Boost Your Culture Sessions

How to Transform Agent Training with Microlearning

Tuesday | 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM
Location: Conference Hotel
Jeff Toister

How the TriMet Customer Support Team Added Agents, Hours, and Channels Without Sacrificing Service Quality

Tuesday | 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM
Location: Conference Hotel
LESLIE OFLAHAVAN, Jon Bell

In just one year, TriMet (Portland, Oregon's largest transit agency) scaled its 8-person, Monday-Friday phone-based support team to a 20-person, 24/7 omnichannel powerhouse. Under Jon Bell's leadership, the customer care team added social media and SMS channels and rolled out support for Hop Fastpass, the first-ever fare card to be used in Apple's wallet. With this "lifestyle product" fare cardwhich can also be used to unlock bike lockers and pay other fares, TriMet is a pioneer in the industry. How did TriMet grow so fast and improve service quality at the same time? By focusing on developing agents' skills. In this session, Jon Bell and Leslie O'Flahavan will describe their template rewrite project and their training project. Together, these efforts enabled everyone on the team the long-tenured phone reps, the newly hired social media reps, and the former bus drivers now assigned to the customer care team to serve customers through digital channels.

How to Keep Toxic Agents from Ruining Your Culture

Tuesday | 2:45 PM – 4:15 PM
Location: Conference Hotel
Jeff Toister

Toxic agents are all too common in contact centers. One study found that 1 in 20 contact center agents are fired within their first year for toxic behavior such as fraud, harassment, theft, or other flagrant policy violations. These employees sap morale, hurt productivity, and take up way too much of our time. This interactive session will share some surprising research that explains why contact centers attract toxic agents. You will walk away with concrete steps you can take to prevent toxic agents from ruining your culture.

So You Want to Promote Your Agent to Supervisor…

Tuesday | 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Location: Conference Hotel
Justin Robbins

One of the most common scenarios in the contact center is that the best agents become the next generation of supervisors and leaders. But, is that really the best approach? What if being a bad agent is actually the sign of a great leader? In this spirited debate among the panelists who have grown through the ranks you will hear what it really takes to develop a successful contact center career. You will learn: the key characteristics needed to succeed in a contact center leadership role, and how to spot those characteristics in employees, how to develop more strategic career paths for contact center employees and what the future holds for careers in customer service.

Supporting Employee Growth: Developing a Successful Career Path

Wednesday | 1:30 PM – 2:30 PM
Location: Conference Hotel
Beth Gauthier-Jenkin, Sarah Gibart

With unemployment rates at record lows and the growing popularity of the gig economy, contact center leaders are under enormous pressure to develop and retain current employees. Gopher Sport's award-winning approach to employee development scored them the coveted ICMI Global Contact Center Award for Best Small Contact Center in 2018, and more than a dozen of their employees landed on the 2018 ICMI Customer Experience Movers & Shakers list. What's their secret? In part, their commitment to supporting their employees growth and development and their unique approach to career pathing. If you're looking for practical ways to develop your leadership pipeline, boost morale, or improve performance, don't miss this opportunity to hear Gopher Sport share their approach to supportive leadership and focused growth.

An Extraordinary Workplace Is More Than Ping Pong Tables and Bean Bag Chairs

Wednesday | 2:45 PM – 3:45 PM
Location: Conference Hotel

Description Coming Soon

Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?: Engaging Employees in the Contact Center

Wednesday | 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Location: Conference Hotel
Fancy Mills

Much attention is given to employee engagement given its correlation to customer satisfaction, but employee empowerment – which drives both employee engagement and customer satisfaction – is often overlooked. This interactive session will focus on defining team empowerment and understanding its three core components. Explore the key challenges to empowerment and discover tactics for overcoming them. We'll share industry insights as well as real-world examples of what has worked to empower and motivate our own contact center team.

Do You Really Want to Hurt Me Engaging Employees in the Contact Center

Tuesday | 4:00 PM – 4:45 PM
Digital Experience
Fancy Mills

Much attention is given to employee engagement given its correlation to customer satisfaction, but employee empowerment – which drives both employee engagement and customer satisfaction – is often overlooked. This interactive session will focus on defining team empowerment and understanding its three core components. Explore the key challenges to empowerment and discover tactics for overcoming them. We'll share industry insights as well as real-world examples of what has worked to empower and motivate our own contact center team.

How to Transform Remote Training with Microlearning

Tuesday | 1:00 PM – 1:45 PM
Digital Experience
Jeff Toister

Many contact centers must now train agents remotely, while acing pressure to make agent training faster, cheaper, and better. One way to achieve this is through an innovative approach called microlearning where agents learn new content and develop skills in small chunks at a time. Discover how microlearning can speed up remote training, improve retention, and dramatically reduce training costs. Explore ways this learning approach increases learner engagement and performance. Identify ways to use microlearning to rapidly train new content or reinforce new concepts. Identify simple, low-tech tools you can use to create your own remote microlearning content.

Mastering the Art of Contact Center Coaching

Wednesday | 2:00 PM – 2:45 PM
Digital Experience
Justin Robbins

How does your contact center teach new leaders how to coach and develop their people? Is it something that's taught? Or are people left to figure something out on their own? And, with the increased number of contact centers working from home, have you adapted your approach to ensure that impactful coaching is still happening? If you don't feel confident with how you answered these questions, then this session is for you. One of the most important, yet challenging aspects of leading your contact center workforce lies within your coaching and behavior development program. Add in the realities of working from home and a new set of complexities emerge. In this session, contact center expert Justin Robbins will help you to develop, implement, and measure the success of an effective coaching program. You'll learn how to create a coaching model, adapt to challenging environments and circumstances, and drive a stronger connection between coaching sessions and sustained improvements in behavior. Come prepared to share a current coaching challenge or victory, as we'll work together to develop plans that you can implement immediately following the session!

So You Want to Promote Your Agent to Supervisor

Wednesday | 2:00 PM – 2:45 PM
Digital Experience
Justin Robbins

One of the most common scenarios in the contact center is that the best agents become the next generation of supervisors and leaders. But, is that really the best approach? What if being a bad agent is actually the sign of a great leader? In this spirited debate among the panelists who have grown through the ranks you will hear what it really takes to develop a successful contact center career. You will learn: the key characteristics needed to succeed in a contact center leadership role, and how to spot those characteristics in employees, how to develop more strategic career paths for contact center employees and what the future holds for careers in customer service.

Developing a Successful Career Path

Wednesday | 1:00 PM – 1:45 PM
Digital Experience
Beth Gauthier-Jenkin, Sarah Gibart

With unemployment rates at record lows and the growing popularity of the gig economy, contact center leaders are under enormous pressure to develop and retain current employees. Gopher Sport's award-winning approach to employee development scored them the coveted ICMI Global Contact Center Award for Best Small Contact Center in 2018, and more than a dozen of their employees landed on the 2018 ICMI Customer Experience Movers & Shakers list. What's their secret? In part, their commitment to supporting their employees growth and development and their unique approach to career pathing. If you're looking for practical ways to develop your leadership pipeline, boost morale, or improve performance, don't miss this opportunity to hear Gopher Sport share their approach to supportive leadership and focused growth.