Polarities and Conflicts Awareness

The BPO industry continually looks for ways to improve their customers’ experience to differentiate them from other providers. This particular BPO served an account that had a strong market positioning around care and concern for their customers. We were requested to support them in training their agents in the art of communicating with care and establishing trust and connection.

We started by gathering data: Understanding the product/service being provided.
Identifying the end customers and their needs. Training methods and content. Listening
to a range of recorded conversations (really good, good, okay, bad and really bad) according to the agreements of the BPO and their client. Feedback from the end client.
Measures of success.

Once we felt we had a good picture, we created a prototype of the program, mixing training and experiential processes. We would train agents to communicate with empathy and spontaneity, and thereby help them create a more personal connection with their customers.

Participants were at first wary, a bit resistant. As we progressed they started to engage. They explored ways to show empathy in communication, and ways to establish a connection with customers. We had them experiment moving away from scripts and engaging customers in conversations that were more natural, empathetic and solutions-oriented.

The calls with customers were routinely recorded and assessed. Trainers and coaches reported a marked change in the way some agents communicated with customers. Customers became more chatty, agents enjoyed their conversations more. Their tone shifted from being transactional and irate, to lighter and more considerate. The calls, naturally, were taking longer.

However, some agents had gone back to their accustomed way of communicating, using scripts. We interviewed some of these agents who’d abandoned practising what they’d learned about empathetic communication. Interviewees explained that the longer customer conversations were negatively impacting their scores. They loved what they were learning for themselves personally, but it did not serve their performance objectives. The longer time spent on calls caused them to miss their turnaround times and the number of issues resolved, which ultimately negatively impacted their bonuses.

Discussing how the BPO account owner and their team were doing, we came to realize that we’d neglected to step back and look at the larger picture: the system. The client’s product/service had a care and connection positioning, but their primary objective was to prioritize efficiency and security. Our program’s focus (to create space, time and process for customer care and connection) discounted those objectives.

It’s no surprise the project stalled. No one had the answer to how to connect care and connection to the bottomline. It was a learning experience for us. Yes, we succeeded in training agents to communicate with care and connection with customers. But we failed to identify polarities and conflicts in the system and to find ways to resolve them.