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 instead of checks. The system tells the rep a thread is hanging or a customer was never called. The manager sees only what went unfixed.
- Automatic reporting instead of asking people. The numbers come from your records and your phone system rather than from accounts of what happened.
- A weekly review instead of daily remarks. 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.
The change in how it feels is noticeable immediately: the manager stops being the person who checks up on people and becomes the person who watches the system. The reps work more calmly, because the reminder comes from the system rather than from a live person with a 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