Operations: Put an End to the Blame Game

If your catalog’s back-end operations are suffering from the”blame game” -- that is, contact center and distribution center (DC) reps have gotten into the nasty habit of pointing fingers at one another when problems arise -- try this team-building tactic offered by Liz Kislik, president of Liz Kislik Associates, a management consulting firm:

At least once a year, bring your contact center reps to your DC and have them actually work there for a day, picking orders, packing boxes, etc. “This helps minimize the ‘they’ scenario. When reps are talking to customers about fulfillment problems, it helps the reps to understand the difficulties encountered in product fulfillment,” said Kislik during the session”60 Ideas in 60 Minutes: Contact Centers/Customer Service,” held at the National Conference on Operations and Fulfillment in Gaylord, Texas, last month.

Similarly, bring your DC personnel into the contact center to monitor a day’s worth of calls. (Putting DC personnel actually on the phone with customers may not be a good idea, unless a particular DC employee has exceptional customer service skills.) During this exercise, your DC reps will hear customers’ complaints directly, and therefore, may further develop a sympathetic ear for your contact center’s aggregated customer responses.

To reach Liz Kislik, call (516) 568-2932, e-mail: liz@lizkislik.com, or visit her Web site: http://lizkislik.com