Success Strategies to Manage and Navigate Change

Learn how to take an active approach to navigate and manage change within your contact center. This complimentary eBook outlines success strategies, proven best practices and data-driven solutions to optimize your contact center.

Success Strategies to Manage & Navigate Change in the Contact Center

A Publication by Insite

CONTENTS

3 |

What You’ll Learn

4 |

The Number One Enemy of Change Management

5 |

Buy-in, Buy-in, Buy-in

5 |

How Do You Earn Trust?

6 |

Your Step-by-step Guide For Managing Change In The Contact Center

10 | 11 |

Everyone Can Relate To Change

Optimize Your Contact Center: More Help

VIDEO SERIES: MANAGING CHANGE

5 |

Part 1

9 |

Part 2

11 |

Part 3

A Publication by Insite

What You’ll Learn

Whether a sole proprietor or a Fortune 500 firm, most organizations attempt a major change management (CM) effort at some point to improve contact center operations. The process can feel like failure every step of the way until changes and their benefits have firmly taken root. Sometimes, these feelings alone propagate enough roadblocks to clip those roots before they've had a chance to hit the soil. However, while research indicates a perception that 70% of CM attempts fail, and many efforts do fail, there is a growing need to highlight successful change management strategies.1 This eBook discusses key reasons the failure rate is so high and explains strategies that significantly raise the odds of success. It also explains: • How to get employees to accept and even welcome change • The importance of monitoring and evaluating data throughout your process • How you can take a more active approach to managing change within your company

To grow or navigate disruption, companies implement wholesale changes in their organizational structure or practices or both. The CM process often becomes bumpy and expensive as the changes are communicated and implemented. Some employees may not embrace the change fully or at all. Staff resistance to change can overrun timelines and budgets. Resistance may distort crisp implementation strategies into vague practices that leave no clear end in sight. For these reasons, poor employee engagement and communication can lead to employee resistance, representing the most significant challenge to change management. Top reasons employees become resistant to change: • Employees may be comfortable with their current circumstances and not want to change them. • They may be afraid that changes will lead to the loss of their jobs. • They may have experienced failed change management initiatives in the past and are skeptical, thinking current efforts will also end in failure. • Unable to see and celebrate clear milestones along the way, staff become mired in thoughts that the plan isn't working and experience "change fatigue." If management fails to clearly articulate why a company needs to change, employees may think changes are unnecessary. Or they may lose trust in leadership and fear the new plan is merely a way to eliminate their jobs and raise profit. These thoughts and feelings may remain concealed, forming an unseen impediment to the change management rollout. Far from being cheerleaders for change management, people who don't buy in may quietly become influential detractors and spread their convictions to coworkers. Resistance like this will stall the change process, eventually stopping it dead in its tracks. Other issues, such as ill-conceived or poorly executed strategies, could also derail a company's planned evolution. But true employee buy-in is clearly the most critical factor if a change management rollout is to have any hope of success. The Number One Enemy of Change Management

Buy-in, Buy-in, Buy-in

For a CM initiative to work, company-wide buy-in must be cultivated before the initiative starts. And this buy-in must be maintained at every step of the process. Buy-in is earned. But remember, buy-in can be fleeting. Buy-in is based on a relationship of trust. When it comes to change, most people lean toward skeptical to begin with. Trust must be earned. How Do You Earn Trust? A solid plan of attack. Clear communication. Empathy. Inclusion. Intelligence. Being realistic around setbacks and victories. Transparency throughout the process. And treating people with respect. By the way, gaining buy-in through building trust doesn't mean you are asking permission to effect these changes. It simply means you're being transparent as possible about your solid plan and the reasons behind it. And when you engage others for input, whether you use it or not, you're showing that they have been heard and that you understand. This strengthens relationships and builds trust.

Your Step-by-Step Guide For Managing Change In The Contact Center Identify Reasons for Large-Scale Change Getting clear on why your organization needs to change is vitally important. Maybe market conditions have changed. Maybe you've come up with new goals that demand a complete corporate or department overhaul to create the conditions for success. It could be that today's problems are tied to your organization's current state and can't be solved without change. Whatever the reason, get clear and write it down. Then make sure your entire change management team knows exactly why this change is necessary. Clarity in the early stages will bring about clarity later. Build Roadmap and Timeline with Clear Milestones and Owners Create a roadmap and timeline with clear milestones. Break the plan down into a series of smaller projects and identify the owners and deadlines of those projects. Bring project captains in to collaborate and align with the goals. Once every detail has been cared for, make sure project captains can visualize the plan from start to finish, and everyone is on the same page. Communicate the Initiative to the Entire Company Communicate the initiative and the reasons behind it to the entire company. Chances are, a portion of the staff will resist the proposed change. Remain humble and human. Stay open and receptive as you listen deeply to feedback. Put yourself in their position, and you'll understand their view. Ask for solutions to their concerns and bring those suggestions into the plan if they make sense. This type of approach wins hearts and minds and redirects energy that could have fueled dissent into an attitude more prone to embrace the rationale and steps that have been laid out. You will create allies instead of detractors. If you communicate your plan from their perspective and not solely yours or the company's, you will also allow employees to see the benefits of the change not only for the organization, but also for themselves.

Nurture Buy-In & Celebrate Milestones to Keep Fatigue at Bay Buy-in does not last forever if it is not nurtured on a regular basis. Initially, some employees may depart soon after CM initiatives have been unveiled. That's okay, expected, and healthy. Those who stay will remain loyal to the plan as long as they can see results. This is where your clearly defined milestones come in. When they hit, they must be called out and celebrated. These celebrations renew enthusiasm and keep fatigue at bay. If a milestone is not achieved on schedule, examine why. Don't hide it. Leverage it. Use it as a learning. Re-group and adjust while bringing in key employees to help navigate the bump. Admit Setbacks to the Company and Learn from Them Change is not easy. This idea must be communicated during the process as well. Even the most accomplished mountain climber slips and stumbles on uneven terrain as they traverse the summit. Staff need regular words of encouragement and proper support to keep going. Also, the business must continue to bring in revenue while all this is going on. Caring for customers in the midst of deploying new ways of doing things is not easy. Being sensitive to this and discussing it openly and often will go a long way towards defusing frustration and fatigue. Invite Feedback from Everyone At each step of implementation, use data to monitor progress. As the change is implemented, there are many data points in the business that will be used to monitor progress. Oftentimes, these data points are financial or operational leading indicators that reveal how the organization is responding during the change. And by tapping into qualitative data points from the employees at the same time, organizations can get ahead of underlying risks or unknown resistance. By simply collecting input from employees through town halls or surveys, organizations can assess and react to changes in employee sentiment. Combined with employee performance data, these data points can help get quick feedback to quickly react to address underlying issues, whether they be feedback on issues, FAQs or guides, coaching sessions, team meetings, or all-hands status updates.

Monitor the Process with Data Gathering As you collect metric data and begin mapping processes, you begin to see the connections, connections in technology, connections between people. You see what your employees are actually doing, not what you thought they were doing or what their job description is, but what they're actually doing. And at this point, you may realize that the change that you decided to implement may not necessarily be the right change anymore. Now you have a critical decision to make.

Change the Change if Needed Are you going to stick to the original plan? Or are you going to be agile and adjust it? Most organizations don't have a team in place to tackle plan corrections midstream. Frustration sets in, and even management may begin to think this plan just can't work. They may consider stopping it. Or, worse, they may attempt knee jerk solutions without knowing how to properly react to the data points. Responses like these increase timelines and budget, and ultimately lead to never-ending change management that does not achieve the original desired outcome. Instead, expect these course corrections. Announce them for what they are. Do not leave the company at large in the dark to wonder why changes are happening to the original change plan. Their unsubstantiated pondering may lead to dark conclusions that sap enthusiasm and drag others down as well. Be as transparent and honest as you can be about why you are doing what you do. This approach builds and cements trust, a critical aspect of buy-in.

Continue to Monitor and Evaluate Even After the Initiative is Complete As the plan nears completion, keep all tactics in play. Continue to monitor and evaluate metrics and workforce feedback. Take these practices across the finish line and into the future. Use them to tell the story of what happened. It's an aspirational story, one filled with highs and lows, setbacks, and victories. But ultimately, like all hard-fought triumphs, it can serve as an inspiration. Companies can build off this success in many ways. It can attract new clients. It can strengthen bonds with old ones. It can be used in marketing and talent acquisition. And best of all, it can be enjoyed as a personal victory by all the staff who embraced the change management initiative and had the fortitude to see it through.

A company that successfully navigates and manages its change emerges engaged, rejuvenated, and enthusiastic. Employees stick around and produce quality work.

Everyone Can Relate To Change

This approach to manage change works because at the level of the human core, people can relate to it. We constantly undergo change in our lives. As the saying goes: Change is the only constant. So, it's not so much the change itself that necessarily leads to the pain points that derail change management. Understand that it's more about the common human reactions to uncertainty or unpredictability that communication about change can spark. People tend to relate the present to their past. If they've been through something that didn't work out so well before, they tend to be uninclined to believe it will work out the next time. By engaging people in the humble and human ways described above, this type of reaction can be mitigated. After that, latent human potential can be manifested into support. You will create champions for your change. No matter what your business is, no matter the technology in place, no matter the processes, employees are human beings. The human experience ultimately holds the solution to implementing change management. Consider the people as much as you do the processes and the technologies, and change management champions will emerge to help drive your company to success.

Ready to become a part of the 30% who successfully navigate change within their organization? As contact center experts, we specialize in configuring customized strategies to improve call center operations. We see these challenges daily and understand this isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. Insite helps clients like you win within their operations every day. If your contact center operation needs a hand, or if you’re looking to leave it to the experts, contact us today. Optimize Your Contact Center: More Help

239.284.7529 connect@cal l insite.com getinsite. io

Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12

getinsite.io