Team Leaders are the heartbeat of the Contact Center.
That’s why we’ve created this Team Leader Resource Series, a collection of practical Team Leader resources to help Team Leaders grow their skills, shift their mindset, and elevate the way they lead.
We’ve Met a Lot of Team Leaders
We’ve been teaching new and experienced Team Leaders for more than 25 years.
And we’ve learned from the insights, stories, and examples shared by thousands of participants across more than 75 countries.
The Industry Challenge
Let’s begin with the reality most Team Leaders face today.
Most folks come into the industry by accident — and then end up learning on the job. That’s a very hit-or-miss way to master an industry.
This lack of professional know-how doesn’t just hold individuals back. It holds their organizations back too.
You probably wouldn’t go to an unqualified dentist to have your teeth fixed. You’d expect them to have a formal background in dentistry along with relevant experience.
The same principle applies to Team Leaders.
Even if your Team Leaders were Agents before, they need more than on-the-job experience.
They need real industry know-how.
We Treat the Customer Ecosystem as a Business Discipline
An ecosystem is an environment built on relationships and interdependencies.
In the Customer ecosystem, those relationships exist across Customers, Employees, Colleagues, Bosses, Partners and Owners.
Achieving an environment that meets the needs of these different Stakeholders is both an art and a science.
That’s why we treat understanding and managing the Customer ecosystem as a business discipline. Like finance, law or marketing, it requires specific know-how and skills.
Four Domains of Core Industry Know-How
We believe there are four core domains of industry know-how that every Contact Center Team Leader should understand:
- Operations Management
- Quality Management & Coaching
- Leadership & People Management
- Customer Experience Management
Team Leaders don’t need to become specialists in every domain.
But they do need enough knowledge to understand what they’re managing, make sound decisions, and see how decisions in one area affect another.
I’ve Never Met a Team Leader Who Didn’t Want to Do a Good Job
Here’s one of the most common comments we receive after any Team Leader training course:
“Dan, I’ve been in the industry for 5 (or 8 or even 14) years and I wish I had taken this course back when I started, because I would have done a much better job.”
Because we don’t know what we don’t know.
And working with scattered bits of knowledge when you’re managing a complex ecosystem is bound to be problematic.
Now and then I see well-meaning ‘CX experts’ write that training for Team Leaders has been overlooked.
I disagree.
The Team Leader job role has been analyzed, written about, and discussed for decades.
So something else is going on.
Why Aren’t Team Leaders Doing Better?
We see two key factors that hold Team Leaders back from job mastery.
Factor #1: How Serious is the Organization?
Not every Organization prioritizes Team Leader development in the same way.
At one end are Organizations that take Team Leader development seriously.
Team Leaders are formally taught what they need to know and then given opportunities to apply that learning in the real world.
At the other end are Organizations that don’t recognize the Customer ecosystem as a business discipline requiring specific know-how and skills.
These are the places where you’ll hear ‘on-the-job learning’ presented as the solution to building Team Leader competency.
Or where there’s plenty of ‘talking the talk’ about Customers and Employees without providing the resources, development and qualified leadership needed to ‘walk the walk’.
Factor #2: How Prepared is the Organization?
Taking Team Leader development seriously is one thing. Knowing what to teach them is another.
People don’t typically go to school to become professionals in Customer Experience, Customer Service or Contact Centers.
And developing an effective Team Leader curriculum for the Customer ecosystem requires specialized industry know-how.
To be fair to Learning & Development professionals, not everyone has that background.
As a result, what Team Leaders receive is often pretty basic.
Sometimes it’s little more than a generic management course that doesn’t address the art and science of managing the Customer ecosystem.
If you’re in charge — and you take the Team Leader job role seriously — don’t accept basic.
Because basic doesn’t build mastery.
When Will I Know My Team Leaders Are Gaining Mastery?
There’s no question that Team Leaders need to understand each of the four domains outlined above.
But how do you know when your Team Leaders are gaining real job mastery?
That’s an easy one.
When they begin to confidently connect the dots across the four domains.
I love it when a Team Leader can accurately describe the impact of a proposed decision or action across different domains — including Operations, People and Customers.
They see the big picture and how these domains interrelate.
As Team Leaders gain mastery of the Customer ecosystem, they become more confident, make better decisions, and deliver better results.
Practical Team Leader Resources
These articles offer practical ideas, tools, and perspectives to help Contact Center Team Leaders build their know-how, strengthen their leadership, and do better in their role.
Thanks for Reading
If you’re exploring training and development options for your Team Leaders, you can learn more about our Team Leader Training Series here.
I regularly share stories, strategies, and insights from our work across Contact Centers, Customer Service, and Customer Experience. If this resonates, I’d love to stay connected.
You can drop me a line anytime, or subscribe on our site.
Daniel Ord
[email protected]
www.omnitouchinternational.com
