This document outlines 10 commandments for running a great call center. It discusses the importance of hiring the right cultural fit, using metrics to improve performance, establishing a strong company culture, empowering employees, holding employees accountable through goal setting, ongoing training, promoting a culture of customer service, ensuring employees experience the company's products, enforcing discipline policies, and fostering an attitude of gratitude towards customers.

1. Kenneth G. Danielson 801-859-3280 Danielson731@comcast.net
10 Commandments of Great Call Centers
by Ken Danielson
1. Hire right and never regret.
When a business takes a shortcut and hires an employee with, say, the “right” skills or experience…
but who doesn't fit the culture, it can create a wave of negativity that washes over every other
employee – and as a result, over your entire business.
2. Metrics don’t lie. Metrics are your friend. Trust them.
Numbers need friends. Those friends are managers of call centers. Numbers tell a story, and
sometimes that story is fascinating. Metrics and stats are what make the Olympics great. They send
athletes to the hall of fame. Why shouldn’t they do the same for call-centers and customer service
teams? When the correct metrics and stats are applied and analyzed it helps define the type of work
and the way that work is to be done. It will help us implement solutions that will not only deal with
inadequate performances but will provide practical ways to maximize performance by every individual
on the team.
3. Culture crushes Strategy
Culture is a balanced blend of human psychology, attitudes, actions, and beliefs that when combined,
create either pleasure or pain, serious momentum or miserable stagnation. A strong culture flourishes
with a clear set of values and norms that actively guide the way a company operates. It's not good
enough just to have an amazing product and a healthy bank balance. Long-term success is dependent
on a culture that is nurtured and alive. Culture is the environment in which your strategy and your
brand thrives or dies a slow death. If you want to establish an infectious, fun, and exciting culture,
start with the call-center team.
4. Empowerment creates “Rock Stars.”
How can you over estimate the value of great customer service agents? They truly are the vice
presidents of “First Impressions” and are often the only contact customers have with a company. The
goal is to provide the vision of what is expected, train to that vision, but empower each agent to attain
that vision on their own and in their own way. Agents can all march to the beat of different drummers
while being synched together on the same page as to vision, purpose, and mission. Empower
employees to be who they are and they will become rock stars in the hearts of those customers they
serve. Celebrate differences.
5. The power of accountability and goal setting is the difference
between mediocre and exceptional
Meeting one-on-one with each agent to set performance measuring (and enhancing) goals tells the
agent two things. 1) The manager cares for that person as an individual and is interested in their
success. 2) The manager wants to upgrade the work environment from daily monotonous tasks to a
culture where people are challenged and rewarded for doing incredible things. Holding each person
accountable will tell the agent that goal setting is not all talk. It will motivate and drive each person to
improved and consistent performance when they know they must report on and account for their
actions.

2. Kenneth G. Danielson 801-859-3280 Danielson731@comcast.net
6. Train, train, train, then train some more.
Training programs in call-centers and customer service divisions should be an active part of the
company’s culture. It gives managers opportunities to address problem areas. Training helps keep
skills sharp and pertinent. If training is interactive, as it often should be, it gives employees
opportunities to share their knowledge and experience with others. Training can be motivating and
empowering. But most important is the fact that training is designed to improve the performance of
all team members. Make it so.
7. Service is an essential culture element; an essential quality of
“Legendary” customer service.
Experience in serving others is a significant characteristic to look for when interviewing for new agents.
But still, there are lots of tremendous people out there who may not have had those opportunities yet
still possess the heart and mind you are looking for. A leader of this organization should create service
opportunities. Volunteer in a soup kitchen, cook dinner at a Ronald McDonald house, volunteer at
food banks delivering meals to the less fortunate, hold food drives, volunteer at libraries and hospitals,
or at charitable/fund raising events. These experiences will be life changing and will help agents be
more compassionate, tolerant, and willing to go the extra mile to serve their callers and customers.
8. Have a “product” experience. Experience, Share, Invite.
There is no better advertising of a product or service than personal testimony. Customer service and
call-center agents will be asked by their customers if they have tried the product and if they like it.
What a shame it would be if they had no experience with the product. Therefore, agents should try
and experience the product(s) they talk about each day to their callers. It is so powerful to share with
callers a personal story of how a particular product affected their life. After sharing, then invite the
caller to try the product. Remember, have an experience with the product, share your story with
others, then invite them to try the product so they can have their own experience—Experience, Share,
Invite. Simple.
9. Discipline is the oil on a squeaky door. It makes everything run
smoothly.
In any business and their organizations, without rules and regulations (or policies and procedures) and
consequences for not following them, a department can deteriorate. That behavior can be terribly
infectious, traveling fast throughout the entire company. Putting into place rules and regulations, then
enforcing them, requires strong management skills. Some people may view a manager's sole purpose
is to be an enforcer of rules, and yes that is one of the responsibilities. However, a manager should
more importantly be measured on how willing his/her team complies with the policy because that
type behavior stems from leadership, not dictatorship. To rally the troops around that cause is a
leadership style that works.
10.Drink from the goblet of gratitude.
It has been said by others “this would be a great company if it weren’t for those distributors.”
Yet we all know there would be no company without distributors. This is true in all businesses, and
one of the most important skill or trait to be taught to all employees, especially a call center or
customer service team members, is to be ever so grateful for customers. Drinking from the goblet of
gratitude will help our agents cherish our distributor; it will help our agents value them, and treat
them like royalty. An agent may need to bite their tongue, count to ten, exercise extreme patience
and self-control. But they will also get to celebrate with the caller small victories, wins, and progress.
These are the attributes of “Legendary” customer service.