RETENTION IN A CALL CENTRE - DIFFERENT FOLKS, DIFFERENT STROKES

Tele-sales staff retention

Like most other call centres, our Leeds based insurance company clients were experiencing very serious staff reten-tion problems for motor insurance telesales staff.

Cause 1

One cause was quickly identified when exit interviews clearly demonstrated that many telesales staff were leaving to go to face-to-face sales jobs. It seems that, although they viewed themselves as sales people, the telesales role did not match up to their expectations. The appeal of face-to-face selling for these people seems to have been the opportunity to exercise verbal skills of influence and persuasion and the challenge of thinking on their feet. While these are abilities that are appreciated in most sales roles, this does not apply to telesales when the role is tightly scripted and cued from the screen of a PC. But this was only one part of the explanation for low retention rates.

Cause 2

Our research also showed a second discernible stream of people leaving the organisation amongst which there were a disproportionate number of people with high Tradition scores on the MVPI. MVPI Tradition is concerned with a preference for "good old fashioned values", clear ideas about "proper"behaviour and a respect for tradition and well established ways of doing things.

The role of team climate

Team climate reflects the predominant values and preferences amongst the members of the team. Our MVPI survey of call centre staff consistently produced composite team profiles with strikingly high MVPI Hedonism scores. This was confirmed by the general behaviour of telesales teams which were very evidently focused on high spirits and fun. The social and recreational dimension was a very evident part of the team climate. These were often young individuals from a wide variety of backgrounds and conversations were often about where group members might meet up after work or at lunchtime for drinks, clubbing and general partying. This hedonistic and extraverted outlook was recognised and even encouraged by management who were sensitive about potentially tedious aspects of the job and sympathetic to any efforts to make working life more enjoyable. Special events such as dressing up days were encouraged to keep motivation and morale high.

From the perspective of the high MVPI Tradition staff, this flamboyant behaviour was disturbing. They viewed their high MVPI Hedonism work colleagues as promiscuous and frivolous. They could not bring themselves to participate, but they felt isolated and unappreciated by both management and their peers and looked for more accommodating work settings.

Who gets along with who?

Motives and values play a critical role in determining who gets along with who. The findings described above are a typical illustration of the role of values in group dynamics. People who do not share the values that are promi-nent in determining group or team climate will feel isolated and unappreciated. This has nothing to do with their competence to do the job, or with the direct influence of values on job effectiveness. But it is everything to do with team climate and team fit. Returning to our example, it is likely that if MVPI Tradition had been the prevailing value, the people leaving the job would then have included a high proportion of staff with high MVPI Hedonism .

This study is an extreme illustration of the way in which people's values play a critical role in determining working relationships, who appreciates who, networks of communications, the allegiance of individuals to an organisation and thus in staff retention. The MVPI is a powerful strategic development tool that works at the level of the indi-vidual, the team and the organisation.

home