Supervisor Snacks

  The White Rabbit rushes through the classic book by C. S, Lewis, Through the Looking Glass, and worries about   being late.   "The hurrier I go the behinder I get", he says, and it has become a well-used lament for generations.   It’s a good reminder that we need to take our time for good results.   This is especially true when taking messages or overseeing employees in our industry. (Or probably any other.) Have you ever noticed that when you are rushing to take a message you seem to jump around unnecessarily in the message template?  Or that when you are talking with a client, you feel pressure to show how efficient you are, and end up leaving some critical piece of information out of your notes?  Or how about when you receive an email from your own supervisor and rush to answer it as though every nanosecond’s delay counted against you? Here is a good adage to remember.  The more critical a message of response is, the longer you should tak...

Do you apologize automatically? Even when it isn’t necessary?  Some of us say, “I’m sorry,” for things we shouldn’t be sorry about.  In our business saying you are sorry can come across as admitting guilt when wrongdoing has not been established. For instance, an angry caller explains that he left a message for George an hour ago, and he has not received a call back. Do you automatically begin by saying, “I’m sorry…”? That caller hears that you’re sorry and automatically believes that the reason George has not called him is because the answering service has done something wrong.  It is far more likely that George simply hasn’t had time to respond.  A study published in The European Journal of Social Psychology found that when people apologize excessively others see them as less competent, and less confident. If you are in a position of responsibility or authority “I’m sorry.” can be detrimental to your reputation, and your self-image. You feel worse about yoursel...

Imagine you are in a meeting.  Now imagine the presenter saying something you don’t quite understand, or that could be taken one of two ways.  Should you Keep quiet - because you don’t want to look dumb. Mumble to someone beside you that you aren’t sure what that means. Ask the presenter to explain that in more depth, or to clarify the statement for you. It’s OK to not understand something and ask for more information. It’s OK to admit you don’t know what a word means or that you need more information or clarification. What’s NOT OK is to act like you understand every word, when you really don’t.  That presentation may well be the foundation for a project or a new policy, and if you don’t speak up, you won’t understand the importance of the announcement.  AND if YOU don’t understand, others may not either. You aren’t expected to know everything, but you may well be expected to ask about what you don’t know so that you can help your company grow and find...

“Nearly Half of Young Adults Report Experiencing Depression or Anxiety” screamed the headline of a recent blog.   “But that’s normal.” I thought!  Back in the day, I felt anxiety about my place in the world, my classes, my job, my self-image, and my relationships.  As I aged, I felt those same emotions about home renting, home ownership, parenthood (in all its iterations), my job, my self-image, and my relationships.  And as I aged some more, my anxiety was more about my kids, my grandkids, their health, my health, my self-image, and our relationships.  Do you see a pattern here? No generation is without anxiety or depression.  Those are normal feelings ( not to be confused with clinical conditions ), we ALL feel upset over day-to-day life.  Nothing is ever as perfect as we want it.  We weigh too much, or not enough, our finances aren’t what we want them to be, and we stress over our performance at school, at work, and at home.  We know w...

“Tell me a fact, and I'll learn. Tell me a truth, and I'll believe. Tell me a story, and it will live in my heart forever.”    Unknown Here are the elements of the story. Houses built of brick are sturdy Do the important things first Once upon a time, there were three little pigs… Storytelling doesn’t have to be that blatant, or long-winded, but telling a story DOES make things more understandable and more memorable. Our client, the owner of Superior Landscaping requires us to indicate the gender of the caller. Agents are dropping the ball Not a great first impression Here’s the story that changes everything. The owner of Superior Landscaping is from South America; he is not familiar with U.S. first names. If he doesn’t know the gender of the person he’s calling, he mangles the telephone greeting, especially if Mr. or Ms. Customer is not home and he needs to leave a message for him or her. He is a GREAT landscaper, let’s help him be successful with this, hi...

“You never get a second chance to make a first impression”! This is a story that is repeated in answering services all over the country. It’s about all of us. Our sales rep made a great first impression on a potential client. (Let’s call him, Joe.) Joe’s current service could not keep their simple weekly on-call schedule straight and worse, they weren’t dispatching the calls quickly enough for Joe to keep his response commitment! Joe trusted our sales rep and came with us.  ----------  THEN -------- Everything that could go wrong did go wrong! We set up the account and Joe and his staff began test calls.  He didn’t receive e-mail notification for two of the calls.  When Joe called our Customer Service rep, she was out on a family emergency. When she returned, our programmer was unavailable. After a   week’s delay, corrections were made to the account and testing resumed. On the next test call, they noticed there was a 15-minute gap between whe...

In the Telephone Answering Industry, we frequently make quick decisions under pressure.   We’re rushed, there is another call to answer, and then another.   We’re the shift supervisor, questions coming at us from agents, clients and other supervisors AND OUR OWN supervisor.   “How do I do this?”, “What should I say to…”, “Why did this happen?”   How can we NOT make a mistake now and then?   Here is our philosophy, “We are human – we will make mistakes.”  We don’t scream and we don’t threaten people’s jobs.  A mistake was made.  We try to figure out why so we can keep it from happening again.  If you have even an inkling of what caused it – share it so we can see if we can find a better way to do something.  If it was just “I hit the wrong key” or “I didn’t read the next step correctly” it’s OK.  A mistake was made, you did it, OWN IT, try to learn from it and then MOVE ON. Please don’t be defensive about mistakes – we have ALL...