Case Study: How We Slashed Annual Attrition from 90% to 15%

Amanda Quinn 0:00
So Milan, I know today that you wanted to talk about employee engagement as always, but in particular, you wanted to talk about a case study that uh where you really had some transformational results helping a BPO with their employee engagement. Is that right?

Milan Batinich 0:14
That's right. Yeah. It's amazing when you improve employee engagement and you reduce having to rehire over and over again how much money you can save. And so really want to talk about the case study and the financial impact that improved employee engagement can have on a BPO's contact center.

Amanda Quinn 0:32
Okay, perfect. Why don't you give us the punchline of what were the results and then we can unpack how you got there?

Milan Batinich 0:39
Yeah, for sure. So lowered the um annual attrition from 90% to under 15%, triple top line revenue and saved them over $300,000 a year in attrition costs or rehiring costs.

Amanda Quinn 0:52
Wow. Tripled revenue, saved over $300,000 a year. So huge impact to their bottom line, all by doing what you're gonna unpack in this episode.

Milan Batinich 1:01
Yeah, exactly.

Amanda Quinn 1:02
All right, let's get into it. So tell us a little bit about this BPO that you worked with and what was going on with them.

Milan Batinich 1:08
Yeah, so it's a it's a smaller but growing BPO just outside of Austin, Texas, been around for a couple decades. What they do with their clients, they focus on inbound sales. So customers are calling in because they saw, say, a piece of jewelry on TV on something similar to the home shopping network or QVC, and they want to purchase that piece of jewelry. And so the agent's job is, you know, if you're calling in Amanda to order a necklace you saw on TV, my job as the CSR would be to upsell you on earrings, on rings, on bracelets, on other jewelry that would go with that necklace. So their main focus was sales. And the agents that they were bringing in were predominantly inbound CSRs. So those CSRs were really focused on, okay, Amanda called in, she wanted the necklace. I processed her order, she's happy, she got her necklace, and now I'm moving on to the next caller. They weren't really focused on, okay, what else would Amanda like that could go with this necklace?

Amanda Quinn 2:02
Okay. Um, and the so I'm hearing you say that they weren't doing much upselling when someone would call in. Tell us a little bit. Uh you said that the agents were typical kind of inbound CSRs. What was like the profile of these people, or how would you kind of describe what the average agent in this contact center kind of look like and um their kind of their their behaviors?

Milan Batinich 2:25
Yeah, for sure. So, so majority of them were uh what I would call like an operator profile. So low, low assertiveness, very collaborative, very much the type of person that goes with the flow. Like if Amanda calls up and says, I'm hey guys, I want to order a necklace, okay, great. Let us help you place that order. So very collaborative, uh, individuals that are gonna be more reserved, so they're not gonna be super outgoing. They're gonna be very patient individuals. So people who are good with methodical type of work. They're comfortable with the familiar. So if it's people just calling up every day to order jewelry, they are great with that. That's the type of work they prefer. And they're also individuals that like structure and like to follow the rules. They don't like to deviate from the rules, they don't like to deviate from okay, she wants a necklace. I'm not gonna push her to order anything else. I'm gonna process her order and move along to the next caller. And she's gonna be happy because I did exactly what she wanted me to do. So they're really good at just intake. They're they're not not the type of person that really would be great at selling.

Amanda Quinn 3:27
Yep, that makes sense. And when you said operator profile, that's a PI term, right? Just for those that aren't familiar.

Milan Batinich 3:33
Yeah, yeah. So so we utilize Predictive Index with this uh BPO with this contact center and uh and found that majority of their inbound C CSRs that they had uh were the operator profile, which is the most common profile for inbound customer service, but not for sales.

Amanda Quinn 3:48
Okay. So I'm hearing you say, so you kind of came in and assessed that these folks are great uh kind of standard inbound agents, but where the job, like what were the expectations on these folks and why what was going on that was making because you said their attrition was really high. So what was causing their their attrition?

Milan Batinich 4:07
Yeah, so great question. So what was causing their attrition was that the expectation for these folks, for these agents, was to upsell and cross-sell as many callers as possible. It was actually a job requirement to try to cross-sell and upsell every single caller, knowing that you know how it is in sales, you're not gonna close 100%. If we all close 100% in sales, everybody would be billionaires. So it was their job to, or is mandatory to try to sell on every call with the expectation that some calls would close with a m with extra sales, with more upsell, more cross-sell opportunities for more jewelry to be sold. And so the high attrition was caused because you're taking these individuals that just want to do the methodical, easy order processing work every day, and you're forcing them to do work that isn't a good fit for who they are. You're now they're they're being forced to be assertive, they're being forced to be more extroverted, they're being forced to bring variety to work and not follow a struc the same structure on every single call. So when that happens, people become exhausted and exhausted people become disengaged. Disenged people tend to look for new new opportunities. The this contact center, they uh you know had 90% annual attrition because that it was really a misalignment on the expectations when they were being hired. They were being hired under the assumption of, oh, I'm gonna be processing people's orders. This is gonna be great. I'm gonna give them what they want, they're gonna be happy. Kumbaya, everyone's good.

Amanda Quinn 5:36
Oh, I can see this. I can see how such an easy misunderstanding, sort of in terms of what we think we're looking for and what we actually need can cause such a big kind of ripple effect throughout the the company and and affect so many people. So it sounds like what did you do when you came in and you you realized this? Like what was what was one of your first steps that you took?

Milan Batinich 5:58
Yeah, first thing was uh learning about their hiring process, so their interview process, the hiring process, onboarding process, because clearly there was a misalignment because uh well, first thing we did was interview some of the agents on why why they're feeling burnt out. And they're like, I was told this is gonna be a customer service job. It was advertised as a customer service job, and now that I'm here, I am being forced to sell, and I feel so uncomfortable, feel icky. One person said, icky. I feel just icky, you know, trying to sell to the people that just want this one necklace. And so we helped them, we came in, did those interviews from the uh agents, learned where the some of the issues were, and uh helped them revamp uh their interview process. They were trying to do five to six interviews per candidate for a tier one entry-level job, and we're able to six interviews for a tier one job.

Amanda Quinn 6:47
Yeah, tier one is like the equivalent of like working at a McDonald's, correct? Like is that the same level of pay like this person could decide between the two?

Milan Batinich 6:55
Yeah. Convenience store, cashier, McDonald's, yes. Stocking shelves at a grocery store or like a Hobby Lobby. Yeah. Tier one.

Amanda Quinn 7:04
So clear so clearly way too much overhead and hoops that they were requiring candidates to go through.

Milan Batinich 7:10
Well, right. And what was amazing was you this company's having them go through five to six interviews, and you're still as a company, you're still not being clear to the candidate that this is a sales role. They still think when they get into training, this is customer service. So, so this company that had 90% annual attrition, 90% of their 90% annual attrition happened in the first two months because people were getting in, they would start training. It was a three, three-ish week training. And during that training, they're learning, you're teaching me how to sell. I'm not supposed to be in a sales job. This is customer service. Like, why are you teaching me to sell? And so then people would be like, wait, hold on, hit the brakes. Uh, this is not the right type of job for me, and then they leave. So reduce the interview process down to two interviews, and then also help them revamp their training program, help them revamp their onboarding, but really looking at it from a pre-hire to a retire. You know, a lot of companies focus on the employee experience. You know, once somebody's hired, then we really focus on engagement, but we help them really focus on the candidate experience as well. From the moment the person sees your job ad all the way through to retirement. Let's engage this person and give them a good experience, even before whether they get hired or not, before they even start interviewing with your company. And uh, and yeah, was able to lower the attrition then to sub-15 and the nesting attrition lowered it to 4% from 90%.

Amanda Quinn 8:32
Wow. Wow, wow, wow. That's that's wonderful results. The you didn't talk about it, but I'm assuming a big part of that overhaul of the recruiting process was actually tweaking the job responsibilities and making sure that managers and interviewers were being very clear on what the goal was and what they would the expectation they were setting, right?

Milan Batinich 8:53
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, yeah. So setting clear expectations, putting in the job ad that it's uh one of the main requirements is to upsell and cross-sell callers that are calling into order jewelry. So that was one of the first things people would read in the job description. It was covered in the first interview, it was covered in the second interview, part of the second interview, uh, because this contact center is on site in a brick and mortar in North Austin. And uh so part of that second first interview was usually virtual, uh, or is usually virtual. Second interview, though, is in person on site, and part of that interview is to sit side by side with an agent and listen in on a few of their calls so that way they can get a real feel of, you know, as a job shadow of what they're what the job actually entails and what they're actually gonna be required to do. That way there isn't any confusion when they get into training and the trainer says, all right, now we're gonna teach you how to sell, how to be salespeople.

Amanda Quinn 9:46
Wow. I've never heard of that as an interviewing tactic. Um, I feel like usually that comes in after someone has said yes and you're willing to kind of invest that time, but that's really smart. Is that something that you typically advise that BPOs do?

Milan Batinich 10:00
Every, every single time, yes. Every single time. Yeah, some type of job shadow, whether it's virtual or in person, um, some type of job shadow so that way they can hear some of the calls and get a really, really good understanding of the types of calls they're gonna be receiving. Usually, you know, it's about a half hour of uh Y cording or sidekacking, we call it, you know, in the industry. But uh yeah, just listening in to calls so that way they get the real feel versus you know, versus being told, you're gonna, this is the type of person that's gonna call in. Here, you know, the type of demographic that most of our callers are. Here's what they're gonna say, here's how you need to respond. Instead of that, it's like here's actual real calls, real people calling in in that demographic with their concerns, with what they want to order and how the agent, how the agent handles the call and how they upsell. And that's how you're going to do it once you're hired and out of training. So, yeah, every single time I consult with a BPO and contact center, that's one of the recommendations. Absolutely.

Amanda Quinn 10:59
That makes a lot of sense that that would be something to really improve that nesting period and kind of throughput rate. What about giving employees or I should say candidates an off-ramp? Let's just say that they're a good fit, they like the company, they're kind of liking the culture vibes, but this campaign, what they're seeing on this job shadow is not, it doesn't appeal to them, it's not what they want. What do you typically recommend for companies in that space? How do they not lose somebody that they've successfully found, been able to pull into their pool candidate pool? What should they do?

Milan Batinich 11:33
So being able, so being able to find other programs within your BPO's organization where that candidate may be a good fit. Now, for an operations manager that's solely focused on one program, it may be difficult for them to identify, okay, what other programs would this person be a good fit in? Because they're not as familiar with the programs. However, when it comes to the recruitment team and human resources, those individuals know all of the programs typically, or they know other people within their department, within the HR department that know the other programs. So instead of dismissing a candidate who maybe they're more of that operator, so they would be a solid fit. They have great work history, and they have a great, say, PI results and all of that, everything that you're looking for in a candidate, and you think they'd be a long-term fit for the organization before dismissing them as they wouldn't be a good fit to sell jewelry. You know, communicating within the organization with either the operations manager of other programs or the recruiters that are over other programs to figure out, okay, hey, I know your program doesn't do any selling, they're just inbound customer service. You know, here I have this great candidate that I think would be a good fit. Would you like to interview them? And passing candidates between programs, I think is is a great experience. I know when I worked at a BPO and represented American Express, we would do that all the time. We did my program was a sales and uh sales retention. But if I had a great candidate who was more customer service driven, you know, I I would flip them over to another hiring manager, say on the AT&T program, and say, hey, I know you guys are only doing inbound customer service. I think this candidate would be phenomenal for you. And and they would do the same if they had a candidate that they thought would be great in sales. So being able to move them around.

Amanda Quinn 13:13
Yeah, and it sounds like what you're what being able to give the candidate kind of the level of almost empathy to say, we see you as a person, and if this isn't the right fit for you, you can raise your hand and let us know. And that's not gonna completely disqualify you from ever working at our company again, too, right? It's like you almost like need to give it you don't want to put the onus completely on the manager's front because the manager might say, the hiring manager might be like, Oh, they're not a good fit for me, get them out of here, when really they could be great for another another team. And if that particular manager, like you're saying, doesn't have the ability to cross to see cross campaigns and to be able to know where they might be a good fit, having the recruiting team probably be able to set the expectation with the candidate that if this isn't a good fit for you, you can come back to us, you can raise your hand and we will find somewhere else for you if we have it available, right? Is that is that pretty much what you would give as good guidance?

Milan Batinich 14:08
Yeah, definitely. And also maybe even uh what I've seen work really well too is place out blind ads or maybe not program-specific ads as a BPO, if you're hiring across five or six different programs, and then when the candidate applies and you they go through the interview process, I've seen it work out really well. And even when I worked at a the BPO that had American Express and AT&T as clients, I worked saw it work really well where you give the candidate the option. So, Amanda, say you're a candidate, you go through the interview process, and it's like, wow, she would be great on three of our programs, and then you present all three to the candidate and let the candidate choose. I've seen that happen as well. It's like, hey, Amanda, we think you would be great on Amex business retention. We think you would be great on AT&T, and we think you would be great selling jewelry. Here's the three, here's the three job descriptions, and then they let the candidate choose which one they would feel most comfortable or best where they would do the best job at and let the candidate decide. You know, of the three, I think I would do really well at American Express, or I think I would do really well at selling jewelry. So giving the candidate the option, especially if you're growing and hiring across multiple programs, that would help as well.

Amanda Quinn 15:18
That I like that idea. I think that's um a really great way for people, the candidates to be able to feel really empowered about where they want to go with their career and probably feel a lot more loyalty to the BPO um in that case. Yeah.

Milan Batinich 15:32
What? Go ahead. Oh, I was gonna say, and you end giving them the opportunity where, hey, if this ends up not being a good fit, there's other opportunities. Like I had people on the American Express program that ended up not being a good fit that we were able to move to AT&T. So they stayed within the BPO, they stayed within the program or within the organization. They did into trite, uh, but they and then they were had a better experience on that other program.

Amanda Quinn 15:56
Yeah. Yeah, because we know, I I mean, I know you've talked about it, the the forces that keep an employee engaged in a company. Can we go through that one more time? Because I feel like I know you did some work related to this particular case study that you're talking about around those four forces.

Milan Batinich 16:12
Yeah, yeah. So four forces of disengagement according to IO Psychologists and Predictive Index is uh manager fit, uh, job, team, and organizational culture. So the four the four ways to gauge on how an employee can become disengaged is is it the right job fit? So we talked earlier about an operator profile working in sales, not a good, probably not a good job fit for who they naturally are. Second is the manager relationship. So is the manager managing based on the Platinum Rule? Is the manager managing the employee based on how the employee wants and needs to be managed? Are they adapting to their employees? Uh, third is the team dynamics. Anytime you add a team member or a team member leaves a team, it changes the whole dynamic of that team. So ensuring that you're building out the right team dynamic and the team dynamics stays stable. If someone leaves, if someone's added to the team, and that way the team works well together. If it's a poor team environment, then that employee will become disengaged. Uh finally, organizational culture. You know, over 50% of the US workforce at least is in the millennial generation. And a big need of most millennials is understanding the why, the mission behind the organization, or how is the organization working within their communities and giving back? So, what is the organizational culture? How does the organization interact with the community? Uh, and how does the organization interact with their clients? And so that that's a big way to engage uh employees as well, or on the opposite, disengage employees if they're not aligned with organizational culture or even the program within the organization. I've seen that happen as well, where an employee becomes disengaged because they disagreed with the mission of a specific client within a BPO.

Amanda Quinn 17:57
Yeah, that makes sense. And so that kind of reinforces the need for the BPO to be able to be that kind of ever-present if you're not happy on this program. We're here to support you and we will help try to find you somewhere else. And like that's um another home where you feel valued, right?

Milan Batinich 18:15
Right, exactly. Yeah, because internal attrition is not not a bad thing. If you're moving people around so that way they stay with your organization longer and they're happier and they feel more stable and more engaged, then that's fine. Yeah, absolutely.

Amanda Quinn 18:28
Yeah, and I I think the um the point you made about the the team impact on employee engagement, I feel like that's often overlooked or undervalued, but with attrition being so high in most contact centers and people are watching. I mean, it feels I'm gonna dramatize it, but if you're like having like a Squid Games type mentality where people are dropping like flies all around you, not they're not dying, obviously, Squid Game style, but that's gonna impact how excited and how motivated you are to show up and do your work every single day. And so the cost of attrition isn't just the people that are leaving, it's that like rot that's happening within your organization, within your teams, right?

Milan Batinich 19:14
Right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, when when when employees who are engaged see other people who they thought were engaged leaving the organization or being asked to leave the organization and just like you said, dropping like flies, uh, then it causes them to question their own engagement and causes them to question the organization and the team. And yeah, it changes the whole team because now all of their friends from their training class or the friends they made on the floor are now gone and now they feel alone because now they don't have, you know, a way to vent or decompress during break time or during lunches, or decompress if they're virtual on Slack or Teams, because all the people they were communicating with, their support network that they have, you know, back when we were in brick and mortars, the water cooler conversations, they don't have that anymore because all the people that were there are all gone. So now it's like, well, who do I vent to about this caller? Or, you know, I I've always went to this friend of mine on the floor that could we can bounce ideas off each other on how to help customers, and now they're all gone. So yeah, it definitely affects how engaged they are then.

Amanda Quinn 20:18
So how do you stem that? I mean, obviously we want to be able to um reduce the attrition on the from the teammates leaving, but for somebody who's left behind, is there anything that can be done? Let's just say it's good attrition. Let I don't know, for whatever reason, everyone was a poor fit for this campaign or poor fit for the company. We wanted them to attrit. What can a company do? Or did this company have any examples of how they can help rebond teams after attrition?

Milan Batinich 20:45
Yeah, that's a wonderful question. So being able to have more town hall opportunities for agents to get to know one another uh off of the phones. So maybe maybe you're an agent Amanda and you're close with two or three people, and those two or three people moved to a different program, so you don't see them anymore. So giving you opportunities to interact with other agents that maybe you don't didn't have a chance to interact with as much before. Maybe they're they were in a different training class. So just giving more opportunities for employees to get together, whether it's in person or virtually, to get to know one another more. And yeah, it's I mean, it's gonna take work. I know some contact centers are like, you want me to pull people off the phones to get to know one another? Yes, 100%. I do. Yeah, have them put go into whatever aux code and give them opportunities to interact because you're it's gonna save you so much time later on needing to hire new people. Because if all of Amanda's colleagues that she got along with leaves, then eventually Amanda's gonna be looking and leaving or looking to leave.

Amanda Quinn 21:43
Yeah. Is it this is probably just top of mind. I'm a visual person, so I'm The Last of Us in my mind, because I just finished the season two. Is it is a good metaphor almost like a given employee in a company like wants to spread like roots, and when their teammates leave those like roots. Roots are severed and when they're kind of rootless, they're more likely to be leaving. And so you need to be cultivating and watering. And so if if there are people that leave, you need to give this space and force for space, I guess, to be able to have the interactions to enable me in that case to bond with others so that my roots can kind of grow into others. Is that correct?

Milan Batinich 22:22
A hundred percent. Yeah, no, I love that visual. I love that visual. That is amazing. Yes, that is exactly right. Yeah, because otherwise all of the roots are gone. And now what what do you do?

Amanda Quinn 22:32
Yeah. I'm more likely to be just be there miserable and biding my time and quietly quitting and looking, looking, right? I'm gonna start looking.

Milan Batinich 22:40
Especially, especially even more so, I'll say, for BPO programs that are that inbound customer service, because those operators are naturally not gonna be the type to go out and search for new friends, to search for new roots. Like when I think about when I was at a BPO and the my training class, we had about 20 people in the training class. And a year later, there were two of us left, me and Jeff. We're the last two remaining on the program.

Milan Batinich 23:08
Shout out to Jeff. But we were the last two after a year. But him and I are both extroverted. So as new classes started, we gained more roots by we proactively took the initiative and had conversations with these new people coming in and with the people older people that had been there for a while before us and got more roots from those new people and people that had more tenure. So we sought out more roots. The problem contact centers will find with those inbound CSRs that are more of that operator profile is those individuals are collaborative and team-oriented, but they're not gonna go out and search for new friendships or new roots to help them survive. So in a sales environment, people are proactive, they're taking the initiative, they're going out and finding the new roots to collab, to join forces with. Inbound CSR, that operator profile, they're not gonna do that. So upper management and those BPOs need to proactively give opportunities to these CSRs to help them form those roots, form those bonds. Because those agents won't do that on their own. And then to your point, eventually they will leave the organization or look for a new program to join because all of their roots left, all of their friends left. So that that makes a big difference too. Like Jeff and I were able to adapt because we proactively were like, hey, new people, new people we can talk to. Let's go talk to these new people. Whereas uh inbound operator are gonna say, no, new people, and then they're just gonna stay and wait until they're approached. And if they're all the same way, nobody's gonna approach anybody.

Amanda Quinn 24:36
Interesting. I kind of just had a realization here that I think the way that most business leaders think of team orientation and running their business is very almost like on paper. Like, what does the spreadsheet say? Like the right amount of people, I need to have a team of this size, and knowing that it's gonna this amount of attrition is gonna happen. So I need to have this many backfills, I need to have like it's almost very process-oriented and logical and like emotionless in the way that they think about running their business. And what I just took from what you said was actually I think most BPOs or most businesses don't have the data, like they're not aware that their team are operators versus extroverts, and so therefore they're not even a like aware that there's a three-dimensional spreadsheet, like access happening to this spreadsheet where there are variables at play that aren't present on just the pure financial looking of a spreadsheet, and you need to be much more like you need to one collect the data, so kind of doing the behavioral analysis, like you say, I know you love PI, and um we're both big fans of PI, um, but to really understand who are your employees, but then use that information to get really clear on not only the best way to motivate them, but like use that data to make your spreadsheet numbers so much better because you can understand the right team dynamics, the wrong team dynamics and how you're gonna inadvertently cause your numbers to blow up in the wrong ways or blow up in the great ways by being really smart about how you're you're staffing and and training people and managing. Is that right?

Milan Batinich 26:21
So accurate, yeah. You can't, what is it, you can't manage what you don't measure. And so, yeah, if you're not measuring who your people are, absolutely. I I love the uh I love what you said about your spreadsheet becomes 3D because there's these other dimensions that you you're you're not measuring. You're just looking, BPO leaders are just looking at the KPIs, but your KPIs improve when your engagement is up and your engagement goes up when you understand who your people are and how your people need to be managed. You know, there's something around when when managing people and managing teams and building teams, balancing empathy and accountability. I think sometimes as leaders, a lot of leaders focus a lot on the accountability. Here's the numbers, here's the KPIs, here's what the 2D spreadsheet is telling me, versus, okay, let me sprinkle in some empathy and look at the 3D. What do my people need in addition to yes, they need knowledge management, they need training, they need all these things, but what do from an internal perspective, in forensic perspective, what do my people need as we build out this team? And w what type of support do they need from not only from me as their leader, but from their colleagues? Yeah, that's a hundred percent. I love that 3D spreadsheet. That is awesome.

Amanda Quinn 27:30
And I think you gave me um and uh feel free to you know give me the trademarks to 3D spreadsheet. We'll come up with some workshop, some mark better marketing names for it later. Um But I think when we were chatting about this case study that that um on employee engagement, you were talking about some real tactical examples of how the company was thinking only on the accountability end of the spectrum and not on the empathy example uh end of the spectrum and how you kind of helped them make some of that shift. Can you go into those details?

Milan Batinich 28:02
Yeah, so I mean a lot of it was based on their employees' PI results. So the the leaders of the of this contact center were really focused on accountability on the numbers. So you're an agent, you're not hitting your sales numbers, you need to hit your sales numbers. So they were really pressuring these agents on making their sales numbers. And so part of the process when we came in there was to help them see their employees as human beings instead of just numbers. They were being just being viewed as numbers. And what is this number, which is a person, what is this number producing for the organization? If they're not producing what they need to be producing, we either need to train them up or train them out, which isn't the right approach. And out meaning outside the organization. So really helping them understand how here's how you coach them with empathy, here's how you show empathy to your employees to be able to not only improve their engagement, but then also improve their um their loyalty and their performance on the job. So it was really a training into emotional intelligence. And a lot of that all came through identifying how do we show empathy to each specific person through their PI profiles, through Predictive Index profiles. And so it gave the tools and the coaching guides and everything that was needed to the supervisors and to the managers on how to provide that empathy and show that empathy to those employees, whether the employee was a seller or not, at least giving them that good experience of, you know, the employee is not the enemy.

Amanda Quinn 29:33
Yeah. Was that a lot of work? I mean, that sounds like a tremendous amount of shift. If somebody's thinking almost like a farmer mentality of like a pig is a pig is a pig is a pig, and not like this is Wilbur versus this is Roth, my, you know, like the names of the people on their team, is that a big shift for a leader to make, for a company, a culture to make, or how how how much work is a BPO taking by taking that on?

Milan Batinich 30:00
So great question. It depends on the buy-in from top down. So what I've seen is if say the CEO or COO, depending on the size of the or BPO of the organization, if the top leaders embrace it, it is some one of the easiest transitions you'll ever see. If the top doesn't support it and maybe a director supports it, it's gonna be much more difficult if, say, the director supports it. In this example, in this case study, the CEO was on site and he supported it. And the person that had invited us in reported to the CEO. She fully supported it because she brought us in. So it was a much easier transition. But if you don't have executive leadership buy-in on this, it's much more difficult because then it's not a top strategic priority for the C suite. It might be a top priority for the director, which it can still work, but it probably won't work across the organization. It may work well across that one program that that director oversees or programs, but it's not going to be enterprise wide or it's not going to be a smooth rolling it out enterprise wide and making that change if there isn't buy-in from the executive team. In this case, there was buy-in, and they were at the point where they're like, we've tried everything, or they thought we've tried every they tried everything, and we don't know what to do. So they viewed us almost as like a last hope. If you can't fix us, nothing can fix us. We've tried it all.

Amanda Quinn 31:18
So they were finally the numbers pushed them to make big corrective action, and they were open and willing to take your feedback on the best way to do that.

Milan Batinich 31:26
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yep.

Amanda Quinn 31:28
Okay. And then you said the action kind of you guys came in and did just to recap was you figured out the what was really being asked of the employees of the agents, put together a better job description to match what was being asked, and a better profile of the type of person that you're looking for. You streamlined the interviewing process to make sure that uh agents got the agent experience and the inter the candidate experience was improved, and they would be more likely to want to say yes at the end of the interview experience. Um anything else that and then you taught managers on how to better manage each individual, understand each individual uh person on their team, but better manage them. Anything else kind of that you you did along the way here to get those um I would say 300 revenue increase and th I'm gonna get the numbers wrong. Or three times revenue increase and uh reduced attrition from 90% to 15%.

Milan Batinich 32:28
Yeah. I would say that that's the biggest thing. So yeah, reduce their annual attrition from 90 to 14.9 and reduce their nesting attrition, which was 90% of the 90%, from 90 to 4.3%, reduce their attrition cost by $300,000 per year, and triple their top line revenue. Because now they had they were hiring agents and coaching their agents in su in a way that they were able to cross-sell and upsell. So now every caller, they were able to triple the amount of money spent per call compared to how much they were selling before, before we came in and helped them change everything. So if the average sale was say $100, now the average sale after all these changes was $300. So they were able to triple their top line revenue within their contact center for that client. Well, because they have the right person in the role, and the person is motivated to hunt and to ask these questions and not just yeah, they're engaged, they're managing them the right way, they have they're building out the team dynamics the right way, organizational culture became good, stronger, and yeah, they were able to uh to do that. And that was in that was three years ago, and uh they're still still going strong.

Amanda Quinn 33:38
That's awesome. That's awesome. And so obviously, PI was a really big part of this Predictive Index. If someone is interested in learning more about Predictive Index or about how they could get a transformation like this at their company, Milan, how can they get in touch with you?

Milan Batinich 33:54
Yeah. So great question. Milan at Milanmotivates.com is a good email. Uh LinkedIn, they can go to my website. If anybody wants to complete a free behavioral assessment, it takes five minutes. I'd be happy to send you a link. You can complete that. And uh yeah, so lots of ways to get a hold of me.

Amanda Quinn 34:10
Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for sharing this case study with us, Milan. Uh, we really appreciate your insights as always.

Milan Batinich 34:17
Thanks, Amanda. This has been great.

Amanda Quinn 34:18
Bye. Have a good one.

Milan Batinich 34:19
You too. Bye.