Feed Fire
To determine appropriate compensation plans for his 65-seat call center, Tim Taggart, contact center manager at Sundance catalog in Salt Lake City periodically calls other area employers, checks out newspaper employment ads and discusses payment issues with an informal share group of 17 catalog contact center managers.
Once you've determined the base salary to pay competent CSRs to retain them, how do you motivate them to excel at their jobs? Here are some ideas that may work.
Determine What You Want to Reward
"Is it results, compliance or effort?" asks Kislik. "It's really important to determine this up front, otherwise you may end up in a different place than where you imagined."
For example, say you want to reward compliance, which is really a performance issue, she continues. But when you enforce compliance, such as requiring that CSRs ask each customer for an e-mail address or make an upsell offer, agents tend to think you're trying to make it hard for them to meet goals. "They think what you're really trying to do is take money away from them," says Kislik. "That's how they interpret this."
Or say you want to reward results. Measuring quantitative results, such as how much time a CSR spent on customer calls, is relatively easy. But measuring qualitative results, such as how many angry customers he appeased, is much more difficult.
At New Pig, agents are rewarded for their cross-sells and upsells. But rather than simply pushing the product of the day, the program is carefully devised to promote customer service. So if a client orders, say, a pipe, CSRs are prompted to mention quantity discounts on that item and the other merchandise the customer will need to properly install that pipe, such as special straps or bolts.
"We reward agents if they get customers to order what, in essence, we already know they'll need to use the product," says Kitty Dertinger, customer service manager. This satisfies both the CSRs' drive for commissions and the company's motivation to offer exceptional customer service.
