Why Smaller Contact Centers Struggle as They Grow

Smaller Contact Centers often struggle as they grow – and in this post I share a story that highlights the reason why.

A smaller Contact Center story

A while back, I met a Customer Service Manager who ran a small, passionate Contact Center team.

“We’re like a family,” she told me. “We all pitch in, cover for each other and just get things done. Everyone knows what to do.”

And it was working to a certain degree – until it wasn’t.

As the Center Team grew – to 10, then 20, and soon 50 people – things started to fray.

Service levels slipped.
Customers complained, both privately to the company and publicly on social media.
Team Members felt disconnected from the mission and unclear about expectations.

What happened?

Well, the informal ways of working – the kind that feel natural in a small Team, where everyone sees and talks to each other — didn’t scale.

To her great credit, this Customer Service Manager saw what was happening and made a decision.

She chose to professionalize the Contact Center – her word choice.

To improve Service Levels, she implemented interval-based Service Level Management, including a focus on Adherence to Schedule.

To improve Quality, she introduced a Quality Assurance function, along with structured processes for Monitoring and Coaching.

And to improve the Employee Experience, she doubled down on the Culture — seeking input, setting expectations for key behaviors and clearly communicating the why behind the changes that she was spearheading.

This is a story with a happy ending

But not all the stories get a happy ending – or there are twists and turns on the way to that happy ending.

What I see out in the real world – at times – is that there is leadership turnover.

The ‘old’ Center Leader is out and a new Center Leader is brought in.

The new Leaders works to (both) scale up the Center and improve outcomes for Customers, Employees and the Organization.

So what can we learn from her story — and others like hers?

Whether you’re talking about Contact Centers, Customer Service, or Customer Experience, everything (and everyone) gets better when –

You transform from unstructured, ad-hoc and informal practices to an ecosystem of standardized and repeatable processes – the kind you can embed, manage, measure and scale.

Processes and practices that – when you bring them together – become more than the sum of their parts.

https://www.omnitouchinternational.com/introducing-our-team-leader-series-of-articles/