learning about an enterprise was the need for quality people. Enterprises are not about capital, ideas, plans, other resources. It is all about having the right people. The capacity of the organisation or enterprise is purely based on the people we have. I could have a great idea, kicked up with exciting innovations, I could find people ready to fund (this is easy to find these days), could draw a great business plan, but if I do not have the right people nothing will take off. In fact I have dealt with failed plans for lack of people to run with me to carry it forward. Some of my ideas have remained just that for the same reason.

I come to believe that getting the right people is the starting point for an enterprise. If you have the right people you can accomplish what you want. If you do not have them, you cannot achieve the best of plans. Today I am wiser in that sense. No point is crying and getting frustrated that I am not able to progress. I have to calibrate my plans and aspirations based on the people around me and people I can find.

Get me a business plan and to know whether it is going to work or not, I will ask who are the people who are going to carry out the plan, what are their capabilities – not necessarily “have done it before” experience. If you think you have the right people, rest is not necessary. You can be sure it will take off. If you do not have the right people, you can skip the plan totally. It will not take off. Period.

Now the biggest issue is finding these “good”, “right” people. People who share a common spirit and attitude to a cause, but an uncommon and not common approaches and capabilities. These people can then be able to put their different mental make-ups to create, execute, operate, run, manage the enterprise.

These people are what I call associates. Because they need to get associated to the cause.

Getting these people are the biggest challenge. These cannot be hired or recruited. They have to get associated. Hiring or recruiting is a professional process where skills are deployed for a task. Association is an engagement where the heart and the soul are in it for a cause. Tasks come to an end. Causes do not. Hiring/deployment is an impersonal process. Association is a personal process. Hiring is about tasks, association is about relationships.

Yes, associates cannot be many. But the few will make all the difference. The rest, apart from the few are employees, employed to perform tasks. Not everyone in an enterprise can be associates. But without a certain critical mass of association organisations cannot take off. If there are enough number of associates, you can always hire for tasks. But hiring for tasks without enough associates will not take off.

Did you say enterprise? Ok, where are your associates?

Do People Change or Adapt Their Attitudes

People do not change, people adapt. I look at so many people I know around me. Childhood friends, school mates, college mates, colleagues from career, family members and so on. I find most of the people have not changed. Their basic attitudes remain the same, their strengths and weaknesses remain the same, their likes and dislikes have remained the same. What then has happened to them? What is different in them? They have been adapting; adapting to changes in life. They have been adapting to changes in their phase of life, from student to work life, one job to another, one career to another, bachelorhood to family life. Things that come with age, time, and phases of life. They have been adapting, learning to manage using their basic inherent qualities and do things differently and different things.

This is fundamental difference. People do not change, people adapt. Change is a long drawn process and is influenced by strong factors over time. Adaptation is natural to human beings.

This difference is critical for human resources professional. We are expected to be change managers, we are expected to bring change in people, change in organisation. We maybe should be taking a different approach where we do not focus on change but on adaptation.

Let us take the case of training. There is so much of effort which is put on training people. HR professionals are asked why don’t you design a training programme for this and that. Essentially we are told why don’t you change this person. But is it possible? Is there a better way of handling this – improving performance to meet certain objectives?

I think instead of asking how do we bring a difference in people by way of training them, we should focus on how do we use people strengths. How do we help people adapt to different perspectives? How do we sharpen the skills in the contexts of the business. Some of the ways in which we need to do is, change people’s roles/ assignments to suit their natural characteristic, traits. Give people different roles where they can try and see if they are able to adapt and grow. For example giving change in function, assignments, roles etc. This is what we call exposure, perspective etc. This is not something new. We need to do more of this and make it a core of people development.

Basic skills ability to solve problems, analytical skills, ability to perceive situations, eye for detail, emotional intelligence, natural instinct for numbers, people, creativity, innovation, interests in people, tasks, social skills, remain what they are. Yes they may get sharpened, or accentuated.
What changes are newer technologies, using new tools, ability to handle greater level of complexity, risk taking, judgment, These again cannot be taught, but are leant with facilitation from the outside.

When two people are tough to drive a car, they learn how to drive using the various tools in the car like the gears, clutch, brake etc. With some practice, they both become conversant in driving the car with ease, make judgments while they drive. But then how they really drive the car is based on the difference in the mental make up. For example the speed, apitite for driving long distance, etc. differ.

There is a difference between teaching and learning. Training is more an external process, driven from the outside. Whereas learning is an internal process driven from the inside. The focus has to be on learning. It is wrong to emphasise on training. It will just not help. Look at the countless training programs people go to. They remain that - programs. What do we people learn from these programs? How much change does it bring in them?

People should be allowed to exercise their natural abilities, adapt themselves to newer contexts learning through their natural inherent process. Organisations should facilitate the adaptation, and use the natural abilities and create environment for sharpening the skills and tools.

Somewhere along changes in jobs, careers etc are linked to this aspect of change and adapt. It may be worthwhile to ponder into this aspect.

People want to handle newer things, greater level of complexity and something they see as meaningful and truthful to them

Disgruntlement crops us when these seem either unfulfilled or they are eroded. One of the reasons most HR people are frustrated are when they see that they are doing things which are meaningful or truthful. They know they are doing things which are not adding value. They are unable to do things in the manner they would prefer to. Executives after some point get frustrated when they feel that their organisation is not willing to change, take risks, adapt. Executives get disgruntled when they are not able to handle complexity in terms of business, technical problems etc.

Only two of the HR guys in my reasonably big circle of HR guys say they are happy. Most of the others are “looking out”. Both of them are handling roles and doing things they have not done before. That’s what makes sense and gives them the excitement. They are seeing global areas, greater level of complexity, making a difference to the business etc.

At the same time we also have to bear the fact that the organisation wants to accomplish more, wants to grow, wants people to take on more and do more, do differently. So on the one side we have a desire coupled with disgruntlement due to non fulfillment of the basic urges and on the other hand we have the organisations which are crying for capable resources. We need to be able to allow the natural process of adaptation to yield to both rather than focus on something unnatural a nd long drawn such as change to become the focus of attention.

If we could make facilitation of adaptation the key then the what we will do and how we do in HR will be different

In conclusion:
We should focus on adaptation and not change. People do have an inherent nature and urge to adapt to higher level of things – complexity, newness, meaningfulness etc. HR should facilitate in the process of adaptation and not indulge in bringing change in people. They can do a lot in this direction which will thus be of more use to the organisation as well as the individual.

Skills a Good Recruiter must Develop

The other day someone in my team of recruiters wanted to know what it takes to be a good professional in recruitment. Here are my views:

Competencies expected of a professional in recruitment

Communication
Ability to write good mails which are clear, grammatically correct and formatted correctly
Ability to speak in a manner which is polite courteous and appealing

Multi tasking
Ability to handle different tasks at the same time either through self or through others
Ensuring adequate effort and progress is made on all activities

Relationship
Making calls, connecting to the client representative to clearly understand requirements
Making calls even when it is not purely for a particular requirement
Meeting personally the client representatives once in a while to build a personal rapport

Organisation
Being organized on mails, documents, spreadsheets etc. Having data and information on tips
Using time effectively
Using various tools very effectively including MS Outlook (contacts), Google desktop, messengers etc.

Ownership
Measure oneself against tasks and results achieved, for instance, closures to requirements, time to closures, closures to joinees
Put the extra effort needed to fulfill the requirements
Building database pro-actively so that it will be useful at a later point in time

Collaboration
Knowing the various clients and requirements which are being worked on by others in the organisation
Giving help to others for their requirements
Taking help from others

Deadline focus
Giving feedback when committed; if you say you will get back by certain time getting back by that time
Following up with others to ensure the tasks are committed on time

Innovation
Bringing up new ideas to help in achieving higher levels of results
Building awareness of what is happening outside this organization in the industry we are in

Networking
Build connections with newer people (not just candidates for current requirements) who could be HR people, potential candidates in different organisation, other consultants, other business leaders etc.

Judgment
Ability to make judgments based on past experiences of self and others to take decisions / risks which more often than not yield results
Judgment on people – who will click, who will not etc.

Influencing
Ability to persuade people based on facts, perceptions to make decisions in your favour
Ability to persuade client representatives to look at things in a different (your) perspective
Being knowledgeable enough to make the other person listen to you
Handling different people differently

Listening
Carefully attention to what is being communicated to you, picking up the facts and perceptions to act upon and make judgments on.

Emotional intelligence
Ability to handle negative emotions including anger, No, disappointments, stress
Aggression, fire in the belly, aspiring, ability to push oneself
Being open, transparent, inclusive

Grip on numbers
Have eye for details on numbers
Chase numbers, like revenue, profitability, costs etc.
Reasonably good in Excel

Keeping pace with socio-economic-techno trends

The purpose of the blog is to explore how people learn and grow. This is based on:
1. my experiences and observations in the HR function
2. my experience from running a placement company wherein we get to interact with a cross section of employers and employees
3. interest in exploring the changes which are taking place in the manner and behaviours related to learning which to me is a very wide field in itself; and can be viewed from so many different persepctives and is the key to the progress of the humankind.

Without learning there is nothing, learning is everything.

While learning is the key aspect, the environment which organisations create are essentially driven towards facilitating learning and growth. I believe the central theme of any organisation is creating such an environment.

Therefore while exploring learning and growth, we need to also touch upon issues pertaining to the creation of such an environment in the organisations. This takes us to the domain of the function called HR. However, HR as is practised, more or less, in my view is from a very narrow perspective. Not that it is not important, but that it will need to go through a radical change. My idea of the blog is to ideate, put thoughts on aspects of HR (not from the narrow perspective but from the human behaviour perspective) which I believe should lead to the learning and growth of human beings.

Let me now put on one such thought for discussion. One of my biggest grouses against HR in the manner it is practised today is that it has not kept pace with the socio-economic-techno trends of the external environment.

Let us take some trends:
. re-definition of loyalty, commitment
. greater level of individualisation
. dissipation of energy in various areas
. availability and easy access to choices
. increasing earnings and lowering of cost of life style and easy access to money
. exponential reduction in speed of reaction/responses time
. shorter spans of attention, shorter memories

Let me take some time to explore each of these points.
Re-definition of loyalty, commitment
What do we expect people to be committed to? Is it commitment to