Thoughts from the Front Line of Customer Service: Focus Group Results

Last week we conducted two focus groups for a client who wasn't getting the results they wanted from front line reps - a big problem since the reps are the first contact with the company for customers and a pivotal point in making the sale. (You can read the pre-focus group blog for details.)

To all you small business and nonprofit marketers, listen up. Here are a few key takeaways from 2 1/2 hours of discussion over a couple of different meetings. And while we might have anticipated some of this information, we were surprised at how little had to do with financial incentives.

The question management posed was, "How can we motivate the customer service reps better? We need to change the incentive plan."

Here is what we discovered.

#1 There is not a motivation problem, there is a systems problem. I was bowled over by the motivation of the reps we talked with. They cared (passionately), they had opinions, they knew what they were doing. They might not be reaching the goals management had set, but it wasn't for lack of motivation.

#2 The technology used to process calls had several key glitches. It's hard to process calls faster when the computer screen is freezing up or there is a long lag time between calls. And there were a few other systems/operations problems as well. Something that could have been caught in regular staff meetings? Maybe - but putting all the pieces together in the meeting brought some needed clarity to the problem. Best of all - many of the fixes for these problems had little or no cost.

#3 There is very little big picture discussion. In the day-to-day crush of activities and the pressure to produce, there is precious little time to explore big-picture questions or identify new ideas. The reps not only felt they could meet larger goals, they saw it as a challenge - they just wanted to know a little bit of the what, how and why of the goals.

#4 Evaluation systems aren't working. The reps saw little or no value in the perfunctory, once per month coaching they received on one or two calls. And supervisors are focused on managing workflow, not providing feedback, during normal operations. In short, the reps are "enduring" the feedback and supervisors are spinning their wheels providing it.

#5 Reps like the incentive plan. They had some suggestions for improvement, but by and large the existing incentive plan was good. The reps were invested, they understood it, and they liked it. The one plan they liked better? A previous plan that was created by top performing reps as a perk for their outstanding performance. Makes sense - who knows how to incent a rep better than another rep?

#6 No one recognizes the reps. While they made no bones about being motivated by financial incentives, they mentioned there is no employee of the month, no congratulations for a good job, no visit from top management, no recognition by other staff. In other words, unless things are going south, they hear nothing.

While we learned a lot, it's just the tip of the iceberg. We'll be holding monthly focus groups (which we conducted without direct supervisors and management and will continue the same way in the future). We know there are more big ideas out there, and with some intentional listening, we'll find a few more of them.