I am presently working with a client and we want give the agents more empowerment to act in the customers best interest, however there are concerns that it will be difficult to track when and where the agent is empowered to 'go the extra mile'.

I would be interested in hearing from others on how you have addressed the same question. How have you dealt with empowering your agents and how have you controlled this process to keep it from getting out of control.

Colin

What is it about empowerment that you want to track?

I am guessing that your client is scared that agents will spend hours with one caller or authorise things that they shouldn't like refunds or similar.

If it were me I would empower the staff by implementing their suggestions for improving the system so there were few calls where they had to take special action. Remove the failure demand by removing errors due to the system.

Regards,

Rob Worth

Rob,
Thanks for the reply.

You have it in a nutshell- The question is how can you empower the staff, but not too much and keep them accountable.

Unfortunately the option of changing the systems is a non-starter and would take years if it was agreed too. So we are faced with situations where we know that the procedure is inappropriate and want to empower the agents to act in the customers best interest. The challenge is that the number and complexity of these situations is significant and are not easily defined (they are also influenced by someone else in the process not doing what they should- we are training to address this causal issue).

Any suggestions on establishing boundaries, tracking costs etc. would be appreciated.

Colin

What would happen if you empowered the staff now by asking them how they should be empowered to act in the customers' interest? What if you asked the staff how they should be tracked? If you explain the need and the downside in a matter-of-fact way I am sure they would come through and offer solutions that might surprize.

Rob

When I say system I mean anything that contributes to the outputs. So that includes the IT, people, processes, inputs and many other things. Maybe I need to find another word, since it is quite common for people to misunderstand the way I use it.

Clients tell me that the system is difficult to change. Mostly that turns out not to be true. Mostly.

Cheers,

Rob

Rob,
Thank you for the suggestions, I appreciate it.

Colin

In the context of what you are talking about the consequence of letting agents do more for the customers will have two main impacts on the company:
1. A Financial impact - a refund, compensation or combination
2. A Product / Service impact - there will be a change in the package to the customer whether it be a free item, a change in conditions or service enhancement.

In most cases these would be trackable as the first is financial and for auditing purposes must link back to an event or individual, the second because most companies provide there services via computer and any change will have been logged.

This is likely to be your first point of measurement and for verifying correct application of company policies introduced in support of the empowerment initiative.

Once you have the tracker you can then start to analyse the results and set up controls that will highlight those acting outside of the norm,this is then picked up by operational management who will use performance management to first educate on reasonable limits of empowerment before it gets out of hand.

Secondly limits still need to be set, but set at a reasonable level so that the agent feels that what they can offer will satisfy most customers and not leave them having to regularly refer to a superior. This is important because if there isnt the buffer at the top end the word "empowerment" will be meanlingless because the agent wont feel they are being trusted.

Setting limits is also a learning activity, at the beginning limits are set fairly low, this gives the agent comfort that they are not going to get into trouble and allows them to build their confidence in decision making. Once the agents have been performing satisfactorily at this lower level then the limits can be increased, whether this is straight to the upper level or somewhere in between is a local decision and should also be supported by the agent as they may want to step change rather than jump to high limits.

Empowerment is cultural change, it wont happen overnight and there will be resistance because at first it will be seen as abdication of management to deal with difficult situations, so by slowly stretching the limits it wont be seen as dumping.