[asterisk-users] (Getting OT) Re: Call Center SoftPhone with Auto Answer

Tue Sep 18 19:12:36 CDT 2007

If you have to resort to such measures to get people to work for you
in a motivated fashion, you're doing something very, VERY wrong.

On Tue, 18 Sep 2007, Steve Totaro wrote:

> Anselm Martin Hoffmeister wrote:
>> Am Dienstag, den 18.09.2007, 17:33 -0400 schrieb James FitzGibbon:
>>
>>> On 9/18/07, David Gomillion <david.gomillion at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>         I've stayed out of this thread for a long time, and really
>>>         didn't read the past comments, so if I'm repeating someone,
>>>         I'm sorry. I've been thinking this for a while, and just have
>>>         to say it. If you feel like you have to keep people from
>>>         turning off the auto-answer feature on a softphone, you don't
>>>         need a new softphone. You need new people.
>>>
>>> Yes, but have you ever drawn up a budget for a full-blown meatware(tm)
>>> upgrade?
>>>
>>
>> I do not know American work law, but if you tell your people to NOT turn
>> off auto answer, and they do for having a break, would that not count as
>> work refusal? As long as they get all the breaks they are supposed to
>> take, of course. If for example a cashier in a supermarket here in
>> Germany would just leave her position for a few minutes for a smoke,
>> small-talk or whatever, outside her assigned break times, she could
>> afaik get a written warning, and at the second occasion the full wad of
>> papers (aka been fired).
>>
>> On the other hand, if you count only times while they are on-a-call,
>> with appropriate logging software, adding a few seconds per-call for
>> overhead, as their worktime, they pretty soon will keep auto answer on
>> to get the required number of work minutes during their shift, I would
>> expect.
>>
>> But this is not as much a technical problem as a social one: If your
>> agents are unmotivated, they might spend time talking off-business to
>> any caller/callee on the phone that seems to be interested in
>> small-talk, and _that_ you could hardly find out technically.
>>
>> So you might get an upgrade without paying for the deinstallation of the
>> previous "meatware", but the installation process of course has costs.
>>
>> BTW putting too much pressure on your agents might do bad things to
>> their effiency, motivation, even mental health. Getting the balance
>> between control and good atmosphere right is not easy, and something
>> that cannot be generalized but must be tailored to the situation. The
>> value of a "human asset" (imagine me vomiting my way through those
>> words) can materialize in the number of sales, calls, ... and also in
>> the customer experience he creates, which is hard to be counted in
>> numbers.
>>
>> For example, I recently bought some music instrument and accessories at
>> a phone-order company. The people there were relaxed, friendly, helpful
>> and made the effort of giving me competent, quick information that I
>> needed. All contact with them was extremely positive.
>>
>> As I needed some more stuff that I knew was a bit cheaper at another
>> store (which only deals with customers in a matter-of-fact way), I
>> decided to honour that effort. I also recommended the company to
>> friends, which they probably will never know about and as such cannot
>> count in as a bonus for their sales personell.
>>
>> *Just my loose change. Man, there were lots of coins in that purse.*
>>
>>
>>> Makes Vista look like a picnic.
>>>
>>
>> IMO Vista is an apple short of one ;-)
>>
>> To get the Asterisk relevant topics:
>>
>> You could
>> - count on-call minutes to rate agent performance
>> - track off-call intervals on a certain line and so track the turned-off
>> auto answer
>> - do some "social engineering" or "policy work" to get this sorted in a
>> non-technical way (work contract terms, etc)
>> - pay some softphone manufacturer to implement needed changes
>>
>> BTW what would hinder your agents from shutting down the softphone app
>> when they do not want to answer calls? What would hinder them from just
>> not talking to the caller when they do not want to?
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Anselm
>>
>>
>>
>>
> By "American" (I assume you mean the USA and leaving out the rest of
> North and South America) employment laws vary state by state.  Maryland
> is an "At will" state which means you can be fired or quit at will
> (unless you have a contract in place that says differently).
>
> Agents are the absolute best at finding bugs and ways of beating the
> call center system.  You can lock them down but they will find other
> ways around every time.
>
> I think holding a company wide meeting about the issue and creating an
> official policy on what is acceptable and what is not.
>
> Make it a zero tolerance policy.
>
> Then wait a few days, the first one you catch messing around with the
> system, make a very public and open dismissal of the employee and make
> sure the other agents know exactly why their co-worker was dismissed.
> There will be quite a bit of gossip and possibly turnover depending on
> the rep that was dismissed but you will see much less of the offending
> behavior.  Don't stop at one, make sure you let the agents know that
> they are being monitored and will receive no warning if in violation.
>
> Sounds harsh, but you have to lay down the law.  Even if you catch your
> best rep doing it, immediate termination, that will really get the point
> across.
>
> Thanks,
> Steve
>
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--
Alex Balashov
Evariste Systems
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