Retention Is Your BPO's Reputation

Amanda Quinn 0:00
So Milan, what are we talking about today?

Milan Batinich 0:03
So today I really want to talk about how uh employee retention and employee engagement really speaks to your BPO's uh brand reputation in the market. And I think so many people focus on uh how expensive turnover is and how expensive it is to retrain new employees and how they don't have that knowledge base built up because they don't have longevity or tenured employees. But really it becomes a brand issue for those BPOs because it's messing with their reputation. Reputation with new clients or trying to find new clients, reputation with their current clients, and reputation just in the in the marketplace of finding new employees. You know, if new employ if potential employees hear about, you know, there's high turnover, they may want to avoid uh that center.

Amanda Quinn 0:49
This isn't just a cost play. How do we keep your recruiting costs down and reduce your turnover costs? But this is gonna hit revenue. Getting your brand known as being a place that folks want to work is going to lead to more business or conversely hurt business and hurt your relationships or improve them with your existing customers. So let's dive in. Can you tell talk a little bit more about why you think that um reputation really matters? I know you've already touched on it a little bit, but let's go a little further.

Milan Batinich 1:23
Yeah, I think uh, you know, when a lot of times when when we take out pricing, when we take out geography, when we take out footprints, everything like that, you know, no matter whether people are selling to consumers or they're selling B2B, so selling business to business, people are going to buy from people they like and trust. And a part of that is what does your brand say about you, or what is the reputation of your brand say about you out in the marketplace? So it's really important because clients aren't going to want to work with you if you have a poor reputation, or if you have a reputation where employees just get burnt out, employees are treated poorly, or even worse, to add on to it is if it's difficult for you to find employees, and it's difficult for you to recruit employees for your BPO. So so reputation I think is a huge part when it comes to your brand out in the marketplace, uh, whether it's like I said, whether it be with clients or or employees. I remember I'll tell a quick story. I I consulted with a BPO in Green Bay, Wisconsin. So Green Bay is a small town, 100,000 people, and they could not find people. They were brick and mortar at the time, but they couldn't find people to work there. But when we interviewed people in the community, they said, Oh, I want to work, I'll work at any contact center except for that one. And they called them out by name because they had a reputation of, you know, turning over employees within six months of the employees starting all the time. So it was their reputation was hurting their brand in that community because they had gone through so many employees. They were a they were a con that that specific contact center, they had 500, 600 FTEs. Um and when you think of a town of a hundred thousand, they had been there for thirty years and they had a hundred percent annual turnover. So over thirty years, you know, you've now hired what is that, eighteen thousand people in the community. So when you think of what's the percentage of a community that would work a tier one type contact center job, uh, you know, it ruins your reputation, so made it very difficult for them to hire.

Amanda Quinn 3:28
Yeah, people who not only have worked there, right, but like the family members of those folks. And you can see how that would just spiral out, and eventually, you know, somebody who might have considered hiring that firm for their business to outsource some function, some some work would be turned off from that, being like, oh, I heard about that from my niece, that that's a terrible place to work and they don't treat their employees well. I'm not gonna bother considering them. And so it's hurting them not only on the ability to hire new talent, like you were saying, and especially since it sounds like they're a mill that was probably desperately in need of constantly hiring new talent. Um, but it's it's hurting them also on the brand side, on the the revenue side and making it harder to acquire customers when being in that hometown, there should be a natural loyalty. Like 10 that tends to be the case. You want to shop local. That's usually what we observe. So that this this BPO that you're talking about really did itself a disservice. But I think you're talking about like reputation is something I talk about a lot too, because and I and I also agree that I think BPOs undervalue reputation because it feels like fluffy, I think, or they can't put a value on it per se.

Milan Batinich 4:46
Yeah, it's it's subjective. It's not it's not as objective because it's based on people's opinions of their brand. But ultimately, if you have a good reputation in the marketplace, then it builds up your credibility.

Amanda Quinn 4:59
Yeah, and it I think that's exactly it's like you have a good reputation for what? And that's something I talk to a lot of my clients about. It's like, how do you what is your reputation? What are you known for? And if you're not known for anything, like solving any kind of problems or working with any kind of clients particularly well, bringing on agents and and supporting your team well, then you're not known for anything and you just lose that power of what reputation can have and the almost like crescendo wave effects that reputation can have once you build something up that is really good and defensible.

Milan Batinich 5:42
Right. Yeah, absolutely. And uh it's funny whether you're an agent in the contact center or say you're selling that BPO services from you know your perspective, Amanda, if you're selling the BPO's services out into the market, uh it says a lot about your reputation if you're if you're afraid about how people will respond when you say that you work for that specific BPO.

Amanda Quinn 6:03
And even you can probably do some level of kind of quantifying maybe the your reputation, just looking at your Google reviews. It's hard to get your customers to give your feedback and give a review for you on Google, on Trustpilot, any of those places, but your former employees are very eager to give some reviews. And so I often bring that to the attention of some of my clients, just letting them know like you have an employee problem here.

Milan Batinich 6:32
Yeah, that's brilliant. Yeah, looking at the Google reviews, uh, Trustpilot, looking at Glassdoor, says so much about your reputation from the employees' perspective. And it's amazing how many of course they post uh post anonymously, but it's amazing how many current employees will post their honest feedback on a lot of those websites while they're still working for your organization.

Amanda Quinn 6:54
I think it would be naive to not expect that prospective clients are not also checking out your Google reviews. Right. Are not also considering Glassdoor when they're deciding which contact center to work with. You know, clearly they're gonna come on site and do a site visit and meet with your team and they'll pick up a lot of stuff. But before they get there, they're kind of whittling down that list. All of those online platforms are giving them a lot of data and a lot of insight into how you treat your team and are influencing whether or not they're gonna be outlaying cash to make that trip to come visit you.

Milan Batinich 7:30
Right, right. And a lot of BPOs, I think, make the mistake by touting how clients obsessed they are or customer obsessed they are. But you really can't be clients obsessed if you're not first uh employee-centric or employee obsessed. Because you can say it all you want, but really you gotta have you gotta have those two pieces. You have to have sales and operations, you know, working hand in hand, working jointly, versus sales going out and being like, We're obsessed about our clients, we'll do whatever we need. And then prospects or clients are coming back and saying, Well, what I need is you to hire people that will stay long term on my program so that way they have the built-up knowledge base and can help our customers.

Amanda Quinn 8:07
Yeah, completely. And if you're not focused on creating that environment where where people want to join your team, but they want to stay, they're not going to go the extra mile, which is really what excellent customer care is, right? That's what excellent CX is doing more than just the bare bones, the bare minimum. And no one is gonna do that if they're in that 68% of the workforce that is, you know, indifferent or actively disengaged. And so it's clear, I think, from all this, that getting employees engaged is really paramount to overall business success. So let's kind of switch now and talk about what are some ways that BPOs can drive retention to really build that good reputation in the marketplace for being an awesome place to work.

Milan Batinich 8:55
Number one is to uh when hiring employees, you know, let's talk frontline agents. When hiring frontline agents, hire for the right fit for your BPO versus just focusing on whether or not they have the right skills. Now, I understand most frontline agents uh you don't require a lot of past employment or you don't require a lot of skills to have, but instead of focusing on, oh, this person has customer service experience, hire based on are they gonna be a good fit for the type of role that I'm hiring them for? Because ultimately that's gonna outweigh skills. You can teach skill. You can teach and give people new skills, they can learn that. But are they gonna be a good fit on the type of program that you're gonna put them on?

Amanda Quinn 9:36
And how would a company know what makes a good fit?

Milan Batinich 9:40
Well, gotta put a plug in here for PI. So utilizing assessments, uh, you know, cognitive assessments, behavioral assessments, making sure people are aligned with the type of work that they're gonna be doing. So it comes down to asking yourself, are you hiring the right people or are you just focusing on hiring whoever's available? Because if you're just hi focused on hiring whoever's available, you're gonna turn those people over, over and over and over again. Whether you're brick and mortar or you're remote doesn't really matter. You need to hire people that are the right fit for that specific program that you're hiring them for. And don't think that I have openings on four different programs and you know, say I'm recruiting and I find Milan off the street, I'm gonna put him up for all four. Unless Milan's a good fit for all four, that's not what you should do. Then you're just looking for whoever's, you know, available to plug in, plug and play. But really, hiring based on okay, Milan's a really good fit for this one program versus let's just throw them against the wall and see what sticks.

Amanda Quinn 10:35
I have an example on this one. So one of um one of the BPOs I'm working with, um, one of their clients who I sat with and talked to, they're in the beauty industry, they have a salon, um a franchise of salons, and they were having the hardest time finding receptionists because they were not hiring for fit. They were essentially hiring somebody interested in aesthetics, um, could could talk to people about their services that this the salon was offering. And they but basically they were wannabe aestheticians themselves who were hoping to kind of this would be their foray to break into her becoming an aesthetician. And as a result of that, they were having constant churn, like they did everything possible to try to keep these receptionists to stay longer than six months and threw every incentive at them and could not do it, and even had to hire a full-time person to manage the recruitment and the training of these folks, and it was becoming so cumbersome. That's ultimately why they um outsourced the function. But yeah, like just because they're checking the right boxes of they say they're saying the right things and they're seemingly interested in what you're doing doesn't mean they're actually gonna like the work. You need to make sure that they're really motivated by the type of work that they will be doing for that particular campaign.

Milan Batinich 11:55
Yeah, I love it. That that's a perfect example. And then once you are hiring based on the right fit, then training your frontline leaders, training your team leads, training your supervisors on how to retain those employees. So giving proper training to those frontline leaders on how to manage those right fit employees so that way those right fit employees, those frontline agents, stay long-term within your BPO.

Amanda Quinn 12:18
Yeah. So like really make sure that they're being set up for success and they're not kind of doing the general like you got promoted, yay, now you're off on your own. I feel like you have heard you talk about that a lot, or you're kind of not given the tools that you need in your tool belt to be able to effectively, you know, run one-on-ones or have tough conversations or, you know, whatever it may be that um is necessary part of the job.

Milan Batinich 12:42
Yeah, teach them how to coach, teach them the one-on-ones, how to handle underperformers, how to coach people up. I think a lot of BPOs sometimes are like, ah, this person is not performing, so let's coach them out. It's like, well, what if we shifted that mindset to let's coach them up and make them better? I think I think that's where a lot of supervisors in many different industries become misaligned. It's like, oh, well, let me turn them out, and then the next batch hopefully is better. The next new hires is going to be better. But no, that's not the way the way it should work. They're human beings. You should coach them up and try to help them to perform better on the job.

Amanda Quinn 13:16
And especially being mindful that not everyone learns the same way. And maybe you think you've been coaching them up, you know, the way that you would prefer to be coached, or you hear it and it it resonates with you, but is not the way somebody else learns. Like maybe they're I I know for myself, like I am not an auditory learner. So like when someone just, you know, talks at me, I find myself completely zoning out. Like, but put it on a whiteboard and write it out or put at PowerPoint, I'm completely with you. And if someone didn't know that or was just doing one way of coaching, you could completely be missing potentially high performers or people that um could be really good assets to your team if you're not really coaching them in the way that they need to be coached.

Milan Batinich 14:01
Amanda, we can just stop now because everything you just said, there's the sound bites, that's perfect. Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, everybody has different learning styles. So coaching them and teaching them, training them. I mean, we can do a whole nother uh podcast episode about training and learning development. But but yeah, everybody learns differently. And some people are that hands-on, I need to be doing like okay, you've taught me what to do, or you've shown me what to do on a PowerPoint or whiteboard. Now let me practice, let me try it out and figure it out, figure things out. Let me try. So yeah, everybody has different ways that they learn. And then I would say another way to retain employees is by providing clear career pathing. I think so many agents, when they take that frontline agent type of role, they view it as a dead end. You know, they're they're working in the job, eventually, either they burn out or they're like, uh, there isn't opportunities for me to expand my knowledge, to be challenged, to learn new things at the organization. There's a couple BPOs I know that operations manager or director will come in first day of training and talk to the training class, whether virtually or in person, on uh career progression and career pathing within the organization. And they're reintroduced to that over and over throughout training and then beyond training. So that way people, it's you know, put into their minds from day one that hey, this is great that you're in this role and we're gonna train you up so that you do an amazing job in this role. But if you aspire to go into other areas in the organization or if you aspire to move up into a leadership type of role, like there's gonna be opportunity for you. So from day one, the employees are already, you know, talked to about career pathing. And I think if more companies just had those conversations with employees, even during the onboarding process and the recruiting process, it'll help them retain employees even more efficiently. Because employees know, like, okay, you know, I'm not just gonna work here until I retire or work here until I get burnt out and then find a new contact center to work at. There's opportunities where, hey, if I have an aspiration to do something different or go a different route within the organization.

Amanda Quinn 16:00
Yeah, it seems so obvious doing that, like putting that kind of proverbial carrot out in front from the get-go, being like, this is what if you aspire to it, this is what you could be working towards, or like this is where your career could go. Because I can't, I mean, I can't imagine anything less demotivating than showing up at work all day, being like, Hey, it's Groundhog Day. Best you can hope for two years from now is the same exact thing. That would be utterly like anybody who has even remote ambition would find that really repelling, I would think.

Milan Batinich 16:36
Right. And even if you can offer something within that role, some type of movement, even within the same role. Like I think back, I worked at a BPO where I was an agent years, years, years, years ago, decades ago, that um they were like, hey, when you start out, you're gonna be handling these more entry-level type of accounts, but then we'll change the way the IVR works and we'll change how calls come into you. And once you've proven yourself, even within the same position, then we'll allow you to start to talk to more higher level clientele. And then once you conquer though that type of clientele, then we'll open up the floodgates where then you're gonna be handling, you know, the top tier type of clients.

Amanda Quinn 17:16
And that's the same campaign too, right?

Milan Batinich 17:18
Same same campaign, yeah. Same client, the same everything. But instead of just throwing you in the deep end and saying, Okay, now handle this client that spends, you know, millions of dollars every year with us, we're gonna build you up to get to that point by first let's you know, have you handle the lower level clients that aren't spending as much money with us, and then let's move you up. Uh yeah, within the same campaign. So it had so then you had something to shoot for, whether you wanted to move into a totally new role or not, within your current role, within that you know, tier one agent role, you had you know, four ways you can move up, which led to more bonus money and things like that. So there was some value to moving up as well.

Amanda Quinn 17:57
Yeah, I really like that idea of having kind of like informal gating almost within even a given campaign. Um, so maybe for the BPOs out there that are where you you're trying to think about how you can practically implement this, maybe there's like some sort of stratification you can make even on a given campaign where you can have people start working, like Milan said, like really easy tickets at the beginning, and then they kind of graduate once they've d proven themselves to doing more interesting things serving that client. And I would imagine too that like having all of these I'm gonna keep saying carrots because I think that's just like the psychological way to like carrots out there of, you know, if if I get a little bit better at this or if I stick this out a little bit longer, I have this to look forward to. I would imagine for BPOs, but tell me what you think, Milan, would take some pressure off the agents maybe like constantly looking side to side to be like, that campaign's paying out more money than the one I'm on now. Should I quit and then go back and you know, quit, leave, and then hopefully try to get rehired into that other campaign. Maybe the threat of kind of or not the threat, but like the perceived loss of some level of status that like you're working towards a goal would maybe help offset that? Or do you feel like that's not no?

Milan Batinich 19:18
Yeah, a hundred percent. Not only will it offset it, but then many at that company I was at, many of the campaigns had different levels built in. So say the campaign I was on, say uh there's four levels. I went level I started at level one, went to level two, now I'm at level three, and then I I'm like, oh, you know what? I really want to get to level four on this other program or on this other campaign, and I try to make a lateral move. Well, a lot of times when you make that lateral move, then you're back to level one on that new campaign. So it's like, well, this first campaign, I worked my way up to level three, but now if I make that transition, I'm gonna go start over here at level one and then have to make the move again. So, like for myself, for a lot of my colleagues, we wanted to stay on that same campaign because we wanted to hit each of those levels and then hit that level four, and then we know once we hit level four, then from there it opens the whole Pandora's box on okay, do you want to go into leadership? Do you want to go into quality assurance, training and learning development, compliance? And then from there, they would promote those level four people out into more promotion type of roles. So it helps it keeps employees motivated to stay on a specific campaign within your BPO as well.

Amanda Quinn 20:29
That's smart, smart that they did that. I like the fact that they would have it reset. And I love the fact that they have that BPO had a a level with which once you reached it, it was kind of like a new a new ground where you could kind of go in often different directions and you've proven yourself on the front lines, and now you can kind of put your hand up to go work on other departments too. That's super smart to be able to keep people motivated and like want them to push forward through maybe some tougher times. And then once they have that experience, being able to like keep the knowledge internally and not lose it and get them, okay, go to L and D. Like, let's see what you can do there. What changes would you make? What would you bring?

Milan Batinich 21:08
Because now of all the agents, if you're that level four, you're the most knowledgeable because you've handled all types of clients, all types of customer calls. Not just the level one calls, level two calls. You've handled it all. So now you're the most well versed on that campaign. So now if you move into a different type of role, well, you know it better than anyone else that's level one, two, or three.

Amanda Quinn 21:31
Okay, great, awesome. What else um should BPOs be doing to improve their agent retention?

Milan Batinich 21:37
You know, I think if BPOs could do some type of uh microengagement, so finding opportunities to to engage employees either one on one or at the team level. Um it doesn't have to be something, you know, that you're doing company wide or campaign wide, but just finding ways to uh you know, once you've learned what motivates each employee, what motivates Amanda, what motivates Milan. Than taking opportunities to motivate people individually or on a small team, small segment basis, that celebrating their wins could be one way. Communicating uh to to other team members on how well people are doing within the team. So instead of focusing on this is what we're doing as a company or this is what we're doing as a whole campaign, what can you do on a micro perspective for individuals or for the smaller teams within the larger teams. So just finding ways to engage employees, whether it's from a manager or supervisor, team lead, whoever it is, but finding ways to engage employees, but first you gotta learn. Learn what motivates the employees, right? And you do that through communication, which we've talked about many times.

Amanda Quinn 22:49
Right. Because the last thing you want to do is um and I'm gonna forget the PI vernac uh term for it, but like if somebody doesn't like um public praise, for example, and then but you do as the CEO, I would imagine most CEOs probably love public praise. Um, that's what makes great CEOs in a lot of ways. You give them, you shower them at the town hall, whatever, you know, this person did something great, and you see their face turn bright red and their body, their shoulders start to hunch, and you quickly realize like, I made a big mistake. That was not the way to give that praise.

Milan Batinich 23:29
Yeah, that that's a great point. And and I thought a specific example popped in my head well when I was at that same company on that campaign. I had moved up into a sales manager role, so leading that campaign. And there were certain people on the team when we had our monthly town halls and we were giving out like employee of the month awards where we would still need people to man the phones while we were at this town hall. And you knew which people did not well, you knew other ways, but I knew which people didn't want the public praise because they would volunteer to not go to the town hall to be recognized for their award. They would want to stay up on that floor on the phones where they're comfortable. So what what I learned as their leader, as their manager, was you know, I would say, Hey Amanda, you know, you're you won this award. We're gonna hand out these awards at town hall. I would love for you to be there, but I'm not going to have you come up on stage and hand you your award. Because then it would give them the opportunity to go to these town halls without worrying about being embarrassed, because that's the way they would view it, because they prefer private recognition. But it would still give them the opportunity then to go to those town hall meetings without having the worry and the stress of, oh my God, when when is it gonna happen? I'm here for a half hour. When is Milan gonna call my name and have me come up on stage? And then, of course, the people that wanted that public praise, they never volunteered to stay on the phones. They're like, Let's go! You're gonna call me up on stage in front of the whole company or the whole department? Let's do this. I can't wait.

Amanda Quinn 24:57
So getting really clear on the type of praise that your employees want or how they would want to receive that, what other kind of uh softer things or like management level behavioral traits should managers, I should say, be aware of when it comes to these micro moments that you're talking about and ensuring that they're doing them right?

Milan Batinich 25:20
Yeah, yeah. So um so it all comes down to communication. So communicating with your frontline agents on what it is that motivates them or what it is that they enjoy. Um and and intrinsically, so what what is motivating them internally? So is it being challenged? Is it give is it you know being given more learning opportunities? Those two are the two of the biggest across humankind is to be challenged and is to be given opportunities to learn new uh information. So I think um you can identify by speaking with your agents during your coaching sessions, during your one-on-one sessions, what it is that motivates them, not just externally, and not just more money or Starbucks gift cards, but what motivates them internally and then rewarding the behaviors that they exhibit or giving them opportunities based on their internal motivations. So if I know, Amanda, that one way you are uh motivated internally is continuo continuous learning. Well, if I have an opportunity where I need to teach an agent something new or to head up a new initiative within the department where it's gonna cause you to learn new information, then I know okay, this is my moment, my opportunity to act on a micro-engagement opportunity where it's like, hey Amanda, I would love for you to lead this initiative. Here's what you're gonna need to learn in order to lead it, because then if you you know, if you're motivated by challenge and learning, that's gonna hit both of those right on the head. And it gives me a one uh an opportunity one-on-one to motivate you to engage you based on what it is that you need. So really it's just finding out what motivates employees, those internal motivations, and then when there's opportunities that come up, giving those opportunities to or sharing those opportunities with uh those agents just on a micro level, and it keeps those agents engaged long term.

Amanda Quinn 27:06
I have a bunch of follow-up questions, this Milan. Um, and at the risk of uh us turning this into a 60-minute podcast, I'm just gonna ask kind of one of them. Um what's the best way for someone to figure out those motivations? Like what all what are what could they be? And then how do they have how do you recommend someone has these conversations in a way that doesn't feel canned and formulaic and feels more organic? Because if someone came up to me and asked me, what motivates you, Amanda, without any context, would be very hard. It would find I would find it hard to answer that question. So can you just talk a little bit about applying this?

Milan Batinich 27:39
Yeah, I think a lot of people will say, Oh, just survey your employees. Terrible idea. Don't don't just flood your uh employees' inboxes with when you're expecting them to be on the phone 59 minutes out of every hour already. Don't flood your inboxes with uh with surveys. So I think a a lot of it, if you're if you become a self-aware leader, a lot of it employees will show you without you actually asking them. So they'll show you what motivates them based on the things they volunteer for, based on uh what they're what they get excited about. You know, I go back to JEP all the time. What gives people joy or what brings people joy, energy, passion, peace, and purpose at work? Find that in your employees, figure that out within your employees, and even during those one-on-ones without just directly asking, hey Amanda, what brings you joy at work? What type of work brings you joy, or what type of work energizes you? Instead of doing that, you know, say you did a great job on a certain call and you're really excited about it. I mean, you know, strategize with the person. Uh ask, you know, Amanda, what is it about that interaction with that customer that, you know, excited made you excited? Because agents will tell you, like, oh, I had such a great day today. Well, what made it a great day? Oh, I was able to solve all these problems for all these customers versus just the regular, you know, boring calls I get every other day. Okay, well, there, you know. They love problem solving, they love to be challenged, they love different things like that. So just figuring that out through those conversations without, yes, to your point, Amanda, without directly saying, Amanda, what motivates you? Because a lot of times people will be like, I don't know. Like, is this gonna hurt my adherence? Can I get back to the phones? Why are we sitting here? You're taking money out of my pocket, what is going on right now? You know, so figuring it out through the way through the conversations and through the way people are interacting and the way people are communicating. You can pick up a a lot on it, and then the follow-up question is probably like, well, how does somebody become aware, you know, to listen for these types of things? And it all comes through training. Training, learning development, you can be trained on how to how to hear what's motivating your employees.

Amanda Quinn 29:36
This is probably uh a deep a bigger question, but so I can understand I think that was great advice that you just gave at the manager level of how to assess your team. But how do you convey that information upwards? Like how do you build a culture of these micro moments uh on the mass scale? So it's not just the onus the onus of keeping your team engaged doesn't just fall on the managers of frontline leaders.

Milan Batinich 30:06
Right. Well, first of all, it's not just the managers, right? It's team leads, supervisors, managers, everybody. But then it needs to be communicated upward to executive leadership. So I I've been part of organizations, big and small, where executive leaders leaders knew because it was communicated to them from managers or from directors, knew different aspects about each employee. Now a COO is not gonna know as much about uh frontline agents as a team lead supervisor or manager knows. It's just not gonna happen because they're probably managing multiple campaigns where those other leaders are managing that one campaign. But it needs to be communicated up whether things what's going good, what's not going well with employees, you know, upper leadership needs to know that because you know, I I've witnessed where upper leadership knew about things going on in agents' lives, knew about what motivated agents specifically to an individual, and it gave them insights and gave them opportunities when something happened or something came up, or maybe an agent's performance started to slip to ask the right questions on okay, why did this top performer's performance start to slip? What's going on? Let's figure this out. Versus again, so many organizations are like, Well, let's action them out. Right up one, write up two, write up three, see you later. Whereas good leaders will want to know, well, there must be something causing their performance to slip. What is it? And the only way upper leadership and executive leadership will know that is if it's communicated to them. So really before all of that, Amanda, executive leadership needs to be willing to listen to their management team and to understand and really to build out that culture. Because as much as a program manager or ops manager wants to build out that culture, it it comes from the top down. So the executive leader wants to be will needs to be willing to have that type of culture as an organization.

Amanda Quinn 32:04
Yeah, they need to make sure what I'm hearing you if I'm hearing you right is that like even in their one-on-ones or their team meetings with you know, if you're the COO with your your direct reports and your directors of ops and whatnot, giving space in those meetings for to ask questions about individual agents and have that come up and like, okay, tell me about what you're excited who you're excited about on your team, what's going on, like what are the challenges that your team is, you know, and having like a portion maybe of those meetings, regular standing meetings that are dedicated to agent updates.

Milan Batinich 32:38
Yeah, yeah, really quick. Uh when I was a manager at a BPO on a campaign, the vice president would come maybe once a quarter uh to visit the center. And because of his conversations with me over time, you know, he would, when he would come, he would speak one-on-one to agents and be like, Hey, I heard how you handled, you de-escalated this customer two weeks ago. And he would use specific examples. And instead of saying, Hey, Amanda, I heard you were doing a great job, it's like, hey, Amanda, I heard how you d de-escalated this customer and how you solved their problem. And he was really that VP was really good at doing that, where it was, you know, he would be very specific with the agents and talk to them one-on-one and use their specific stories. And that resonated with agents. Number one, the agents, like, I can't, I didn't know the VP knew my name, and they actually knew like a specific example of where I did a good job.

Amanda Quinn 33:26
That's really powerful. You're right. I feel like some of my most memorable moments, I feel like, have been when skip levels, when managers, managers, managers have reached down and been like, I know you. Your managers have shared with me about what's going on with you and keep it up. And yeah, you're right. You're like, you know me, you know what's going on. So if you have that power, if you're listening to this and you have that power in your organization, wield it, use it for good, and use it to show the people that are keeping your business running every day in and day out, how much you appreciate them, how much you support them, you give them what you need, because that small amount of time that you dedicate to doing so can have really big impacts on retention, I'm sure.

Milan Batinich 34:12
Yeah, absolutely.

Amanda Quinn 34:14
Okay, so we talked a lot about techniques. Anything else that you would add in from a retention standpoint, Milan?

Milan Batinich 34:20
No, I think that it covers uh covers a lot of it.

Amanda Quinn 34:23
Okay. Um, so what kind of what are some action items if a BPO is having high turnover, has heard what you have to say, and they're like, okay, we we want to start making some changes here. Where would you recommend that they start?

Milan Batinich 34:39
Yeah, well, they can reach out to me. So they can email me, they can reach out on LinkedIn. Where I would recommend they start is training up their supervisors, training up those frontline leaders, those frontline managers. We have a video series out, six-part video series that teaches those frontline leaders how to coach employees, how to manage employees, how to figure out what's motivates each employee, how to communicate upwardly as where as well as down to the agent level.

Amanda Quinn 35:04
Yep, that makes sense. And that's the frontline manager uh starter kit, right?

Milan Batinich 35:08
Yep, frontline manager starter kit. You got it.

Amanda Quinn 35:10
Okay. And then what about like, is there any data like let so let's assume that they're gonna work on managing their employees? What about like data that they're gathering from you know, exit interviews, from I don't know, surveys? Like, is there anything they could be using to kind of glean what is or is not causing um what is working maybe and then kind of what is not working from an agent retention standpoint?

Milan Batinich 35:36
Yeah, so uh as we all know, most of those uh employee surveys are anonymous, but a lot of times it's based on, from my experience, it's based on campaigns. So yeah, using the data and the insights that you're gathering from specific campaigns, feed employee feedback, and being strategic and solving for the problems that you're noticing on those specific campaigns and implementing change. You know, so many times employees are like, well, what's the point of filling out another employee survey when we all said the same thing, but nothing changed? Like you say our voices were heard, but you didn't implement any change for the better.

Amanda Quinn 36:08
So really actually that is incredibly frustrating having lived through that in multiple companies. Do not do that. That is gaslighting to the extreme.

Milan Batinich 36:16
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Tell me what what the pain is, and then once you tell me what the pain is, I will ignore that, and then in six months I'll ask you again what the pain is. You'll say the same thing again, and then I will ignore you again on what the pain is. So, yes, use your data. You have so much data, and there's even data within campaigns on how employees are interacting with customers. You know, when you look at like NPS scores or CSAT scores, and you're looking at attendance and adherence and all those different metrics, all those different KPIs, you can glean so much insight through that data on how engaged employees are on specific campaigns, even beyond employee surveys. So use your data, take your data and implement the changes that you need to happen so that way you retain your employees, so that way your brand, your reputation in the market is one of high retention, one that is employee-centric. Because then from Amanda, you were talking about it at the beginning. From that perspective, clients will flock to you. Clients will want to work with your BPO because you treat people well, and that correlates to them. They're like, hey, if if this BPO treats its employees so well, I have no doubt they're gonna treat me well as their clients.

Amanda Quinn 37:24
That's the whenever I talk to anybody that is debating between BPOs or um, you know, what they're hoping to get from a site visit, besides kind of the proof and fact that there is a building and there are chairs and there are humans that are showing up at work there with name badges, it's that they want to talk to the employees and they want to find out what the conditions are like. They want to find out if these people are being set up for success, if management has their back, if they're getting trained properly. Like nobody wants to give their business, their customers, right, their customer relationships to a firm that isn't valuing it. And I think you're completely right. Everybody knows that good customer experience stems from good employee experience, and BPOs are just an extension of the employee experience.

Milan Batinich 38:14
Yeah. That was perfectly said.

Amanda Quinn 38:17
All right, we'll end it there. Thank you, Milan. For those that want to reach out to Milan to get uh his help in transforming your contact center, helping with employee attrition, just getting his frontline manager uh starter kit, reach out to him at Milan Motivates.com and we'll catch you next time.