Why doing it by hand fails
8-10 conversationswhat one person gets through in a day
20-25%the share of the flow that covers
≈25 hoursa month spent listening by hand
The rest of the flow never gets checked, and that is usually where the painful part sits.
Three replacements
- Reminders from the system. The system tells the rep a thread is hanging or a customer was never called. The manager sees only what went unfixed.
- Automatic reporting. The numbers pull themselves from your records and your phone system.
- A weekly review. One rule a week, and that rule gets checked afterwards.
What the manager looks at daily
- how many enquiries got no reply
- how many threads have been hanging longer than the standard
- how many missed calls have had no callback
- plan and actual for the week
Four lines. Everything else opens with a click, when one of those four steps outside its range.
You feel it immediately: the manager watches the system as a whole. The reps work more calmly, because the reminder comes from the system, the same for everyone and with no tone of voice.
What automation does not replace
- reviewing conversations: findings have to be read with human eyes
- the one-to-one conversation about results
- decisions about people