Call Center Employee Motivation Tools: An Interview with University of Wyoming's Dr. Brooks Mitchell

In this rapidly evolving and challenging economic climate, it's critical to obtain the best from your call center representatives. Dr. Brooks Mitchell, professor at the University of Wyoming, feels organizations can better capitalize on the direct link that exists between behavior modification and immediate, relevant rewards. This is done by facilitating the design, implementation and ongoing administration of call center workforce incentive programs. Dr. Mitchell creates these incentive programs at Snowfly where he is CEO. After years of research, Dr. Mitchell created a program that he believes will be the catalyst for sustainable, substantial and documented improvements in call center workforce performance and morale. His approach to employee motivation in the workplace involves four major themes: immediate recognition, relevant incentive rewards, accountability and the behavior-changing power of intermittent positive reinforcement. Dr. Mitchell explains how to identify and reward the right behaviors and how incentives and rewards are directly related to: employee attrition, attendance, schedule adherence, conversion rates, call quality and morale. He also addresses how to define the best call center program for your company: short vs. long term, monetary vs. non-monetary and individual vs. team. Listeners of this podcast will learn the results of new call center research studies showing how several call centers have significantly improved attendance, retention, schedule adherence, conversion rates, call quality and morale, and why this topic is critical for maximizing productivity, especially in call centers with Gen X and Gen Y employees.