Setting Standards for Call Centre and Telesales Staff

Chapter 8 of the Call Centre Motivation Workbook

People are motivated by operating to high standards of performance and behaviour.

In a way, this panders to people's innate snobbery. When we talk about setting standards, we often think about productivity targets or quality measures, but to create a high motivational impact we can go further than that.

The motivating effect comes from operating to explicit standards, rather than implied ones. We can set standards of behaviour, dress and conduct specific to our team. Let's examine these.

Behaviour

We need to embed a culture of behaviour relating to issues such as internal call handling, eating, cross-office shouting etc.

Having embedded these behaviours, we must demonstrably over-perform, consistently.

We should aim for an attitude of "the way we do things here," or an air of predictable excellence.

Dress

Whether your team has elected to dress up or dress down, be clear about what is acceptable and be prepared to send transgressors home if necessary.

Be aware that dress standards must be affordable and achievable for your call centre team, otherwise it will backfire and become demotivational. Handled correctly, dress standards create a sense of belonging and a strong sense of motivation.

Conduct

Be clear about the rules in your call centre. Identify what you believe to be the sins of conduct, such as poor timekeeping, bad personal hygiene, low quality of customer interaction and so on and police them vigorously with good humour.

People like to know where they stand and setting the bar high helps motivation to follow.

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