Question

you supervise 20 telephone operators on the night shift for an online store. you used to be an operator yourself, so you know a great deal about the job. Management has been pressing you and other supervisors to reduce the amount of time operators spend on the telephone for each order. you believe tat a potentially negative situation for your employees can be solved with a friendly competition between two teams of operators. there are no punishments for the team that comes in second, but there is a reward for the team that wins. team members are encouraged to find new ways to reduce telephone time without reducing customer satisfaction. which two skills do you think would be most important as you get your teams up and running? (technical, human relations, conceptual, decision making)

Answer 1

In my opinion, the decision the supervisor’s decision seems to be a good option. In fact, people who work in the call center industry are always tired about their job. By doing this contest, it will help employees to feel motivated to do their job and, at the same time, compete for a prize. However, the supervisor and employees have to make sure that trying to reduce the amount of telephone time does not affect customer satisfaction. One of the main obstacles that they have is not usually the employee’s guilt to have a long call, but customers sometimes tend to extend them by not being sure about what they want to order. There are all kinds of customers, and the issue is that is an online store, so customers only get to see the product on pictures. Concerning what I have been saying, clients will take a while. However, the operators can make their calls shorter if they explain from the very beginning all the features the product provides, so that the customer does not get to have any doubt about what he or she is getting.

One of the skills that the supervisor should have is the human relations. The supervisor will deal with two different groups, which are going to be competing, so he or she has to make sure that this event does not cause any time of problematic situation or affects their productivity. However, something remarkable about this is that it will help both teams to get to know each other, because usually you do not get to interact with your co-workers from other teams since you are all day long taking calls.

Another skill that the supervisor should have is the decision making one. If there is any time of risk on decreasing productivity or anything negative, the supervisor has to be wise enough to take a decision and see if the activity should be cancelled or take actions. Also, if there is any time of conflict or gossips among co-workers, the supervisor has to be able to take the right decisions about that, so this event might not be the cause of a bigger problem.