Programs for motivating staff working in high-pressure and high turnover environments like call centres need to fit both audience and industry, writes Mark Ludmon
18th July 2009 - Sales Promotion
Understanding your audience is just as important when targeting incentives at a workforce as it is when marketing to consumers.
For a motivation programme to be successful and popular with the workforce. It needs to be imaginative, inspirational and carefully selected to tap into the aspirations and interests of the potential recipients.” says Justine Clement, managing director of incentives provider Unmissable.
But there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution, the experts say. The challenges vary across different industry sectors, with senior sates people at a car dealership requiring a different approach to people working at a call centre.
Incentives
Call centres in particular have long been one of the biggest users of incentives. At Call Centre & Customer Management Expo at Birmingham NFC in September. There is a dedicated Incentive Avenue featuring exhibitors such as Gross Roots and Marks & Spencer. As well as two conference streams discussing issues relevant to call centre operators.
As Melissa Roberts, event manager tor the show, says: “One at the biggest issues facing call centre operators is keeping good staff around It’s a long-term concern — once they’ve invested in recruiting and training staff they want to hold on to them,”
Roberts points out that there are over 6,000 call centres in the UK. employing over a million people. 5 per cent at the British workforce, Management responsible for these call centres will be Looking for anything from simple vouchers and staff perks through to fully-managed, long-term strategic motivation programs.
“People in call centres are a group that can respond very quickly to incentives and motivation.” says Andy Philpott, marketing director of incentives group Accor Services. “It’s a very incentive- and reward-driven job. Call centres will always suffer from a high level of staff turnover, points out Julian Bazley, director at mativatian and incentives at
motivation company OBMT. “you can never overcome that, especially as call centres will recruit people to support particular campaigns.”
Employers need to take this into account in structuring programs for operations such as call centres, says John Sylvester, director of motivation company P&MM. “There’s a natural conflict between the longer-term corporate view of life and the generally shorter transient view of life from the paint of view of an individual member at staff in a call centre. There is a care group of people in call centres that is not going to be there for very long.”
Employers also need to be aware that call centre staff cannot be treated as identical clones. A recent study by Alcatel-Lucent, for example, segmented people working in call centres into four “personality types”: careerists, passers through, foot soldiers and bill payers,
“Segmenting the audience is key for us,” says Darren Lewis, account director at motivation specialist AYMTM. His company runs a programme for call centre staff at a leading mobile communications provider, and the audience we have is very diverse and wide-ranging in terms of ages and class. Kevin Harrington, director of incentives group Sodexo, observes: You are generally talking to a younger demographic who have a vibrant social tile, he adds.
Shifting patterns
One of the particular challenges with call centres is motivating people who are working unsociable shifts, with many call centres now open 24 hours a day, adds Raegan Matthews. business incentives manager at House of Fraser The long hours and sometimes difficult circumstances can mean a high turnover of staff so its as much about good working conditions, regular breaks and supportive management as it is about financial rewards.”
The objectives that call centre workers are given inevitably revolve around numbers of inbound and outbound calls or targets for persuading customers to trade up, buy extra products or just to remain a customer.
However, Lewis at AYMTM points out that motivation programmes need to take into account broader key performance indicators linked to employees cash-based commission. “We have found that sometimes a tactical incentive is so powerful that they lake their eye of the KPIs to concentrate on the reward so we try 10 stay away from standard KPts,” he explains. One solution, he says, is to use achievement of key KPIs as a ‘gateway” that staff have to pass in order to qualifying for the non-cash incentives.
Keeping up momentum
Sheila Sheldon, director of recognition specialist Michael C Fina, adds that rewards can also be used to improve lime keeping and attendance and generally “keep up the momentum in what can be quite a tedious job’. Hf you reward people for having no more than five days off in a year, for instance, you can find that giving something small can have a big impact.”
The momentum can be maintained through spot rewards, which is where vouchers and gift cards come into play, says Andrew Johnson, director-general of lhe UK Gift Card and Voucher Association. “You can give small rewards, such as music gift cards, which works particularly well.”
Kevin Harrington of Sodexo adds that in this fast-paced environment, it is more important than ever 10 make sure employees are rewarded quickly so that they really understand the link between the incentive and their performance. “Sometimes a tactical incentive could run for just a day or an hour. so you need the ability to give a reward that is meaningful very quickly.”
Using games such as online scratchcards are particularly effective for keeping up momentum, says Julian- Bazley. A simple idea like a lucky dip at the end of the shift for the day’s top performers can add a bit of theatre and excitement, he adds, ‘It doesn’t have to be high-value items. A lot of them are low earners on commission so giving them a chance to pick out items like a DVD or a CD can create a competitive spirit between individuals and teams.
Prepaid cards, which can be uploaded with cash in minutes, are an easy way to ensure rewards are given instantly, says David Carr, director of card services at technology specialist White Eagle. They may decide one day to offer an incentive to the next person to make 10 appointments and then reward the same day. The card can then be used straightaway for shopping at any MasterCard merchant.
Retailer New Look is targeting its gift card specifically at call centres, offering a pack of cards worth £1,000 for £950, based on a high rate of spot rewards such as closing sales, working late or going the extra mile. Denise Porter, who handles business development for the card, suggests combining them with a chance element by rewarding staff with a New Look card as an instant reward but not letting them find out until later whether it has £5 or £25 loaded on it.
Sometimes, incentive programmes may run across the whole business, requiring communications and rewards that appeal both to call centre staff and employees in other roles. Projectlink Motivation developed a programme for Phones 4U that needed to motivate not only people in its call centre but also retail and head office staff. Account director Tom Murray said they opted for an incentive of an activity-packed trip to the West Indies for 60 top performers with communications, such as a dedicated microsite and blog, tailored to appeal to the audience which was quite young”.
When it comes to tailoring a programme, P&MM’s Sylvester points out that, even when looking at departments such as a call centre, every organisation is different, “They all have different characteristics. For instance, we have come across call centres where they have no problems with staff retention and call centres where the individuals are highly paid professionals. You can’t just pull stuff of the shelf. It has to fit in with the culture of the business and the profile of the individuals within it. You have to be careful to avoid over generalisation and follow the core discipline of understanding the audience.”