LESSON 2 - HOW TO MANAGE AND ORGANIZE YOUR DEPARTMENT TO MEET THE GOALS - How to Manage a Department

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Manage your Department to its Optimum in 10 steps

Managing a department that is successful in meeting its goals is the goal of every manager.  You want a solid organization that knows the goals and runs like a well-oiled machine.  Everyone should be on the same wavelength with the same unified vision and shared core values.  By following the right steps, you can be sure you have covered every angle to achieve success in meeting the department’s goals and objectives.  

To begin with, you need to fully understand what is expected of you as manager.  You need to know what products and/or services you are supporting, what the goals and objectives are of the company, and what the goals and objectives are of your department.  Once all of that has been determined, you can start on creating a well organized, planned out, fully trained and controlled department. 

Here are the 10 steps to plan and build your department to its optimum to meet the goals:

Step 1 - Determine your part in the company’s goals and objectives

Step 2 - Absolutely know what’s expected of you as manager

Step 3 - Fully know the company's products, services, and systems used to support them

Step 4 - Establish goals and objectives for your department

Step 5 - Strategize, plan and structure to meet the objective

Step 6 - Get the right people you need to meet the objective

Step 7 - Get the right materials to get the job done right

Step 8 - Get your staff all of the training it needs

Step 9 - Organize it all to put the plan into effect

Step 10 - Monitor and control it all to keep it running smoothly

Each one of these 10 steps will be discussed in the following segments.  There will also be examples used from the point of view of a customer service/technical support manager.

Company goals and objectives

Step 1 – Determine your part in the company’s goals and objectives

A company needs to always think strategically and be focused on the future in order to succeed.  Goals and objectives could be a new product or service the company wants to produce or provide, targeting the markets through research analysis that best suit the company’s product line, raising capital based on financial projections through potential sales and earnings, or increase customer satisfaction through its operational strategies.

Once the plan is fully in place, the pieces of the puzzle need to be put together.  Anytime a plan has been established, the information to the entire company usually flows something like this:

1.      The company’s goals and objectives will be filtered down to all department managers, most likely while in meetings with upper management.

2.      Department managers will take their part of the plan and fully understand the goals and objectives. 

3.      A timeline to achieve these goals would need to be put into place. 

4.      The department manager will create the projects and tasks associated with the plan and clearly state the goals and objectives to their employees.  Training is given and processes are created.

5.      The project is monitored to ensure quality and maintain focus.

6.      The manager reacts to any problem with the process as soon as possible.

7.      Status reports and updates are given to upper management.

Sounds simple, but without careful planning it can get muddled, confusing, and unorganized.  The most important aspect of the plan is to be able to clearly translate it throughout the company. 

Once your managerial responsibilities of the plan have been determined, you must clearly translate the goals and objectives to your staff along with a timeframe.  You need to tell them why the goals are important and what they mean to the company. There should never be a reason why your staff does not know the reasons and goals of each project that comes their way. 

You need to develop processes and procedures that are easy to follow and make sure everyone is trained.  It is up to you to direct them toward objectives, monitor their progress and react when necessary. You need to be able to show upper management the progress being made by reporting stats, survey results, and any other relevant data. 

Remember, when dealing with upper management, “It is better to under promise, and over deliver.”  Most managers do the opposite.  Always remember this simple phrase whenever you feel a project that comes your way is bigger than what it first appears to be.

Step 2 – Absolutely know what’s expected of you as manager

You need to know exactly what it is upper management expects from you.  If you have any doubt, chances are they are expecting something you might not be able to deliver.  This is why the information flow as stated in step 1 is so important.  What you should expect from yourself is to always think big.  You are either in management, or inspiring to be in management, because deep down you know you can do the job.

One thing that is for certain, you are expected to create a strong team, inspire the team to perform well, clearly state the goals expected of the team, achieve those goals with proof from statistical data, and recognize and reward a job well done. 

In order to achieve and even surpass expectations, you will always need a good solid plan that is well understood by all.  You will need to figure out how to best develop, communicate, and train the processes and procedures associated with the plan.  You need to make sure that there is no doubt from your staff regarding the goals at hand.  These goals can vary from call center metrics such as customer satisfaction survey results, to a production line such as how many units need to be made per hour. 

How you structure your department can determine whether or not you hit your goals.  You need to make sure the setup and flow of the department works in efficiency and harmony.  In order for the department to flow in harmony, you first need to make sure you and your team fully understands the company’s systems, products and/or services. 

Step 3 – Fully know the company’s products, services, and systems used to support them

You have to know the company’s products.  When you and your staff don’t have a good grasp on the products or services your company provides, more mistakes, less confidence and wasted energy is inevitable.  How can you expect your team to support a new product release or service offering when they are not even certain about the existing products and services that are being offered?

This not only pertains to the products and services, but the company’s systems and tools used to track, troubleshoot, and enter pertinent data.  Your job is to make sure everyone is 100% comfortable with the tools and systems they use as well as the products and services they are supporting.  Make it a point to demystify everything that is involved within your department.  You should also make it a point to personally know how to use or work on the products, tools, and systems as that of your staff.  This way you will be able to better relate to any comments or suggestions they may have as well as give you more confidence.

When we talk about a product, we are talking about a tangible item that can be physically touched.  When talking about a service, we are talking about an intangible action performed by someone or a service provided.  For example, if you buy a car battery, you’re buying a product.  If you elect to have someone install the battery, that person is providing a service.  There are many times when the product and service are combined from the customer’s point of view.  For example, the steak from a restaurant is considered a product, whereas the cook who cooks the steak and the waitress who then brings the steak to the customer is considered a service.  Managers in these types of companies have both product and service to worry about.

There are important quality distinctions that must be made regarding products and services:

·         A good product is an entity that meets all quality standards. Products that are flawed are considered of low quality. This is a problem for both the customer and the company employees who have to support the product.

·         A good service is complete satisfaction from the customer’s point of view with the quality of the company’s help and action taken.  Service that is bad is considered of low quality customer interaction.  Bad service can also be related to numerous outages from service providing entities such as your electric or Internet service.

By fully knowing the company’s systems, products and/or services, and how the quality can alter the customer’s perception and the employees’ morale, are detrimental to the success or failure of a manager.

Your staff also needs to be aware of the reason why the products they produce, or services they provide, goes beyond the marketplace so their customers will continue to be loyal.

Step 4 – Establish goals and objectives for your department

As manager, you need to determine how the goals and objectives for your department are set.  These goals might be established through your boss, upper management, or might even be determined by you.  In any case, the goals are most likely based on industry standards, or using the competition as a benchmark.  No matter how the goals are set; you need to fully understand their meaning.  You also have to be able to clearly communicate these goals with your staff.

Your employees need to firmly know what is expected of them.  They should be able to quote these goals when asked, and have the meaning of these goals engrained into their memory.  This way they will always have a unified focus on where they are now, and where they need to be headed.  Goal setting encourages employees to put in substantial effort; because they know exactly what is expected of them.  There is little room left for a lack of effort going unnoticed.  Goal setting also provides direction and a sense of purpose.  Goals are the motivating force to work harder.  To make the goals worthwhile, there needs to be a reward of some sort, once the goal is achieved.  We will discuss more about compensation and rewards in Lesson 3.

You should set up both long-term and short-term goals.  The long-term goals capture the main objective.  The short-term goals provide guidance on a day-to-day basis to meet that objective.  An example of a long-term goal would be to improve customer satisfaction ratings from 80% to 95%.  The short-term goals towards that increased customer satisfaction would be to address issues such as service outages, provide more technical training, focus on personal skills, or to develop a more standard format to increase efficiency.  The short-term goals should always be related to the greater good of the long-term goal.  If the long-term goal is measured in months, then the short-term goals should be achieved in just a few days, or a couple of weeks.  Determining the timeframe of long-term and short-term goals can vary depending on the size or severity of the project.

Dealing with numbers is a necessary part of being a manager, and is the nature of business.  Managers have to deal with schedules, production costs, service statistics, quality measures, and satisfaction results, just to name a few.  Numbers should be an important part of the guiding principles in running your department, however, not the only driving force.  You need to set targets and goals, but if you live by the numbers alone, you might lose the personal touch.  Your employees will be more worried about their personal stats, rather than providing a pleasant customer experience.  For example, if a company prides themselves on providing an exceptional customer experience, yet the employees are being judged with the amount of orders they took, not by the extra personal customer touch they gave, you are in for a conflict of interest.  Besides, once they hit their quota, they may not be inspired to do any extra work.

It is a fine art to balance the metrics with a personal touch.  For example, you need your customer service representatives to quickly answer the calls, provide the information, and get to the next call as soon as possible so that you do not have too many customers on hold (which is a measured metric).  You might hit your numbers, but the customer felt rushed and did not have a pleasant customer experience.  If, however, you gave too much attention to every call, then you would have longer hold times, thus aggravated customers who just wanted a quick and easy answer, thus poor customer satisfaction ratings because of long hold times.  This is a typical catch-22 scenario that most managers have to face. 

Structuring your department to its optimum plays a key role in these types of situations.  The skills taught in this lesson and throughout this course will help you face these types of scenarios.

Here is a list of some typical goals and objectives that are common within a business that you might have to face as a manager:

• Improve customer satisfaction
• Reduce churn rate (customers who no longer use your service, product, etc)
• Prepare for a new product launch
• Improve project management
• Reduce attrition rate (employees leaving the company)
• Reduce product defects
• Reduce service outages
• Reduce hold times
• Reduce costs, and increase profits
• Coordinate efforts on acquiring another company
• Outsource specific projects
• Expand operations
• Improve product delivery time
• Improve order delivery time
• Implement new (or upgrade) your company’s information systems such as an inventory database, trouble ticket database, testing software, or order processing system.

Step 5 – Strategize, plan and structure to meet the objective

A great plan comes from absolute attention to detail, which is key to setting up and structuring for success.  Not only do you want to meet the general goal, but set up a specific standard.  A general goal might be to answer calls quickly.  A specific goal would be to answer all calls in an average of 30 seconds. 

Before you start planning, you need to know the general and specific goals, the expectations, the type of products and/or services, what is coming down the pipeline, or the anticipated projects in the near future.  Each situation calls for a different plan.  Some plans are smaller and not as important, whereas some are major projects with utmost priority.  You need to know which projects to start planning on first and be prepared for any surprises that may come your way.  You will normally find out during your management meetings with your boss or upper management what is to be expected (which was covered in step 1).

Once determined, you start planning on how to accomplish the task at hand.  You should first share this information with your key staff members like your supervisors, leads, and your subject matter experts (or SME, pronounced “smee”).  You will most likely use a whiteboard to chart all the requirements.  If there is any confidential information, use initials or codes that only you and key members of your staff understand.  There may be just one big project that requires your full attention, or many smaller projects working concurrently.  In most cases it is both.  It is important that you prioritize the most crucial projects.  You need to be able to make the right call.

You also need to create and stick to a realistic timeline.  It needs to be challenging yet attainable.  Map out the plan from start to finish with a description of each task and projected completed dates.  Again, think about the saying, “Under promise and over deliver.”  What might look amazing to upper management at first could come back to haunt you when you miss your target date.  Depending on the type of business, a simple spreadsheet will normally do.  If it is a large and intense project, Microsoft Project Manager is a great tool to use. 

Example – Simple timeline

Whether you inherited the department by being promoted from within, or from another department or another company, the best time to plan and make major structural changes is within the first couple of months of becoming manager.  However, be careful if you are following a manager who was very respected.  Major changes might look like a slap in the face and your staff might resent you for it.  It is much easier to make major changes when you follow a manager who was inefficient, even though it’s harder to clean up the mess that was left behind. 

Upper management is usually more lenient about certain expenses and disruption while you are making your mark in your first few months as manager.  For example, you may want to re-organize the seating arrangement, request new computers, buy software upgrades, buy extra monitors, get better tools for the trade, get new uniforms, invest in advanced training, move to a new location, or even change the overall direction of the department.  Once you are settled and things are running smoothly, it is harder to get the finances to make major improvements, even if it is within your budget. 

Lets look at a scenario from a customer service/technical support point of view in a company that provides telephone and Internet service.  Lets say you are a new manager who has taken over a department with poor customer satisfaction ratings due to long hold times that is also losing customers (known as “Churn”) because of repeat issues and the time it takes to repair the problem.  When you were hired by upper management, they let you know that your main objective was to improve customer satisfaction ratings and reduce churn.  After discussing with upper management and comparing industry standards, your goal as manager is to obtain the following metrics:

·         Calls are answered in an average of 30 seconds

·         Abandon rate needs to be under 3%

·         Repeat cases needs to be under 5%

·         MTTR (Mean Time To Repair – which is the average time it took to open, troubleshoot and close the case) needs to be under 90 minutes

·         Customer Satisfaction surveys of all customers polled within your department needs to be 95% or greater

To obtain these numbers you first need to look at the way your department is setup. You would need to figure out problems such as the number of staff needed, how long each call should last, find out the skills sets of your employees, find the right balance between quality and quantity, etc.  You would also need to look at methods on how to make an effective and streamlined process to reduce call handle time. 

The way the department is set up at the moment is one big group that takes on all calls, no matter the skill set or the nature of the reported problem.  These calls can vary from regular telephone service repair calls to Internet access repair calls.  These incoming calls can also vary from easy to fix repairs to intense troubleshooting repairs.  Some people’s strengths were more related to voice repair while others were more related to Internet data repair.  Unfortunately for the customer, when they called into repair, they were getting bounced around quite a bit.

After careful analysis, the best plan might just be to restructure the department. To make the department run more efficiently, it makes more sense to split the group into two teams, one that deals with voice repair issues and another that deals with data repair issues.  The next step would be to split those groups in two to have one team that answers the easy questions with short call handle times, and one that works on the harder and longer duration repairs.  A supervisor would be appointed to each team as well as a lead technician or a SME (Subject Matter Expert, pronounced “Smee”).  With a couple of programming changes to redirect the incoming call flow and some seating changes, the restructured plan would be complete. 

Depending on the type of business you are in, many times it does helps to divide the department into a tiered structure.  You can create a team within each tier and modify the goals of each tier to fit the overall goal of the department.  You will need to determine both the physical setup (i.e. where your employees should sit and be grouped, etc) and the logical setup (i.e. the incoming call flow, etc).  

Sometimes if you are lucky, one big group or an “all for one, one for all” strategy works, however, what usually happens is your better “A & B” employees spend half of their time with the simple issues or easy orders, while the “C” employees spend half of their time on difficult issues or the bigger/harder orders.  You’re A & B employees have a higher skill set and are your top performing employees. 

Another incentive to create a tiered structure is to pay the more qualified people more money.  This gives incentive for the Tier 1 people to want to learn more in order to be promoted into the Tier 2 group.  This is a good idea as long as you have the money to do so in your budget.

Going back to the customer service example, what tends to happen is a call will be in queue (on hold in the order received), which tends to make the abandon rate increase (people do not like to be on hold…).  This also increases the time it takes to repair a problem and also results in more repeat cases because the less qualified employees are potentially working on the hard issues. The end result would then be a dissatisfied customer who would give poor marks on their satisfaction survey.  By breaking the department into a tiered structure, you would be able to set up the department like this:

1.      Tier 1 answers all incoming calls.  They have an easy to follow flow chart and would only answer questions that are easy in nature and do not take up too much time to explain.  Even though they have a flow chart to follow the troubleshooting steps, you should make sure they have adequate training to have the confidence to troubleshoot the basics on their own.  They have an average of 5 minutes per call to resolve the issue.  If they cannot resolve the issue, they would pass the call to Tier 2. 

2.      Tier 2 takes over the call.  All of the troubleshooting done by the Tier 1 technician will be noted in the trouble case.  The Tier 2 technician would pick up from that point on, which will mean the customers would not have to repeat themselves.  Tier 2 has an average of 1 hour per case, as the problem will most likely take some time to troubleshoot. 

What would happen with this simple yet effective set up would help reduce time in queue, which would lower the abandon rate, which would also reduce MTTR along with a reduction of repeat cases, which would leave the customer more satisfied, which would result in fewer customers leaving the company.  Higher customer satisfaction is achieved and the churn rate is reduced.  All of the objectives and goals would be achieved with this restructuring move.

The goals for each tier would be different.  You would not want to have a generic goal for both groups.  The goals for Tier 1 would be based more on quantity, whereas the goals for Tier 2 would be based more on quality.  That is not to say that Tier 1 shouldn’t do quality work.  It just means that Tier 1’s main goal is to answer calls quickly and if they do not know the answer, pass the call to Tier 2.  Tier 2 would also be expected to perform a certain quantity, but their main concern is more on reducing repeated issues and chronic type of problems.  Something to keep in mind, you can always have one group help the other in times of need.

As part of the restructuring in this example, a knowledgebase could also be built so that Tier 2 can document the troubleshooting steps for certain problems.  By utilizing the knowledgebase, technicians can cut down their troubleshooting time, thus reducing MTTR.  Some of these troubleshooting steps can also be placed on a FAQ page on the company’s website.  Customers might be able to fix the problem themselves, thus reducing the amount of calls into Tier 1, thus reducing hold time even further, thus reducing abandon calls.  This would reduce having to hire more staff to hit the goals, thus saving the company money, which makes upper management very happy.

Even though this example was based on a particular customer service scenario, the same logic could apply to any planning and structuring situations you might face.

How to Get the Right People

Step 6 – Get the right people you need to meet the objective

It’s pretty obvious that you need to have good people to do a good job. The tricky part is to have the right person for the right job.  If you have been out on the floor getting to know your employees, knowing their strengths and weaknesses, trusting in your supervision staff on your top performers, and knowing who has the right attitude and aptitude, you should be able to find the right people for the job.  If you have done your job correctly, you will have an inspired staff, full of knowledge, just waiting to show you their talents and strengths.  You will also need to start off with hiring, and keeping, the right people, as well as keeping the good people you already have. 

This section alone is a lesson or two within itself.  We have dedicated much more information to this subject in lesson 3 regarding ideas on how to create, motivate, recognize, evaluate, and compensate your people, and Lesson 4, which is dedicated to hiring and retaining the right people. 

Step 6 is probably the most important step in this lesson.  It really is all about the people within your organization who truly make a difference.  Your job as manager is so much easier when you’re surrounded by nothing but the best people.

Step 7 – Get the right materials to get the job done right

You need to make sure your staff has all the tools it needs to get the job done right such as efficient equipment, materials, and supplies.  Do things like making sure your staff has good working computers with plenty of disk space and memory.  Nothing is worse than having a slow computer, especially while on the phone with a customer.  Continually communicating with your staff is the key to finding out what they need to make things run more efficiently.  Many managers assume everyone has what they need because they do not ask for anything.  They might think it is too trivial or that they do not want to waste your time with small requests.  Don’t let this happen to you.  Encourage your staff to look for any improvements that can make their lives a little easier. 

Hopefully you have enough in your budget to adhere to the requests.  Many times, items such as computers are part of Capex (capital expenditures) and should not necessarily come out of your budget (basic finance and creating a budget will be discussed in more detail in lesson 8).  Insist from upper management that you need this equipment in order to achieve your objectives and goals.  The software you choose is also of vital importance. Clumsy and hard to use programs like old DOS type of software is hard to use and takes extra time to find and enter information.  You should also be able to show how the benefits outweigh the costs.  Lesson 9 goes into detail regarding how to determine the cost-benefit analysis.   Getting fast computers with easy to use software programs makes for easier training and efficiency improvements. 

How to Train a Department

Step 8 – Get your staff all of the training it needs

Before anyone can do anything, they need to know how to do it.  When surveying employees for what they would like and need, training is the most requested item, besides of course, more money.  Everyone wants to be trained whether they are new and just starting, or are a seasoned pro who wants to get even better.  Proper training and support for all levels of work produce better and more productive employees.  You will find that the cost of training is met quickly with lower turnover and higher productivity.  You should periodically ask each employee, while you make your rounds, on what training they would like to receive. 

You want training done by experts who understands, and can clearly explain, the subject matter.  This could be someone in your department or an outside resource.  The point is to truly make the training count.  It is a total waste of time if you train just for trainings sake.  No one will get anything from it.  It might not even apply to the real training need.  Training needs to relate to what your employees do on the job. 

Here are 20 training ideas that could pertain to your department:

1. Work with one of your most knowledgeable employees to develop a training process and procedure manual.  You would want to document everything from beginning to end.  Using customer service as an example, it would start off with how to answer a call and exactly what to say, how and what information should be documented into the order or ticketing system, how to look up all pricing and billing info, etc.  This should be printed and put into a binder.  You should also meet with your staff and go through the manual to make sure everyone fully understands the process, flow charts, etc.  Whenever there are any major updates, make sure you modify the process.  If it starts to become outdated, no one will use it when new products are released or procedures are modified. 
2. Set up weekly training sessions for the supervisor or lead to go over training issues that popped up during the week with their staff.  For example, people might be using the wrong codes, there is not enough documentation in the trouble case, orders are incorrect, etc.
3. Find online training programs such as technical schools that your staff can take.  Put aside some time during the day or even pay overtime for after hours study at home.
4. Have a “Lunch and Learn.”  Provide lunch for the staff in a training or conference room, and train while they are eating.  It’s a win/win situation as the employee gets a free lunch and you get the opportunity to go over some training issues that does not interfere with their normal work schedule.  This is also motivational and helps in team building.  Make sure to clear this with HR to make sure there are no labor laws violated.
5. Find a webinar or workshop that specializes in the subject matter.  It can be viewed either in house or at a yearly retreat type of event.  
6. You might find someone who can benefit from some one-on-one mentoring.  A gesture like this goes a long way not to mention builds morale and shows leadership.
7. Take the time to get with your staff to discuss the optimal training they would like to receive.  What might look good to you is not really what they need or want to learn.  Take a poll by having them list the top 5 training needs in a secret ballot due to some individuals might be too embarrassed to publicly state the training they need.  Gather the information and find the main trend.  If the majority requests the same training need, you can start setting up the training process right away.  If there are a few different ideas, you can either set up a few different training sessions, or gather your staff together to discuss all possible options.
8. If it is within the budget, offer a company paid tuition to a local college.  This is a huge motivational and retaining tool to use.
9. Try to relate the training to something they already know and are confident doing.  It is easier to learn something new when you can relate it to what you already know.
10. Training should be as visual as possible with true hands on participation.  They need to actually perform the tasks they are being taught. 
11. Make sure your boss or upper management shows their excitement towards this training amongst your employees.  This will generate more enthusiasm and determination.
12. Make sure they are motivated and want to learn.  They should feel a sense of excitement about enhancing their career by becoming more knowledgeable.  The more motivated they are, the more they will want to learn.
13. Keep the training area away from any office or factory related noise and commotion.  They need to be 100% focused with no distractions.  This also includes turning off cell phones and not checking e-mail from their laptops.
14. Make sure you take a quick break after each main subject.  Each subject should be no more than 1 to 2 hours.  Too much information all at once is too much to take in.
15. It is ok to do repetitive training if it is needed.  The more your employees see, hear and do something, the better they will be able to remember it.
16. If anyone cannot make the training, ask one of the employees who took the training to train other employees with the information learned.  This could be thought of as “train the trainer.”
17. During the training seminar, make sure to discuss how the material being taught applies to real life scenarios.  If there are good examples to use, this would be a great time to discuss.
18. If you cannot set up a training course or provide online training, you can always purchase business books for the employees.  Ask them to read it during slow times at work or at home.  You might even want to start up a book club to meet once a week so that the employees can discuss facts with one another.
19. Set up a buddy system.  Pair up a seasoned knowledgeable employee with a less experienced employee. This would improve skills and build confidence.  This also builds a strong work ethic, morale, and loyalty within the team.  Just make sure the knowledgeable employee adheres to these rules:
• Puts the less experienced employee at ease by not showing off and is humble with stories about when they first started out.
• Asks what the person knows or does not know about the training subject.  Nothing should be assumed, as the person might be afraid to ask any questions.  Don’t blind the person with science by using acronyms or terms they do not understand.
• Covers the main objectives and goals including how their job relates to the big picture. 
• Motivates and creates excitement.  This is a time for positive interaction, not negative opinion.
• Clearly goes over the workflow both visually and in theory.  Have the less experienced person repeat it back until fully understood.
• Makes sure the less experienced person performs the tasks. The main goal is to fully understand the processes, procedures and expectations.  Total quality is always imperative and is absolutely key to the persons and company’s success.
• Sets up a post meeting, and if necessary another training session, to make sure all is good.

20.  Training is an ongoing commitment you need to make to your team.  You need to always keep on top of any training needs.  Always remember, “The more you train, the more they retain.”

How to Organize a Department

Step 9 – Organize it all to put the plan into effect

Now that you know your part in the company, know what is expected of you, know the products and/or services that pertain to your department, know the goals and objectives expected of your department, developed a plan to achieve those goals and objectives, picked the right people for the job, have the materials needed for optimal efficiency, and made sure they have been fully trained, it’s time to organize it all and put the plan into effect.  This is the time to make the physical moves, get the project underway, start the task, etc.  It is imperative that everyone involved is fully aware of these moves, projects, and tasks and are fully prepared to make it happen.

It is a good idea to utilize programs such as Visio or spreadsheets to make visual representations of your structuring plan such as organizational charts, schedules, and seating assignments.  Enterprise iPBX’s are very beneficial for a call center phone system with incorporated reporting tools.

Using the same customer service example, it was decided that in order to achieve the goals, we first split the customer service technical support team into two sections:  Voice Repair for telephone service, and Data Repair for Internet service.  It was determined that you needed supervisors for each group and lead technicians to provide support for the technical support representatives.  This was based on measuring call volume, time on the call, time it took to fix the problem, trending future call volume based on POS (point of sale, pronounced “paws”) reports, determining the need for 24/7 coverage, and customer satisfaction results.  Here are some visual examples of the restructuring plan:

Example - Org chart (short for organization chart) with a visually simple hierarchy.  Microsoft Visio is great for creating an org chart and any type of flow chart.  PowerPoint also has an org chart template you can use.  This chart was made using an excel spreadsheet.

Example - Seating Chart with desk number, color code by group, first and last name, and phone extension.  It was determined that by laying out the department in this fashion, a better group dynamic and teamwork would happen.  Your staff can bounce ideas off of each other, and discuss unusual or difficult customer situations.

Example - Voice and Data Repair Schedules – These schedules are based on providing 24/7 service, however, with minimal after hours coverage.  There are a couple of 4-10 hour shifts as well.  The scheduling and break times were based on call volume throughout a 24-hour period.  It is split into two repair sections, Voice Repair and Data Repair.  There are great software tools you can use to create and modify scheduling and even import into you outlook calendar.  This schedule was done on a simple spreadsheet.

Example - Full 24/7 coverage at a glance PST.  A coverage chart is made to see how many techs are on the floor throughout the 24/7 period at any given time. The swing and graveyard techs are cross-trained in both Voice and Data.  This will also help for holiday scheduling when staffing needs to be minimal but still covered.

Processes and Procedures are extremely important to develop to make sure everyone fully understands what is expected of them, and that everyone knows exactly the correct steps to follow.  This also helps keep uniformity.

By deciding and planning correctly, your staff will understand what is expected of them and their place within the organization.  Putting your head in the sand and hoping for the best will inevitably catch up to you.  Always plan ahead.  Here are some planning pointers to follow:

·         Utilize your resources to their optimal performance.  If you have a great plan and do not have the resources, then you need to back up that plan with documented reasoning on why you need more staff, equipment, seating area, etc. to upper management.

·         Look at all the possible scenarios and make sure there are clear benefits to each decision.

·         When in doubt map it out.  That is what the white board is for and you should use it whenever possible.  Visually looking at possible structure changes makes things so much easier.

·         Hold daily meetings with your supervisors to make sure the plan will work as good in real life as it looks on paper.  They will be the ones who will be in direct contact with the employees on a daily, if not hourly basis, and you want to make sure they are happy with the plan.

·         Make sure you get your employees suggestions, as they are the ones in the trenches who really know which processes work and which don’t.

Again, even though we are using customer service as an example of a department to manage, the same principles apply to most any management scenario.

Point to keep in mind:  You always want to keep your boss informed before making any changes or implementing any plans.  By giving well-documented processes, procedures, and laid out plans, you will look good as well as make your boss look good.  Upper management expects this type of detail to achieve success from you, the manager. 

Step 10 – Monitor and control it all to keep it running smoothly

Now that you have the department in order, everyone is trained and happy, and you have all of your processes and procedures in place, the best way to determine how things are going is through reports and feedback.

Continuous employee feedback and communication, statistical reporting, customer based surveys, feedback from suppliers, feedback from other departments that are closely involved with yours, sales performance, financial analysis, inventory control, monitoring order accuracy, and employee evaluations are just a few of the necessary tools to monitor how your department is performing.  

There might be problems and unforeseen bumps in the road ahead such as a new product line or taking on additional responsibilities, however, with all of the planning and organization you have put into place, you will just need to do some slight modifications to keep it all running smoothly. 

The following charts are just a few examples of the types of statistical reporting you can use as a guide for tracking goals and looking for trends. The screenshots that follow were pulled from spreadsheets.  For simplicity, we are focusing on Data Repair from the customer service example (you would want to keep Voice Repair separate anyways as they have different metrics to report). 

Example – Data Repair Dashboard.  This is a snapshot of the current month, previous month, and 6-month trend covering all of the major area that need to be measured within Data Repair.  This is the kind of quick status report you would bring to an upper management meeting.  You want to easily be able to show whether you are hitting your goals, or if there are any noticeable trends.  From this example you can see that the goals are being obtained by comparing not only the this months worth of data, but by also comparing it to last months and trending over the past 6 months.  The top problem reported, which we are just generically calling Problem 1, represents 30% of all cases opened.  This could be a serious problem and should be investigated.  The data on this report is pulled from data within other areas on the same spreadsheet:

Example – Data Repair Stats.  This screenshot comes from the same spreadsheet as described in the previous example.  It shows the past 6 months worth of total calls, e-mails, ratio of total contacts per widget sold each month and lifetime, MTTR, abandon call %, average time in queue, and average call handle time in both the Tier 1 and Tier 2 queue’s.  The charts that follow are pulled from this data to quickly spot any trends:  

Example line chart - calls and e-mails received.  You can see from the chart below that trend line is showing that both calls and e-mails to Data Repair are decreasing.  This can suggest a few things such as less repeat calls, better product stability, and customers troubleshooting more themselves through the posted FAQ's.  This trend can help you determine whether total contacts in the past 6 months are increasing or decreasing.  If you have your department structured to its optimum and yet calls are increasing, you might need to hire more technicians.  This is the kind of data that would support that decision:

Example line chart – Ratio of contacts per Widgets sold – current month.  You can trend problems with the product based on the amount of calls and e-mails received versus the amount of sales.  From this example, the amount of contacts per widget sold each month is trending downward, which is a good sign.  This can also tell us that there might be less repeat calls, which would show that your support team is doing a good job on First Call Resolution’s (you could determine if this was true by pulling repeated customer problem reports):

Example line chart – Ratio of contacts per Widgets sold - lifetime.  This report follows the same format as the example just described, however, this is tracking data based on all of the Widgets sold lifetime:

Example line chart – MTTR (Mean Time To Repair) – one agent.  This chart shows the average time it takes to open and close a case.   This particular example is based on the cases worked on the last day of the month by just one technician.  You can trend agent performance in this type of format:  

Example line chart – Abandon rate in the Data Repair Tier 1 queue.   Part of increasing customer satisfaction is to reduce time in queue.  When people hang up before an agent picks up the phone, satisfaction levels go down.  In this case you can see that the goals have been met for the past 3 months, and that trending is showing the abandon call % is continually going down, which is a great thing:

Example line chart – Average time in the Data Repair Tier 1 queue.  This chart shows the average time in queue.  Again, part of increasing customer satisfaction is to reduce time in queue.  When people are on hold for a long time before an agent picks up the phone, satisfaction levels go down.  In this case you can see that the goals have been met for the past 3 months, and that trending is showing the average time in queue is going down.  Trending here also correlates to the previous example and proves that lower queue times results in lower abandon %’s: 

Example line chart – Average time spent on each call - Tier 1.   Through analysis, it was determined that an average of 7 minutes per call was determined in order to keep the hold time at a sufficient level.  In this case, you can see that the goals have been met and that trending is showing the average time spent on calls is steady and looks good.  One thing to keep in mind, never sacrifice a positive customer experience with trying to limit the time spent on calls.  This is an average, and there will be some calls that will last 15 to 20 minutes, and some that are only 30 seconds long.  This is a crucial fine balance:

Example pie chart – Trending the most common problems found.  This is an useful tool to find a common problem based on the proper use of codes in the ticketing system.  With detailed analysis like this, you can investigate as to why and what is causing the problem.  This kind of data helps engineers to find a root cause.  Poor data would be stating, “It doesn’t work.”  Good data would state something like, “Widget reboots when latest code is loaded.”  In this example, the generically named “Problem 1” contributes to 30% of all cases opened.  That is one you would want to investigate as soon as possible:

Example – Average hourly call volume in the past 6 months.  This line chart shows the average amount of calls received hourly in a 24-hour period for the past 6 months.  It starts at 12:00am and is used to track the busiest hours of the day in order to best determine when to staff and to strategically manage lunch and break times:

Example – Average hourly call volume in each of the past 6 months.  This data is based on the previous chart but shows individual monthly detail on each of the past six months.  With this data you can see if there are any particular monthly trends such as common peaks and drops:

Example – Data Repair Customer Satisfaction Survey summary.  Though customer surveys, you can determine the satisfaction levels and areas where you can improve.  The goal of 95% or greater was achieved due to the planning and structural changes made by developing a tiered system.  The screenshot below is from one of the last pages of the PowerPoint presentation:

You need to have the right tools to measure productivity and process effectiveness.  At a minimum, you need to know how to read, create and manipulate a spreadsheet, know how to create and present a PowerPoint presentation, and work with a Word Processing doc.  Other great tools are Visio for creating flow charts, and Microsoft Project for large task related projects.

Being able to analyze the data not only helps you find trends, it also keeps upper management informed.  They can either see the progress you are making or the problems you are having.  Either way, they will appreciate the fact that they are not being kept in the dark.

If any problems arise when monitoring productivity, make sure you have created a systematic approach in finding the root cause and correct resolution.  In order to do this, you need to have accurate data as previously presented.  You would then set up a meeting with key players in your department, and if necessary, key players from other departments.  The key point here is to make sure you have the accurate data to back up the issues at hand. 

For example, if your team is getting inundated with calls due to a faulty product complaint, you need to have a system in place that tracks by problem report code, category, and resolution along with accurate documentation.  This is needed to help spot the trend.  With accurate data you can report something like “an 18% increase in customer complaints due to a power failure.”  This is much better than making a generic statement like, “Customers are complaining that the product doesn’t work.” 

With this type of information, you can present the data with confidence to the other areas within the company.  With this accurate data, they should be able to find the source of the issue.  You need to be exact, precise, timely, and confident with the data you provide.  Don’t come off like you don’t know what you are doing.  You will not be taken seriously, the customers will continue to be upset, future sales will go down, and the department morale will decline due to the increase in work and complaints.  All of this because of insufficient data.

Do not be afraid or intimidated to bring issues up to other department heads.  This is expected of you.  As the manager of your department it is your job to make sure everything is running smoothly, including issues that might be out of your control.  At the same time you need to be careful that you do not look like you’re on a witch-hunt to find the culprits.  It’s all about finding the perfect balance between being easy going and aggressive.  You need to make sure that you, and the other departments involved, understand that this is for the greater good of the company’s success.  Your part is just to make sure it is clear you are doing everything you can to achieve the company’s goals.

Utilizing all that has been taught in this lesson will help build your value and effectiveness as a manager.  A department that is structured to achieve its goals is key to being a successful manager.  Following through on your well thought out plans will show off your management and leadership skills, it will also earn you a great deal of respect.

A short story about structuring a department

John Smith is the manager of a customer service department that he had recently inherited.  He provides support for Internet and telephone services.  He has a staff of 50 employees who have different skill levels and technical expertise.  His department seemed to be doing fine, however, customers were complaining of bad service.  John made sure everyone was trained but the customers still kept on complaining.  He thought he had his department in order but there were no true goals or objectives set, nor was there a good way to capture the data.

John realized that he needed to come up with a plan to improve customer service.  He decided to dig deeper through departmental reports to see what was going on.  Unfortunately the reports did not show much as the data was too generic and meaningless. 

John met with key members of his staff to address the issues and map out a timeline to investigate and resolve the problems.  John also made customer satisfaction a prime objective and made sure his staff fully understood the targeted goal of high satisfaction percentages.   He delegated certain tasks such as updating and adding codes to the ticketing system.  This was done to track the root cause of the problems.  A customer satisfaction survey was also created and was sent out to each customer who recently dealt with customer service.  John also tracked how long the calls were on hold, how long each call took, etc.  Once the data was analyzed, he started finding trends.  

What he found was that technicians who were more inclined to work a case quickly, had more repeats due to not fixing it right the first time.  He also found that the technicians who took their time on a case, had less repeats, but longer customer hold times.  He found that certain technicians had better skills at Internet related issues than telephone related issues.  He found certain times of the day were much busier than others.  Customer survey results showed the main complaints were long hold times and repeated trouble.  He also found that more cases were opened in a certain area of the country than any other city.  This was due to network issues that were captured through his new coding system.

Through all of this analysis, John was able to determine how to structure his department.  He utilized his staff more efficiently by transferring them to the area that best suited their skills.  He organized a tiered system so that Tier 1 addressed the quick and easy issues, and Tier 2 addressed the long and more difficult issues.  He applied this system to both the Internet and telephone sides of the department.  He made seating arrangements that put them into smaller groups associated with the tiers.  He scheduled his techs accordingly to cover the busiest times of the day.  He also worked with engineering to investigate network related problems.  Engineering was able to find the problem due to the accurate data they received.

All of these changes directly improved hold times and repeated issues.  Customer satisfaction results went way up due to hold times and repeated problems going way down.  This also improved employee morale.  John made sure from this point on to always look for trends and structure his department based on a plan, not just because it seemed right.

Epilogue:  A solid plan to obtain the goals and objectives is mandatory.  You can then decide how to set your department based on the results of that plan.  John was able to hit all goals and achieve high customer satisfaction ratings by structuring his department to its optimal performance with little additional resources.  Most of what was covered in this story relates to the examples used in this lesson.

Quick Lesson Summary

·         You need a solid plan and the methods needed to succeed to obtain the goals and objectives. 

·         You need to make sure both you and your employees fully understand the mission, goals, company products, what is expected of them, and what is expected of you. 

·         Carefully analyze all aspects within your department before making any changes.  Get with key members of your staff and discuss all options.

·         You need to get the right people to do the right job.  You might need to reassign them for optimal performance.

·         You need to set up a timeline whenever a major project, task, or structuring takes place.  The short-term plans must coincide with the long-term objective.

·         You need to provide the right materials and training.  A lack of materials and training will result in a lack of efficiency.

·         You need to know how to use programs such as spreadsheets to monitor your department’s performance and correct issues as they arise.