Improving Communication: 10 Tips to Turn Upset Customers into Happy Ones

It was a Friday in December last year and the day was going slow.

My agents were relaxed and completing their work for the day. Suddenly I heard my name called from someone on my team and I went to check.

I saw a question mark on my agent’s face and as expected he asked me, “I need to improve the way I communicate, and could you help me?” I felt delighted by his question and my mind started ticking like a clock’s needle for ideas to help him out.

It seems the many people could learn to improve their listening and communication. Did you know:

• We are distracted, preoccupied or forgetful 75% of the time when we are listening.
• We recall 50% of what a person says immediately after hearing it.
• We listen at 125-250 words per minute and think at 1000- 3000 words per minute.

I gave him an assurance and went back to my cubicle to find some information for him. I thought I could send him some articles on effective communication or ask him to read some good books on the subject. As I was preparing to get back to him, like lightning in the clouds, my mind sparkled with a thought of InterCall’s learning management system.

We’re fortunate at InterCall because our company invests in employee training and development. Our learning management system allows us to sign up for several live, online employee training sessions and access archived versions for self-paced learning. For a global company like ours, this allows everyone in the company to take advantage of the courses our training department offers. Because of the availability of the classes, I decided I should also take a couple of classes to improve my own communication skills.

This training we offer not only helps a person improve communication with co-workers, but it helps agents to handle the calls with customers, particularly those with upset customers. Here’s a list of things to avoid when working with an unhappy customer:

1. Interrupting the speaker
2. Not looking at the speaker
3. Showing interest in something else
4. Rushing the speaking
5. Setting ahead of the speaker and finishing his/her thoughts
6. Not responding to the speaker’s request
7. Saying, “Yes, but…”
8. Topping the speaker’s story, “that’s nothing, let me tell you…”
9. Forgetting what was previously discussed
10. Asking too many questions about the details

I received positive feedback from my agent about our online training and have made it part of my team’s job responsibilities to regularly attend these types of training sessions. Not only does it help them develop personally, but it helps them to better serve our customers.

Is there any member in your team who needs some training and development? Have you tried online training to give them more access to a wider variety of topics?

Anusha Karnad is a post call services lead at InterCall in Bangalore. She’s been with InterCall since 2009, working in customer service, training for new hires and account management where she helped customers with billing and service related questions.

Virtual HR: Trends and Insights on Recruiting, On-boarding and Training Employees

Organizations have been providing virtual human resource services for several years, and now some leading organizations are taking virtual HR to another level. Organizations often leverage virtual technologies to outsource payroll, benefits administration and even human capitol management.

So what are the ways to make your HR efforts virtual so you can do more with fewer resources and less budget?

• Virtual Recruiting: A virtual job fair featuring webcasts, webinars and video interviews is an accessible and effective way to conduct a vital business event online. Interact with students, job candidates and employee prospects around the world via a digital expo.
• Virtual On‐boarding: The days of the traditional orientation in a room with other new hires are fading. When most of your talent is virtual, on‐boarding must be virtual and engaging, while connecting people to the critical information and resources they need.
• Virtual Training and Education: With online tools, you drastically reduce cost per attendee, provide easy access to content, subject matter experts and peers and blend formal and informal learning. Not only that, but by using the right tools, you increase productivity by reducing time away from a desk and you still energize audiences through online engagement.

In a new whitepaper, we explore some of the newer, more complex HR functions that are going virtual and go into detail on how three organizations, KPMG, CareerBuilder.com and ACS (a Xerox company), leveraged virtual environments to recruit, on‐board, train and help truly change the way their organization manage strategic HR functions.

Download the whitepaper>>

What do you think? Has your HR organization tried to make any of these activities virtual? What has been the result? If you aren’t doing it, what are your challenges or obstacles?

Eric Vidal is considered a leading voice and expert in virtual business, which expands from marketing to collaboration to learning. He has more than 15 years experience in developing, implementing and optimizing strategies in these areas for numerous organizations and Global 2000 companies. As the director of product marketing for InterCall’s event services, Eric manages the strategy and initiatives for the virtual technologies that include virtual environments, streaming, event management services and operator assisted services. Previously from WebEx, Eric managed the virtual classroom product, as well as brand advertising and new media. Over the last several years, Eric has held management positions at Cisco, WebEx, IBM, BBDO Worldwide and Macromedia.

Just What Are Virtual Learning Environments

Welcome to the Virtual Learning Blog, a place where we'll share and collaborate on virtual learning trends and technologies. This will be a forum for sharing best practices, trying to solve problems, providing tips and hearing directly from learning and development leaders that are utilizing these platforms. The technologies we will focus on will cover everything from virtual classrooms to virtual learning environments—and everything in between.

With that said, let’s start with virtual learning environments. Just what are they? According to the research arm of CLO Magazine, a high-level definition is the following:

An interactive platform designed to deliver training and allow instant access to content, subject matter experts and peers. These virtual learning environments can be customized, with multiple rooms, classrooms, resource libraries, forums, networking rooms and integration with social media.

Based on InterCall Virtual Environments and how I've seen customers use these types tools over the years, I would agree with this definition as it is intended—a broad overview of a technology that serves a variety of purposes. I do feel virtual learning environments can, and will, be more than this. What do you think? I would like to hear how you would add to or edit this description.

Eric Vidal is considered a leading voice and expert in virtual business, which expands from marketing to collaboration to learning. He has more than 15 years experience in developing, implementing and optimizing strategies in these areas for numerous organizations and Global 2000 companies. As the director of product marketing for InterCall’s event services, Eric manages the strategy and initiatives for the virtual technologies that include virtual environments, streaming, event management services and operator assisted services. Previously from WebEx, Eric managed the virtual classroom product, as well as brand advertising and new media. Over the last several years, Eric has held management positions at Cisco, WebEx, IBM, BBDO Worldwide and Macromedia.

Make New Hires Ready for the Job Faster with Web-based Training

No one likes to lose good employees. When people leave your company, you have to start with new hires—and this means training them. Cut down new hire ramp time with web-based training. Get new hires started in training at night while they work their last two weeks with their current employer. By doing flex-time training over the web, you won't have to pull your seasoned employees out of the field. Pre-record sessions for independent learning, host real-time web meetings for interaction or use a combination of the two so that new hires have a chance to learn at their own pace with the opportunity to have questions answered by seasoned veterans.

Is Web-based Training as Effective?
You know that web-based training can save you time—but is it as effective as face-to-face training? It is if you choose the right full-featured services from a reputable company like InterCall. Cisco WebEx^TM Training Center, provided by InterCall, gives you all the tools you need to train employees quickly and effectively:

• Testing and Grading: Track a new hire's performance pre- and post-session.
• Breakout Sessions: Encourage small group learning as instructors “walk around the room” to see how each group is doing and answer questions.
• Archived Materials: Access for review at later times.
• Attendance Tracking: Keep track of which training sessions each new hire has attended to monitor their progress.

WebEx Training Center On-Demand is an add-on feature that provides the tools for you to add course materials, recorded training sessions and assessments on the trainees' schedule.

Do you have new hires? Can web-based training help you speed up the ramp time at your company?

Cambria Vaccaro is the Senior Director, Marketing Communications and our “Industry News” blogger.  Cambria has been in the conferencing industry for nearly fifteen years, and has seen it evolve from a traditional video bridging service to include cool web features and remote communication services.  She is an avid runner, cook, wife and mother of two gorgeous girls.

Did I Really Just Send That?

Last week’s episode of Modern Family  taught us all the harsh lesson of once you click ‘Send’ you can’t take it back. In case you missed it, Gloria and Jay are about to go on vacation, but their plans are interrupted after Gloria accidentally sends an insulting (and very personal) email to Claire. Instead of heading to the airport, they take a detour by the Dunphy’s house to apologize and try to do some damage control.

We’ve all done it at one time or another. You know those times when you type up an email, enter the recipient name in the ‘to’ field and click ‘send’?  After the email has most likely already arrived in the inbox of our recipient, we realize that we shouldn’t have clicked send so soon. It can be an embarrassing and even disastrous mistake. This simple slip-up could cause major turmoil in our personal and professional relationships and maybe even harm our careers.

In a recent US News article, they outlined the 18 work email mistakes most commonly made and some tips to prevent them. Here are my top five email mistakes that I’ll blushingly fess up to.

1. Composing the note too quickly. Don't be careless—write every email as if it will be read at Saint Peter's Square during the blessing of a new Pope. Be respectful with your words and take pride in every communication.
2. Forgetting the attachment. If your email includes an attachment, upload the file to the email before composing it. This eliminates the embarrassing mistake of forgetting it before hitting ‘send’ and having to send another email saying you forgot to attach the document.
3. Hitting "reply all" unintentionally. This is a biggie. And it's not just embarrassing; depending on what you wrote in that email, it can ruin your relationship with a co-worker or even your boss. Take extra care whenever you respond so you don't hit this fatal button.
4. Emailing when you're angry. Don't do it. Ever. Recall buttons are far from a perfect science and sending a business email tainted by emotion is often a catastrophic mistake. It sounds cliche, but sleep on it. Save the message as a draft and see if you still want to send it the next morning.
5. Sending to the wrong recipient. This wasn’t on the original list, but I felt like it needed to be included because it’s one of my most infuriating mistakes. Always check and re-check what’s in the ‘to’ line and hopefully we can avoid mistakes such as the one Gloria made.

What are your email horror stories? How do you avoid committing the email mistakes we all fear could be disastrous?

Sara Steele is an associate marketing manager at InterCall responsible for various corporate communication initiatives; including social media and channel marketing efforts. Sara began working with InterCall after graduating from the University of Colorado in 2006. In her free time, she enjoys running, skiing, and spending time with family and friends.

Put the Spotlight on Training in Your Company

If you’re in the training industry, then the letters ASTD (American Society of Training and Development) mean something to you! It is “the world’s largest association dedicated to workplace learning and performance professionals.” It’s pretty much my go-to place when I need some training advice, new ideas or want to research a topic. Over the years, and through my membership, I’ve made some great connections with training colleagues and have established strong partnerships.

So when ASTD declared that December 6 – 11 is Employee Learning Week, it made me jump to action. As ASTD says, learning should be year round; however, it’s nice to have a few days that put learning into the spotlight. This will not be our first time participating in the learning week—it is something we try to highlight every year. This year we’re partnering with our parent company as well as its other entities and sending daily messages with different learning tips and tricks. For example, on Tuesday we’ll be sharing how writing things down helps us remember key facts; we’ll be linking to an article by Dustin Wax that emphasizes this topic.

We like to focus on new things each year to keep it fresh and exciting for our employees. Last year we showcased one of our training teams daily via a Brainshark recording that we sent out to our employees. The year prior to that, for each employee that attended one of our online classes, their name was entered into a raffle for gift cards.

The possibilities for shining the light on training are endless. What will your company be doing for this year’s Employee Learning Week? What have you done in the past that others might be able to replicate?

Nicole Scheel is the Director of Training, and the “Tips & Training Blogger”. Nicole has been in training with InterCall for eleven years and currently manages our internal and customer training departments, also known as InterCall University. Nicole has her Masters in Training & Development from Roosevelt University. When she's not training someone, you can find Nicole volunteering in her community.

Having a Bad Voice Day? Breathe…

Singing in the Rain is one of my all time favorite movies! Aside from being one of the great classic musicals, this movie has a running theme similar to what I do at InterCall, which is how the main characters spend most of their time trying to prevent the general public from hearing Lina Lamont’s overly nasal, untrained, unrefined voice. For those of you who have not seen or heard of the movie, you can read a brief synopsis.

While I may not go to such great lengths as Dom and Cosmo to help someone change their voice, I do work with many employees on an ongoing basis to help them sound their best. My role at InterCall is to make sure our expertly trained operators sound polished and professional when they help facilitate operator assisted conference calls or online events.

Maybe you’ve felt the need for a “Kathy Selden” to do your speaking for you when you are having a “bad voice day” when you’ve got a big presentation coming up, which is similar to a bad hair day only you can hear the disheveledness instead of seeing it.  But there aren’t any Kathy Seldens out there to speak for us. We are on our own.  By nature, we are designed to be good speakers as long as we practice good vocal habits.

How do we overcome THAT voice? You have heard THAT voice….the kind that makes you want to hang up your phone or put your fingers in your ears and yell “lalalalalala.” How can we be more audibly pleasing? There are easy ways to sound better without having to bribe a fellow employee to do your speaking for you from behind a curtain while you lip sync. Some of these vocal exercises or warm-ups may seem silly but they work. 

• Lip flutters - Let your lips gently touch and simply blow air through them. This may be the sound some of us make when we are exasperated but little did you know that you were actually doing a vocal warm up! This exercise loosens the orbicularis oris, the muscles around your lips. These muscles are important for creating the lip positions and movements during speech.
• Breathing – Observe how you breathe during the day. Are you breathing mainly with your lungs (shallow breathing) and not your diaphragm and lungs combined?  Proper breathing involves the diaphragm which results in a healthier voice that is rich and projected. It also keeps the mental part of you relaxed.  This does not mean that you inhale all the air in the room and exhale it in one whoosh. Pace yourself and simply let the body do what it was built to do.  Make sure you do a random breath check throughout the day. Place your hand on your belly and observe a gentle rise and fall motion.  If your belly is relatively motionless, then practice deep breathing a couple times a day so you become more connected with your diaphragm. James V. Lunden recommends trying this very simple exercise when you first wake up and repeat it throughout the day:
  • Sit with your back straight, head up and shoulders back.
  • Once your posture is right, inhale as deeply and slowly as you can into your stomach.
  • Hold the breath for a two-count and then exhale all the air from your body.
  • Repeat this exercise 5 - 10 times.
• Hum - Some people hum to themselves all day but what they may not realize is that they are doing one of the easiest and best vocal exercises.  Humming is a great way to get the voice going before you have to do any speaking. We naturally hum at our ideal vocal pitch and when you are conscious of your humming, you can play around with inflections. Humming is gentle and will not overwork your vocal folds.

I’ll wrap up my blog post with a valuable quote from my good friend and colleague, Sally Morgan. Sally is a well known voice and singing coach in New York City and is CEO of the Sing Like You Speak and Vocal Power Tools training web sites. In a recent interview with Gwyn Gilliss from The Actor’s Market, Sally had a remarkable viewpoint, “Everybody has a great voice. But people let bad habits and misconceptions cover up their good voice.” 

Stay tuned for more ways to improve your voice and make sure you are sounding your best not just in your virtual meetings, but all the time!

Kate Nelson is a Speech Analyst and works out of the West Point office and is a member of the WP Training team. She works with the North American and Indian call centers and provides speech, voice, and accent modification training for all employees. She is a graduate of Auburn University with a BS in Speech Pathology and Audiology and is a certified Compton P-ESL (Pronouncing English as a Second Language) trainer. She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) at Auburn University. She is married and has a 5 ½ yr. old son. She is a self-described “word-nerd” and loves music, oenology, studying other languages, and being with her family.

Formal vs. Informal Learning

Recently I was invited to take part in the 9^th Annual Chicagoland Learning Leaders Conference that was hosted at Hamburger University at the McDonald’s headquarters.  Over 300 learning professionals from the Chicago area were there discussing learning and development, talent management, social media and so much more.  It was the type of conference that, when I left, I had a binder full of notes and ideas and a renewed excitement for my field. 

The panel of key note speakers was diverse, thought provoking and generated many new ideas.  The speakers and their topics included:

• Building Tomorrow’s Workforce: The Inclusion Paradox (Andres Tapia, Aon Hewitt)
• At McDonald’s: None of Us is as Good as All of Us – TRAINING IS KEY (Pat Harris, Diana Thomas & Charlie Strong, McDonald’s)
• Using Social Media for Communicating with Generation Y'ers (Nancy Loo, WGN News)
• How the Navy is Employing Technology to Train Generation Y Sailors (John Drake, Great Lakes)
• Setting a New Standard: Walgreens Employees with Disabilities Achieving High Performance (Randy Lewis, Walgreens)

I could probably write pages and pages on what I took away from the conference—after all it was nine hours worth of amazing content. For now though, I’ll focus on one topic. 

Formal versus informal learning is a hot topic in the learning and development field right now.  As I’m sure with most training departments, my team is seeing a decline in our traditional classroom attendance.  Our employees want to be trained and want to take part in learning; however, other items (customers, appointments, call volumes, etc.) usually take precedence over attending a class.  We are passionate about making sure our employees still get trained, but now we are looking at other vehicles to get the message out. That’s where informal learning comes in. 

One of the sessions I took part in at the conference was on how to effectively blend formal and informal learning.  I don’t think that formal learning will ever go away, nor do I think it should.  I do think, though, that training departments need to start looking at ways to incorporate informal learning.  I really liked one of the definitions that was given during that session on what informal learning is: “knowledge gain that occurs without a structured curriculum.” 

My sales training team is an excellent example of blending formal versus informal learning. They formally conduct our new hire training and continuing education classes using a combination of audio conference calls and web conferencing.  From an informal learning perspective, they’ve started using things like Yammer to get quick messages out, Brainshark to record a quick 3–5 minute combined voice and PowerPoint learning topic, as well as using our Flip video camera to send out important announcements.  We’re also going to pilot using podcasting in conjunction with our weekly training call.  

I like the idea of using various forms of technology to get learning messages out there—the more the merrier!  How are you blending formal and informal learning?

Nicole Scheel is the Director of Training, and the “Tips & Training Blogger”. Nicole has been in training with InterCall for eleven years and currently manages our internal and customer training departments, also known as InterCall University. Nicole has her Masters in Training & Development from Roosevelt University. When she's not training someone, you can find Nicole volunteering in her community.

The Social Media Summit: A Virtual Success

I’ve been personally active on Facebook since before social marketing was all the hype. So, when tasked with assisting in our social media efforts and sending our messages out via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc., my initial thought was, “How difficult can it really be, right?”  Wrong!  Yesterday, I attended the Social Media Virtual Summit hosted by the Online Marketing Summit (OMS). I continue to be amazed at how much is involved with social media and the strategies for B2B and B2C marketing.

The virtual tradeshow was great! You can attend various presentations in the auditorium, engage in Q&A with the presenters or take a stroll through the virtual exhibit hall. Here are a few things I learned which I will apply to my daily social media efforts going forward:

• Keep your messages personal and engaging. Response rate dramatically increases when a communication is personalized or endorsed by a friend. By supplying content and conversation pieces and targeting those readers who are most likely to talk, your message will take you a lot further.
• Seek to understand your readers and predict their behavior.  Chris Marriott, VP, Global Agency Services, spoke about how social media has given rise to the marketing democracy. It’s important to understand ‘voters’ and their lifecycle to deliver effective communications.  Rather than battle the marketing democracy, it’s better to embrace and join the movement. Here’s a great example he gave demonstrating how United learned this lesson the hard way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo.
• Go beyond selling. At the end of the day, it’s not about hammering individuals with selling products at a great price. It’s about keeping your messages consistent and newsworthy so that your readers want to read them and in turn will work on your behalf to spread your message.

The downside to this virtual experience? I wasn’t able to catch as much of the conference as I would have liked. While it’s great to not have to leave your desk,  it’s also very difficult to keep out distractions. Luckily, all the presentations were recorded using streaming services, so I can go back and watch on another day.

Sara Steele is a marketing coordinator at InterCall responsible for various corporate communication initiatives; including social media and channel marketing efforts. Sara began working with InterCall after graduating from the University of Colorado in 2006. In her free time, she enjoys running, skiing, and spending time with family and friends.

A Web-based Conference Can Overcome “User Error”

Think a web-based conference is complicated? Afraid you won't be able to sign onto the meeting or use all the tools available to create an interactive, engaging presentation? Here's the good news: If you can use your computer for basic business (such as using Microsoft Outlook^®, PowerPoint^® and your web browser), you can participate in (or even host) a web-based conference.

In many ways, a web-based conference is much better than an audio conference—the technology has myriad ways to compensate for human error. Let's look at three common faux pas during conventional audio conferences—and how web meetings help you avoid them. Let's start with sign in.

Lost Phone Numbers
Did you ever get a call in the first few minutes of an audio conference? It's another participant, frantic that she lost the phone number and dial-in codes. With web meetings hosted through InterCall, whether you're at your computer or on the go, you can log in with one click. Web meeting software permits you to join meetings from Outlook, while the recent release features that allow you to join meetings from the Apple iPhone makes it easy to join a web-based conference from your smartphone with one touch.

Background Noise 
Ever have someone on a teleconference who couldn't find the mute button on their cell phone and couldn't remember the universal code of *6? Did they think no one else could hear their dog barking, dishwasher running or baby crying? Web meetings make it easy for the presenter or participants to mute a call with the click of a mouse. No codes to remember.

Clear Service 
Speaking of cell phones, did you ever listen to a conventional audio conference through your cell phone? Some providers recommend you not use cell phones with their service—an inconvenience for businesspeople on the go. A web-based conference provides the same crystal clear service for every user. Compatible with most computer systems and web browsers, InterCall's web-based conference options mean no static, no dropped calls and an opportunity for you to see and hear every minute of every meeting.

Is it time for you to make the switch to web based conference services?

Dan Uhlmeyer is a Sr. Product Manager and the "Web Conferencing" blogger.  He has nearly ten years of product experience in Web Conferencing and has managed several services at InterCall. When not punching on the keyboard, you can find Dan enjoying time with his wife and two children or running a marathon.