Making Magic

Today we have one of us out there doing something magical.  (And, oh how I wish I had gift cards from this client.  I want to shop without remorse.)

What makes it magical?  It is complicated, but let me try to break it down simple-style.

We don’t live in your business day in and day out.  You do.  You have processes and history and multiple steps that got you to where you are.  All I know is what I see.  And if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.  If it does work, you did a great job getting there.  You could have something small that seems huge, and *poof*, we can help with that.

We don’t have relationships with the executives, management, contact center agents, janitors.  We just see how you work together and what your functions are.  We don’t have any preconceived notions.

We can talk to everyone, check into everything, and spend as much time as is necessary figuring it all out.

You asked us to come.  So you already know something can be improved.  This is awesome and important.  We aren’t unwelcome by companies insisting nothing is wrong.  You are saying to us “Help us”.  We are saying, “Definitely”.

The best part is that since you did ask us to come, are paying us to come, are waiting to see recommendations for improvement…you really want to do this.  That means we get to make a difference.

So thank you for this opportunity, unnamed client.  We hope to bring value to your organization. Maybe even a little magic.

Hurry! Stay Ahead of Everyone! Socialize the Heck out of Your Business.

 

Hurry!  Stay Ahead of Everyone!  Got a website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, a blog, FourSquare, and on and on and on. Do it all!  Be the First!

I’m not serious.  Don’t stay ahead.  Don’t try to be the one with your tentacles in every Social Media platform.  Don’t!   Just do some things well.  Go where your customers go. Be where your competitors are.  And build your brand with consistency.  Let others try every new app, every new way of virtual interaction.

I would like to see you pick a few things that work, a few things that are being done.  Why?

Because you need to go where they are, and it needs to be doable for your business.  It is great to try to predict behavior and be the first to do everything.  But leave that to the big dogs with their big huge teams of experts.  Let them jump on board the virtual ship.  A ship?  Now that would be cool.  We all get to buy cabins on a ship, and you get to interact with other people who have bought these virtual cabins, and then…  No.  Don’t do that.

Here is what I would recommend if we had a meeting.

1.  Make sure you have a web presence of some sort (like a simple website.).  You don’t want to be left behind.  You just need to be where they are.  You can’t afford to be the one who doesn’t.

2.  Find out what your clients/ customers do online.  Do you think they’d like to visit  your company Facebook page?  Would that be beneficial?  If yes, get one.  If no, don’t.

3.  Tweet stuff.  It doesn’t have to be every day.  Find some people you respect, admire, or are entertained by.  Read what they are doing.  Retweet their good stuff.  Look for your customers and keep tabs on what they are Tweeting.  Maybe they need you.

4.  Leave it there for now.  Sure, you could write a blog.  But that takes time and effort.  You might need to gather facts and stories.  It is enough to focus long enough to figure out where our customers and competitors are.  Be there in a way that works for you.  Add the blog later.  Add the Foursquare and the Instagram and the Pinterest if it is right for your business and you can maintain it well and deliver consistently.

5.  Don’t try to be ahead of the curve.  It isn’t what your business is all about.  (Unless it is.  Then go ahead.).

We’re Still Us…Just Different.

Remember when CEMpros focused on putting contact center pros into contact center jobs?  We don’t really focus on that.  We could if you needed us to.  But now we really are Customer Experience Management Professionals.  Get it?  CEMpros.

We can help you with your business.  In fact, your business IS our business.

Marketing, Branding, Social Media Engagement.  I can help you with that.  Figure out what works for your business and do it.

Consulting with Customer Service Based Businesses.  We do that and have a team of professionals that can come to your business and help diagnose and fix issues.

Independent Consultants need some contracts or Statements of Work?  We do that.

Let us know what we can do for you.  www.cempros.com

What’s Up, Q2?

Hey Second Quarter,

It is nice of you to drop in, and you have been around for about 3 weeks now.  What a lovely visit it has been.

I have a small problem, and I am hoping to get your help.  I know that sometimes you lose visibility when shown next to the 1st quarter of the year.  I mean, sure, Q1 is important.  But initiatives really get moving in the 2nd quarter.  So, here is my problem…

Can you help us get some movement from our clients?  We have this awesome database of talent and we need to get some positions for them, and get them pretty darn quick.  The economy has been rough, and we have some super talented VPs, Directors, Managers, and Consultants that could use some Q2 work.

Don’t be shy, Q2.  (Can I call you Q2?  I feel that we are familiar at this point.)  We have seen each other before, year after year.  Sheesh…I digress.  As I was saying, please don’t be shy.  Your shyness and lack of momentum could mean that Q3 gets all the financial love.  We don’t want that, right?

Let me help you help us.  That’s right.  I am here to pull some action out of you, Q2.  Get things going.  Move things in the right direction.  And to save you the embarrassment of being completely overshadowed by Q3 or Q4.

In parting, please let me thank you for your continued presence, as well as the past fun we have had together.  (Oh, man.  Remember 2009?  That was so much fun.)

Please send us your contacts who have a need for some awesome contact center pros.  You scratch our back, we scratch yours.  I hear that Q1 had her eye on you. I can totally help you with that.

Later Gater!

CEMpros

Speed it up, please

I know what a value CEMpros has out there in the contact center world.  But I don’t think we here at CEMpros are conveying that to all of you.

Our whole idea and mission was to make the best matches possible for open positions in the contact center world.  This means that we thoroughly delve into each candidates background, including their level of management, responsibilities, technology familiarity, style of leadership, area of expertise, and more.

And when we get a request for help filling an opening or finding a consultant, we can look at the job description and listen to the client’s needs in order to find the right person.  (By the way, job descriptions are pretty important.  Have you ever tried to find someone with a job description that didn’t match the need?  UGH!)

So here we are with this lovely database full of highly talented call center pros.  And, yes, we have had some great opportunities already, but there should be more.

If anyone you know is in the market for a call center pro, think of CEMpros.  Recommend us.  Don’t let your company or your friends spend time and money on a job search that may or may not get the results needed.  Friends don’t let friends waste money.

Call Sarah at 785-424-3058 or email sarahs@cempros.com.  What better way to start your week than a call with yours truly?  Especially a call that would probably end with me providing some benefit to you.

Looking forward to hearing from you…

Mondays are the Best, Right?

We all look forward to Fridays because that is the start of our weekends.  But for those of us with responsibilities- we often look forward to Mondays, too.

Don’t get me wrong.  We LOVE early morning soccer games, kids who want cereal at 6:23 (or better yet, pancakes), long delayed bedtimes with whiney children, digging and planting our bulbs that must go in asap, doggies who have no respect for carpets and are suffering from some type of nausea, housework, grocery shopping and more.

But Monday mornings?  Adult problems.  Computer issues, is there enough coffee, oops those are the uncomfortable shoes, and more.  They aren’t even close to the weekend hullabaloo, craziness, and downright madhouse.

So welcome, Monday, it is nice to see you.  I am sure I will forget right around Wednesday, mostly due to everyone asking if it is Friday yet and the computer’s odd slowness driving me crazy.  Then I will start thinking about the weekend and the slim chance of sleeping in, getting some sun, having a relaxing time.

And the cycle continues.

For all of you who didn’t have 847 things to do this weekend, didn’t have to clean your house or shop for groceries or fold 321 loads of laundry…sucks for you.  But, hey, I don’t feel bad.  You got a WEEKEND weekend.  At least for me, my Monday is a good thing.  Now who’s happy?  Huh?  Winning!

Oh, and don’t forget us for you contact center talent placement needs.  (See, I can make any blog entry really professional and geared toward contact centers.)

Blah Blah Opportunities Blah. And Blah.

It is hard to keep in mind that often times a tragedy turns into an opportunity.  Wait!  There is a possibility that as you read this you mentally thought “blah blah blah” or you wanted to close the blog.  Don’t.

I am not trying to make you feel better.  I don’t want to offer platitudes or niceties that really aren’t helpful.

What I am saying is that there are new opportunities that offer something different.  I recently sent out our newsletter to those that signed up (ahem!).  I received one unlikely response.  The gentleman said, “Please take me off your list.  I keep getting passed up for promotions by people much younger.  I am retiring.”.

I chuckled at first.  Then I thought that this poor guy really should have looked for another opportunity.  They are out there.  He didn’t know about them and was letting his career go by choosing to retire.

But if you aren’t one of the lucky ones who chooses to retire, and is instead forced, you will be looking sooner rather than later.  Don’t waste this opportunity to find something new, different, exciting, strange, thrilling, uncomfortable, or just plain out-of-your-comfort-zone that changes your world for the better.

Please let us know if we can be of help. If you are a talented contact center professional looking for a new opportunity, hit me at sarahs@cempros.com.  If you aren’t, but want some help with a personal website or resume re-do, I can help you with that, too.

And if you are contact center that wants to find the right person, you should probably consider CEMpros.  More than probably.  You need to contact us.  Don’t waste your time on scouring the professional world for the talent that we already have in our database.  Seems kind of silly, doesn’t it?  Wasting money and time.  Two things that we can help you with.

Visit our site.  www.cempros.com.

 

Mad Libs, Anyone?

I love it!  Dan came up with the best idea.  Who doesn’t love Mad Libs?  Um, hello!

So here is how it goes.  You think of these nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs somehow relating to contact centers.  Then fill in the blanks.  Please send me the good ones.

I won’t print them if they are dirty.  Just FYI.  Not because I don’t find them funny (because I DO!) but because this is a proper and respectable business we are running.  Proper and respectable.  Two words used ALL the time to describe me.

Don’t look ahead at the paragraph, just come up with the words first.  Take a few minutes and have some fun at work.

Title________________, past tense verb_____________________, adjective_____________________,

adverb_______________________, verb__________________________, number__________________,

noun_________________________, verb______________________.

Dear CEMpros,

Our (title) _____________________ left our company! On the way out, (pronoun)______________

(past tense verb) _____________________________, which wasn’t the most

(adjective)_________________________ experience.

We need someone to (verb)____________________ that role.  Preferably, this person will have

(adjective)__________________skills and work (adverb)___________________ with others.

I would like to (verb)__________________ you a little bit about our company.  We have approximately

(number)______________ agents.  Our focus is on (noun)______________________________.

If you can (verb)________________ us, please call!

Sincerely,

(Your Name)_______________________

(email)____________________________

(Phone)___________________________

 

www.cempros.com Please remember to sign up if you want to keep getting newsletters and the blog.  We like to share.

Doing it Right (this is a long one)

Integrity is something that people forget when it comes to personal gain. But you can’t really be a success personally and professionally without remembering to do it right.

When I was working for a big tobacco company, I thought that it was all about personal choice.  Why would I have any issue with being a smoke pimp when it is completely legal and legit?  Well, actually, I still don’t have an issue with the choice people make to smoke, as long as it doesn’t extend to others such as children or spouses, or in restaurants and the like.

What I did end up having was an issue with geography being the deciding factor in how it was marketed.  For example, back in 2000 I spent a week in Barcelona.  It was lovely.  The beautiful coast, the interesting people, the Picasso museum where a group of French jr high students on a field-trip were taking a smoke break in the courtyard  with their teacher.  Yes, indeed, children smoking.

I came back home, working for tobacco and making a good living, getting intensive training (continuously) on the best ways to market cigarettes well, keep market share, but keep them away from kids.  That was huge.  The legality of it was a big issue- staying on the forefront of limiting access to tobacco for underage wannabe smokers.

But the image of these French children smoking kept coming to mind.  And, as I was fresh out of college and often have very little filter when expressing something in earnest, I kind of put my foot in it regarding this very thing.

We were always being trained in that company.  It was a good thing.  But, these huge meetings with hundreds of folks were a big part of it.  Sometimes we had guest speakers who were motivational or extremely successful in the business world, and sometimes we had guest executives.

You might already pick up on where this is going.  We had big round-table discussions, opportunities to express ideas and have some back and forth with others higher than us on the food-chain.  I thought it was the perfect opportunity to discuss underage smoking, as regulation changes were a big part of our discussions that week.

I said that something had been bothering me.  We had talked so much about underage smoking, limiting access to tobacco, fining retailers who sell to minors (not just legally, but the tobacco company would fine retailers, as well), and how it was just not right to allow youth to smoke.  But we hadn’t talked about how to limit access in other countries.

As I was explaining this dissonance, I was getting looks from my co-workers as they mentally moved their chairs further from me.  I was a bit flummoxed.  We were all expressing ideas and we were encouraged to offer ideas on improvement and change, and I was being respectful and non-confrontational.  But I could see that I had made this discussion just a bit too heavy.  And even though my tone wasn’t confrontational, the subject matter was.

I am really not dissing on the company I worked for.  I have nothing but positive things to say on how they were conducting business.  But I was taken aside by a higher-up and told that a discussion like that was not meant for a hundred plus group, and that there were many levels and complications when it came to international business.  All true.

No matter what, though, I felt good about bringing up something that wasn’t the typical “How do I have our merchandisers place a non-smoking sign at eye level to younger people without junking up a retailer’s counter?”, and that I felt really mattered.  Perhaps I have learned since then about the right time and place (grimace and slight look of chagrin my face), but I still sometimes express myself without thinking about playing the game of corporate politics.  That is what I am not the best at.

But, just a thought here, sometimes those of us that are bad at the corporate politics are operating from a different perspective.

I don’t always think of all the different ways that something spoken can be interpreted.  There are lots and lots of layers out there, with people being territorial or motivated by things I don’t know about.  But what I will always do is operate from a place of integrity. And I have an open door policy when it comes to discussions and feedback.

I won’t try to oversell something that isn’t right for someone’s business.  That doesn’t help anything.  Repeat business is very important to revenue, and the way to get repeat business is to do it right in the first place.  To do what you say, stand by what you meant, and keep integrity in the mix.

And now as I work with a broad variety of people on both sides of contact center matchmaking, I keep integrity in mind.  Noticing the right thing, being aware of doing the right thing, and always representing CEMpros and our contact center pros accurately and fairly.  But if I stick my foot in my mouth occasionally, please don’t be surprised.  I swear it comes from a good place.

Spring has Sprung

When spring comes along, and the days get longer, it is just par for the course that people get busier.  I am not so confused as to think that business busyness is all do to increased daylight.  Perhaps some of that is working through yearly budgets and making plans for the upcoming quarters.

In light of this increase in activity, we would like to humbly offer our services.  Humbly.  I swear.  Okay, I shouldn’t swear when I am tickled pink with the level of talent we have to offer.  And pride and humble are hard to combine.

Speaking of that talent…need something pretty cool in your contact center, such as a new director?  Or did someone get promoted to director and you need a new manager?  Or maybe you are part of that on-shoring movement?  Yes?  Well, shoot.  Just give us a holler.  We are happy to help.

And please, find some time to enjoy the extra long daylight hours.  Maybe an extended vacation, for which you need a temporary replacement?  Okay, that was kind of pushing it, right?

Nonetheless, the message remains the same.  We are pretty proud of the level of talented contact center professionals we have in our talent database.  I would say that you’ve got my digits, so give me a ring, except that it is easier to hit me up through email.

sarahs@cempros.com or danr@cempros.com