Martin Teasdale of Get Out of Wrap - Contact Centre or Contact Center?
00:00:08 Dave Hoekstra
Welcome to working smarter presented by Calabrio, where we discuss context center industry trends and best practices, as well as sharing success stories and pain points with some of the most innovative professionals in the industry.
00:00:19 Dave Hoekstra
We're glad you're here joining us to learn and grow together in order to provide world class customer service to each and every one of our clients.
I.
00:00:26 Dave Hoekstra
My name is Dave Hoekstra, product evangelist here at Calabrio, and my guest today is Martin Teasdale.
00:00:32 Dave Hoekstra
Joins us from the.
00:00:34 Dave Hoekstra
Very excited to have him here and.
00:00:37 Dave Hoekstra
Martin is the founder of a really great couple of communities that are out there that are working really hard to help us contact center nerds, be our best selves.
00:00:46 Dave Hoekstra
One of them being get out of rap, which we're going to talk about how cool that is.
00:00:50 Dave Hoekstra
Then the the team leader community, which is another great.
00:00:54 Dave Hoekstra
Organization working with some of these people that you know are kind of kindred spirits to me at least.
00:01:00 Dave Hoekstra
So Martin, first of all, welcome to the Working Smarter Podcast here and really glad you're here.
00:01:07 Dave Hoekstra
A little bit about get out of rap.
00:01:09 Dave Hoekstra
Do you guys do?
00:01:09 Martin Teasdale
It's a great pleasure to be here, Dave. And you keyword there I think is.
00:01:14 Martin Teasdale
Kindred spirit in all the times we've been talking, everyone's gone on longer than we expected Cos we've just connected and I've really enjoyed our chat.
00:01:23 Martin Teasdale
Very, very happy to to be here.
00:01:27 Martin Teasdale
Get out of rap is.
00:01:29 Martin Teasdale
It's funny because it's it's the name I gave to a podcast that I started five years ago, always liked podcast, and I was looking for one about contact centres and the only ones I could find were us ones.
00:01:44 Martin Teasdale
And I thought, you know, they're they're great, but there are some small nuances between.
00:01:51 Martin Teasdale
You know, we have a special relationship across the pond, but there's some small nuances and I thought oh, there's not auk one, I'm going to start.
00:01:58 Martin Teasdale
Going to start a podcast and.
00:02:01 Martin Teasdale
The name was one that I really liked, but I thought I'm going.
00:02:05 Martin Teasdale
I'm going to ask a few of my friends and colleagues in the industry about it, I said.
00:02:10 Martin Teasdale
Think I'm going to start a podcast called Get Out of Rap.
00:02:14 Martin Teasdale
What you think, and nobody liked it but that. But that kind of made me even more committed to do it.
00:02:22 Martin Teasdale
Know it.
00:02:22 Martin Teasdale
I think it's a good yard.
00:02:24 Martin Teasdale
A good litmus test.
00:02:27 Martin Teasdale
People get it. If you've been in the industry, you get it, you know.
00:02:30 Martin Teasdale
You're and it's something that is said every single day. Certainly when I started and maybe less so, but even now.
00:02:37 Dave Hoekstra
Oh yeah, I I definitely have PTSD when I hear that right back to the days of the the teen lead leading.
00:02:43 Dave Hoekstra
To get out of rap.
00:02:44 Martin Teasdale
Yeah, it was always teased they would get out.
00:02:47 Martin Teasdale
And.
00:02:48 Martin Teasdale
What what I like about it, certainly for the podcast is once you're out of rap, you are talking right so.
00:02:55 Martin Teasdale
And then it's just grown legs over five years.
It's.
00:02:59 Martin Teasdale
I'm up to 208 episodes now, but it spun off into doing live events, doing training, LinkedIn live TV show every week.
00:03:12 Dave Hoekstra
And it's great.
00:03:13 Martin Teasdale
Yeah, it's it's been wonderful to share stories much like we've talked about. You start talking to someone and it might be about WFM or QA.
00:03:23 Martin Teasdale
But then they bring something unprompted to the conversation.
00:03:27 Martin Teasdale
It could be about.
00:03:30 Martin Teasdale
We've had the menopause, we've had men's mental health as things that are really important to people and it just goes to show what a wonderful industry we work in, you know, committed hard working people doing their best in a in an industry that's much maligned.
00:03:47 Martin Teasdale
Doing their best for customers, their teams, their colleagues, but behind each of them from a work point of view, they have personal stories and those have just kind of been, you know, there's been some very special moments. And I'm I'm very lucky.
00:04:01 Martin Teasdale
That I've got this vehicle to be able to talk to people.
00:04:06 Dave Hoekstra
Well, you've also got that great UK accent that automatically makes you sound 100 times smarter than I do. So I certainly appreciate that.
00:04:16 Dave Hoekstra
You mentioned.
00:04:18 Dave Hoekstra
The nuances that are different between the UK.
00:04:21 Dave Hoekstra
So besides what you call sprinkles on a cupcake, what are some of those nuances that you're that you know of?
00:04:27 Martin Teasdale
Well, I think it has to start with centre versus centre.
00:04:32 Martin Teasdale
You know.
Uh.
00:04:33 Martin Teasdale
Like you, we've talked about some of the tech that we use to help produce the podcast.
00:04:39 Martin Teasdale
Everything is us English, us in in.
00:04:44 Martin Teasdale
You know, so I have to kind of correct a lot of the a lot of the spellings that that said, once I said there were nuances.
00:04:53 Martin Teasdale
Actually, it's probably more just personal personal style, you know.
00:05:01 Martin Teasdale
I thought I took a lot from the US, ones that I I listened to.
00:05:05 Martin Teasdale
Do much like you take from leaders that you've had right?
00:05:09 Martin Teasdale
Oh, I'm going to do a bit of.
00:05:11 Martin Teasdale
I'm going to do a bit of that. I think you know it might be a bit of a generalization, but I think over here we're sometimes a bit more cynical.
00:05:22 Martin Teasdale
We're less likely to be positive. It doesn't mean to say that we we approach challenges different.
00:05:31 Martin Teasdale
But we are generally it certainly manifests itself in sales.
00:05:37 Martin Teasdale
You know, kind of if you're involved in sales here it's it's tough because people.
00:05:44 Martin Teasdale
Are wary of your enthusiasm.
00:05:49 Dave Hoekstra
Yes, our my, my coworker.
00:05:52 Dave Hoekstra
Someone that you spoken with Ed Creasy, one of the greatest human beings on the planet.
00:05:56 Dave Hoekstra
Planet always talks about how if he says, that's quite good, that means it's really great.
Brief.
00:06:02 Martin Teasdale
Yeah.
00:06:03 Dave Hoekstra
But if it's not bad, that means it's actually pretty terrible.
00:06:05 Martin Teasdale
Yeah.
00:06:07 Martin Teasdale
It's the same as the word fine.
00:06:09 Martin Teasdale
You know, someone says, what's this like?
00:06:11 Martin Teasdale
It's fine or I'm fine.
00:06:13 Martin Teasdale
That means you're not good.
00:06:15 Dave Hoekstra
Right. Yeah, they are.
00:06:17 Dave Hoekstra
We are not. We are.
00:06:18 Dave Hoekstra
In a good, good state of mind now.
00:06:20 Dave Hoekstra
So Speaking of challenges, you mentioned challenges. You're sitting at 208 episodes in.
00:06:27 Dave Hoekstra
Of a podcast about contact centers. What are some of the challenges that you deal with trying to either source content source guests right?
00:06:37 Dave Hoekstra
Are some of the things that are unique to hosting a call Center Focused podcast?
00:06:43 Martin Teasdale
Great question. Initially, certainly in the first year it was difficult to to get.
00:06:52 Martin Teasdale
You know, I had people that were really up for it and wanted to come on every week because I I thought I'm going to have a cadence of a weekly podcast.
00:07:01 Martin Teasdale
Going to be every Friday.
00:07:03 Martin Teasdale
And that puts you under pressure.
00:07:06 Martin Teasdale
To source guests, arrange the recording with. You know I'm. I don't really like to. It's never been question and.
00:07:16 Martin Teasdale
It's always been conversational and I don't like to prep too much, but I will of course put the guest at ease by agreeing.
00:07:24 Martin Teasdale
What the the main subject matter might be and how it might flow. Couple of bullet points.
00:07:30 Martin Teasdale
But certainly in that first year, you know, first of all I was trying to let people know.
00:07:37 Martin Teasdale
What a podcast was. Why I'm doing it.
00:07:40 Martin Teasdale
You know it wasn't attached or associated.
00:07:44 Martin Teasdale
There was no commercial element to it, and again people were bit wary.
00:07:51 Martin Teasdale
But then when it started to get some momentum and what there was increased awareness.
00:07:57 Martin Teasdale
It quite quickly flipped the other way.
00:08:00 Martin Teasdale
Do people just volunteering themselves and and that?
00:08:05 Martin Teasdale
That's now more of a challenge that I don't want to disappoint anyone. But you know there's only if I'm only doing 1A.
00:08:14 Martin Teasdale
It's, you know, you know, the work that goes into it. But behind the scenes.
00:08:19 Martin Teasdale
That that's a challenge to keep everybody happy.
00:08:23 Dave Hoekstra
I can't the the.
00:08:25 Dave Hoekstra
The jealousy I have of these podcasts that are able to secure a guest every single week without fail and have them be really interesting and really engaging.
00:08:35 Dave Hoekstra
It's quite.
00:08:36 Dave Hoekstra
I'm sure you've never had any duds on your podcast.
00:08:40 Dave Hoekstra
Of of guests, but keep it keeping it fresh.
00:08:44 Dave Hoekstra
Certainly is a challenge.
00:08:45 Martin Teasdale
I think you don't find as well that you you evolve as a as a host.
00:08:51 Martin Teasdale
It's hugely improved my active listening skills because you're.
00:08:56 Martin Teasdale
Your your conscious that you are people aren't necessarily listening for you.
00:09:04 Martin Teasdale
Listening because of the subject or and or the guest right?
00:09:07 Martin Teasdale
It's about how you.
00:09:11 Martin Teasdale
How you get the best from them, and there are times when you can see your guest is in flow and you just like, oh, this is great. I'm just gonna stay quiet and then try and keep them in this in this state.
00:09:24 Martin Teasdale
Very early on, I did make the mistake of someone came on the podcast who wasn't necessarily from our industry and I was really challenged by he moved on to talking about society and politics and.
00:09:41 Martin Teasdale
I it was difficult because I found he. I disagreed with his views.
00:09:46 Martin Teasdale
And it was that I felt like I had to go from host giving somebody a platform.
00:09:54 Martin Teasdale
To actually I have to challenge, I have to challenge this.
00:09:58 Martin Teasdale
Right. You, you.
00:09:58 Dave Hoekstra
Had to control the call just like we had to do back in the day.
00:10:00 Martin Teasdale
Yeah, very true. Yeah, very true.
00:10:02 Dave Hoekstra
Yes.
00:10:03 Martin Teasdale
Yeah, I love that.
00:10:04 Dave Hoekstra
Yeah, absolutely.
00:10:06 Dave Hoekstra
Yeah, it I I haven't run into too much of that, but it certainly it certainly there are times.
00:10:13 Dave Hoekstra
Where you are actively listening and your brain is saying, but I don't want to listen because this is so boring.
00:10:22 Dave Hoekstra
And and and but you.
00:10:23 Dave Hoekstra
But if you have that filter, you recognize that your listeners are likely thinking that as well and.
00:10:30 Dave Hoekstra
As as as you go.
00:10:31 Dave Hoekstra
So yeah, there's there's always that fun little challenge of trying to make something that's not interesting, interesting, or taking something that is interesting and making it very interesting.
00:10:42 Dave Hoekstra
You know, I suppose that's the.
00:10:44 Dave Hoekstra
The.
00:10:45 Dave Hoekstra
My biggest challenge is going back and listening to myself and how many. How many times can you say?
00:10:52 Dave Hoekstra
In one episode, because I think I've broken the record.
00:10:55 Martin Teasdale
Well, basically, yeah.
00:10:55 Dave Hoekstra
But that's that's the way your brain works.
00:10:57 Martin Teasdale
And this goes back to being an agent or a team leader.
00:11:03 Martin Teasdale
For quality coaching and you know, being asked to listen to your own calls, nobody likes to sound of your own voice. You think I'm never going to talk again?
00:11:13 Martin Teasdale
So then having to do a podcast and then editing it, yeah, it's it's still a challenge.
00:11:18 Martin Teasdale
Always going to be a challenge.
00:11:21 Dave Hoekstra
I I always think, Oh my gosh, I sound like my brother.
00:11:25 Dave Hoekstra
That, that's. That's what gets me is that's what my brother sounds like.
00:11:28 Dave Hoekstra
I don't sound like that in my own head, but.
00:11:32 Dave Hoekstra
Now, what are the things you and I?
00:11:33 Dave Hoekstra
About, that's actually kind of fun.
00:11:35 Dave Hoekstra
I'm going to ask you kind of how you got here, but you and I had a good laugh about.
00:11:42 Dave Hoekstra
What it's like being a workforce management person as an adult and is actually a functioning human in society.
00:11:50 Dave Hoekstra
You and I realize that we're both the type of person that shows up way too early for things.
00:11:55 Dave Hoekstra
Do you think that?
00:11:56 Dave Hoekstra
Past in being an agent and a workforce, management actually plays into that.
00:12:01 Martin Teasdale
Yes, definitely.
00:12:03 Martin Teasdale
You know whether it's.
00:12:06 Martin Teasdale
If something's measured you focus on it.
00:12:08 Martin Teasdale
You then have to when you progress to be a team leader or B in WFM. You're managing people against time and you're managing people against demand.
00:12:18 Martin Teasdale
You know why it's important so that that has bled into normal life, you know, and we did.
00:12:25 Martin Teasdale
Did share a laugh?
00:12:27 Martin Teasdale
That to me on time is late.
00:12:29 Martin Teasdale
So right, you know if if we agreed to meet 100%, I'm there early because I've allowed for things to go wrong traffic.
00:12:38 Martin Teasdale
Trains, whatever it may be. So.
00:12:40 Martin Teasdale
So if everything goes smoothly, I will often be at either an event or a meeting an hour hour plus early.
00:12:50 Martin Teasdale
If things go as you'd expect using the underground or something like that, I'm there.
00:12:56 Martin Teasdale
Still there early when people arrive on time.
00:13:01 Martin Teasdale
It I can feel myself getting annoyed.
00:13:04 Martin Teasdale
You know.
00:13:05 Dave Hoekstra
Yeah, you start to get that that tightness in your chest and and what I find funny is that when we have meetings here at calabrio, right.
Yeah.
00:13:14 Dave Hoekstra
Meetings for various things. I can always tell when it's the W FM people joining the meeting versus everyone else, right?
00:13:22 Dave Hoekstra
Is spot on on.
00:13:23 Martin Teasdale
Yeah.
00:13:25 Dave Hoekstra
Oh, on the second they are logged in because they do not want to get that that written warning of logging into the phone 30 seconds late. So.
00:13:33 Martin Teasdale
And I think the problem is you.
00:13:35 Martin Teasdale
You over egg it so.
00:13:37 Martin Teasdale
So I manage a girls football soccer team and even with the parents and the girls, I'll say so. The game kicks off at 10.
00:13:47 Martin Teasdale
I want.
00:13:48 Martin Teasdale
I want us warming up at 9:00.
00:13:52 Martin Teasdale
So we've got 45 minutes to warm up.
00:13:55 Martin Teasdale
That doesn't mean you're in the car park at 9:15. You're getting your boots on at 9:15.
00:14:00 Martin Teasdale
It means you're on the pitch and you're ready to to warm up and you can see.
00:14:05 Dave Hoekstra
So just to just to translate for my American friends, that means you're in the parking lot with your shoes on and on the field at that time.
Yeah.
00:14:15 Dave Hoekstra
Your cleats.
00:14:16 Dave Hoekstra
So just had to put it through the translation filter there.
00:14:19 Dave Hoekstra
Us, Martin.
00:14:19 Martin Teasdale
Thank you very much.
00:14:21 Dave Hoekstra
Yes, but I I know and and so it's almost like I wish everyone could spend a week working in workforce management just so you could see how time management plays such a critical role to to what we do.
00:14:33 Dave Hoekstra
It is.
00:14:34 Dave Hoekstra
I'm I'm very much I think even before I was in workforce management, I was the be early person. I I spent most of my college career sitting.
00:14:42 Dave Hoekstra
The the car park, as you would say, or the parking lot waiting for class to start because I was always so early. So I was never the guy who was late to stuff and I can.
00:14:51 Martin Teasdale
Fine.
00:14:52 Dave Hoekstra
Can certainly appreciate when people are like that and so we usually recognize it in others as well.
00:14:58 Dave Hoekstra
So let's talk about how did you get here? Now, you know, I know we've talked about the the podcast, but let's Flash forward.
00:15:05 Dave Hoekstra
How did you get into contact centers?
00:15:08 Dave Hoekstra
Did you get into workforce?
00:15:10 Dave Hoekstra
How did that whole process work for you?
00:15:12 Martin Teasdale
I think it's a story that a lot of people can probably relate to.
00:15:16 Martin Teasdale
Went to university once I graduated.
00:15:21 Martin Teasdale
I didn't necessarily have a plan as to what I wanted to do and.
00:15:26 Martin Teasdale
Got a wake up call that people were not jumping over themselves to hire a graduate?
00:15:32 Martin Teasdale
So I was having to pay rent in London, very expensive and thought you know what, I just, I just need to get a job.
00:15:41 Martin Teasdale
And I got a job as a, as an agent.
00:15:45 Martin Teasdale
In a small contact centre in Wembley and.
00:15:49 Martin Teasdale
My from interview.
00:15:52 Martin Teasdale
To being on the phones was about two hours.
00:15:55 Dave Hoekstra
Wow.
00:15:57 Martin Teasdale
So you know.
00:15:58 Martin Teasdale
It was a baptism of fire, and I wasn't sure at lunch time whether I was going to stay.
00:16:04 Martin Teasdale
I stayed. That first day was a challenge, but the second day I'd been bitten by the bug. It was.
00:16:12 Martin Teasdale
A camaraderie, the team spirit.
00:16:14 Martin Teasdale
You know, it's constantly on the go, things changing all the time.
00:16:19 Martin Teasdale
And I loved.
00:16:20 Martin Teasdale
Absolutely loved it and I stayed very much in.
00:16:24 Martin Teasdale
Operations to so as an agent for a couple of years, then a team leader after being a team leader, I moved into contact centre manager but it was as a team leader and then especially as a contact centre manager.
00:16:39 Martin Teasdale
But I started to really understand.
00:16:43 Martin Teasdale
The importance of.
00:16:45 Martin Teasdale
You know, I I made.
00:16:46 Martin Teasdale
I made a point of establishing a good relationship with them and understanding.
00:16:52 Martin Teasdale
The challenges they faced because initially I was a bit of a nightmare for them because I would randomly take my team off the phone to give them a brief and 'cause all kinds of chaos.
00:17:03 Martin Teasdale
It was only when I sat with my colleagues in WFM.
00:17:08 Martin Teasdale
And just understood how many plates they were trying to, you know, keep spinning and the ramifications of one of my actions had was, you know, tenfold.
00:17:19 Martin Teasdale
I then I then got a great relationship with them and really helped and I think it helped my team as well understand things like time off holiday, the impact of the impact of being late, the impact of absence.
00:17:34 Martin Teasdale
All of those things, WFM was my go to to give me knowledge to better equip my teams to understand where we sat in that kind of.
00:17:45 Martin Teasdale
Up, you know, contact centers are amazingly awesome operations with so many facets and disciplines all working together.
OK.
00:17:55 Martin Teasdale
It we are better when we better understand each other's challenges.
00:18:02 Martin Teasdale
After contact Centre manager.
00:18:07 Martin Teasdale
I got the.
00:18:08 Martin Teasdale
I was very lucky to have a contact centre director who saw more potential in me than I saw in myself.
00:18:15 Martin Teasdale
Was a huge champion of mine.
00:18:18 Martin Teasdale
Absolutely would kick me out my comfort zone.
00:18:21 Martin Teasdale
Found.
00:18:22 Martin Teasdale
I I became comfortable with being uncomfortable.
00:18:25 Martin Teasdale
And she gave me the opportunity to go and work in Istanbul in Turkey, which is a huge culture shock.
00:18:33 Martin Teasdale
In the end I.
00:18:34 Martin Teasdale
I was only meant to be there three months.
00:18:36 Martin Teasdale
In the end I ended up working living there for 2 1/2 years. Ended up running the contact center, made friends for life and I you know that's that's that's something across the globe.
00:18:49 Martin Teasdale
That you work in contact centers, you make friends for.
00:18:51 Martin Teasdale
You know, these are. These are people that I still talk to and I'll be meeting one of the guys that worked with me in London soon. And you know, it was very lucky ended up working in New York for a bit.
00:19:04 Martin Teasdale
Hamburg, and that's all through.
00:19:07 Martin Teasdale
Contact centres.
00:19:09 Martin Teasdale
I ended up working in QA and it was two years ago that I decided to go out on my own, both with get out of RAP and the and the team leader community.
00:19:24 Dave Hoekstra
Wow, that's. I mean, what a journey.
00:19:27 Dave Hoekstra
Getting to get into live and work in other cultures. It's funny.
00:19:31 Dave Hoekstra
Had.
00:19:32 Dave Hoekstra
I had very similar strong leader.
00:19:37 Dave Hoekstra
Story in mine I had. I was an agent.
00:19:40 Dave Hoekstra
I had done some new hire.
00:19:42 Dave Hoekstra
I had done some things and I thought, oh, I'd be really good at this training thing and I applied for a job at a another contact center as a trainer and sat down the interview and the first words out of.
00:19:55 Dave Hoekstra
The VA mouth, she said.
00:19:56 Dave Hoekstra
I don't see.
00:19:57 Dave Hoekstra
As a trainer, I was like.
OK.
00:20:00 Dave Hoekstra
You don't know me, but OK. And but she.
00:20:03 Dave Hoekstra
We're starting up this thing called the Command Center, and we think you'd be a really good part of it.
00:20:08 Dave Hoekstra
Was like you know.
00:20:09 Dave Hoekstra
Sure. You you pay me and I'm going to do whatever you ask me to do, right?
00:20:14 Dave Hoekstra
That was when I got my first taste of workforce management.
00:20:17 Dave Hoekstra
And yet I think you know, you said within two hours mine was maybe 2 days and.
00:20:23 Dave Hoekstra
I was like, oh, wow, I I think I like this.
00:20:26 Dave Hoekstra
There was so much room for process improvement and so much room for kind of those incremental.
00:20:33 Dave Hoekstra
Improvements that we we love and adore so much that it's it's funny, we we have AI think like you said, whenever two people in this industry compare careers, it's crazy how many parallels they're usually are.
00:20:48 Dave Hoekstra
Like I usually ask a lot of times in conventions or when I'm speaking to groups. How many of you got into this business because you were the one person that kind of knew excel?
00:20:59 Dave Hoekstra
You know, 75% rains in the room raises their hand and that's.
00:21:03 Dave Hoekstra
That's the way we.
00:21:04 Dave Hoekstra
It's it's, it's. It's a lot of.
00:21:06 Dave Hoekstra
So what a what a great, what a great.
00:21:09 Dave Hoekstra
And I'm really glad that it it brought us to this point because, you know, I feel like.
00:21:12 Martin Teasdale
Yeah. Agree.
00:21:15 Dave Hoekstra
Feel like there's a lot of cool things that are that are coming up and.
00:21:18 Dave Hoekstra
Speaking of which.
00:21:20 Dave Hoekstra
Not to just completely transition off the freeway here, but you and your team just completed a project with our team where we did a voice of the agent survey and we're really, really excited to get a lot of the results out of this that we did tell me.
00:21:40 Dave Hoekstra
Briefly.
00:21:40 Dave Hoekstra
What we did here to kind of give you the lay of.
00:21:42 Martin Teasdale
The land of the survey. It's probably the thing I'm most.
00:21:47 Martin Teasdale
Energized and proud of.
00:21:48 Martin Teasdale
I've done this year with you guys.
00:21:51 Martin Teasdale
Mean I.
00:21:53 Martin Teasdale
Your team are awesome, but we.
00:21:56 Martin Teasdale
It's a continuation of the work you've been doing over a number of years and.
00:22:02 Martin Teasdale
I.
00:22:02 Martin Teasdale
I've got involved for this year to talk to the voice of the agent and we went out to 12 to 15.
00:22:12 Martin Teasdale
Can't remember the exact number, but contact centres within the UK and across Europe.
00:22:17 Martin Teasdale
And surveyed over 500 agents.
00:22:22 Martin Teasdale
Awesome. I think 3034 questions that cover everything, every facet of their, their working life and their interaction with their life and work as well and.
00:22:37 Martin Teasdale
It has been, you know, we've been at this now for a few months and the the report was released this week and it has had the impact you would expect because the insurance.
00:22:50 Martin Teasdale
Has been fascinating, I think.
00:22:53 Martin Teasdale
I think this report will be used by people to update their thinking.
00:23:00 Martin Teasdale
Too, because you know what? It's.
00:23:01 Martin Teasdale
People have commonly held views that might have been born as a result of a survey or some stats that might be from a few years ago that haven't been updated and that kind of thing becomes.
00:23:16 Martin Teasdale
Common knowledge. There are some things within this report.
00:23:20 Martin Teasdale
This research that will challenge some of those beliefs, some of those thoughts, I would say, you know, this kind of lazy thinking, this this is taking people right to the heart of what you know it's statistically valid.
00:23:37 Martin Teasdale
What agents are thinking about how they our industry, how they interact with their leaders, how what they think of WFM, what they think of coaching?
00:23:48 Martin Teasdale
How they think about their career customers, technology, it's it's got everything and it's been it's been a real pleasure to to work with you guys.
00:23:58 Martin Teasdale
Are a company of extremely smart, dedicated, hard working people.
00:24:03 Martin Teasdale
I've just tried my best to keep up.
00:24:06 Dave Hoekstra
No, you're this is.
00:24:07 Dave Hoekstra
So anything that jumps out at you, right, right away from the survey, I mean, I would anytime I get a survey like this, not not to answer, but I see the.
00:24:16 Dave Hoekstra
Results I I really scan it real quick and just let my brain say, oh, pay attention to that is anything that jumps out at you that says immediately like this is this is a really great statistic or nugget.
00:24:28 Martin Teasdale
Well, be from a positive point of view. The one that I'm really really happy about is 64% of agents said they feel pride about working in the contact center industry.
00:24:44 Martin Teasdale
I absolutely did not expect that. I'm so I'm so happy to see.
Hello.
00:24:49 Martin Teasdale
There, there's real pride there.
00:24:52 Martin Teasdale
70% is.
00:24:54 Martin Teasdale
Yeah, 70% would recommend the role to a friend again. That's another really powerful statistic.
00:25:04 Martin Teasdale
And you.
00:25:04 Dave Hoekstra
Know I wouldn't have guessed half of that.
00:25:06 Dave Hoekstra
If you'd asked me what the what it's going to be before then. So that's really amazing to hear.
00:25:07 Martin Teasdale
Yeah.
00:25:10 Martin Teasdale
The Pride one if you if you'd have asked me before doing this research. If we asked 500 agents whether they were proud to be.
00:25:18 Martin Teasdale
Working in a contact centre, I would have said it's going to be low based on my own.
00:25:23 Martin Teasdale
You know, there was a time when I was working in financial services that when you meet people and they ask you what you do, I'd I'd say I worked for the name of the bank, but I didn't say that I did that work in a in a call.
00:25:36 Martin Teasdale
Or contact centre.
00:25:37 Martin Teasdale
There wasn't that pride.
00:25:39 Martin Teasdale
I I loved working in that in the industry, but I wouldn't share that. And and what this what that stat shows is?
00:25:47 Martin Teasdale
There is real pride there and that that is a great sign for the future, a great great sign for the future.
00:25:56 Martin Teasdale
So that that was the one that jumped out for sure.
Yeah.
00:25:59 Dave Hoekstra
That's. Yeah, I I, I, I agree like that one.
00:26:04 Dave Hoekstra
It.
00:26:05 Dave Hoekstra
It doesn't change.
00:26:07 Dave Hoekstra
It doesn't move the needle of.
00:26:10 Dave Hoekstra
It doesn't move the needle of cost versus quality it.
00:26:14 Dave Hoekstra
A lot of those typical KPI that we always focus really heavily on in the context.
00:26:19 Dave Hoekstra
But man, does it warm your heart and it makes you it makes you almost say you know what? OK.
00:26:25 Dave Hoekstra
OK, for me to be proud of it too.
00:26:27 Dave Hoekstra
Not that I wasn't, but when when the frontline people are the ones that are saying no, no, no, we're we're actually really glad to be here, it's like.
00:26:36 Dave Hoekstra
Oh, OK.
00:26:37 Dave Hoekstra
Don't.
00:26:37 Dave Hoekstra
Maybe I don't have to spend all my energy defending you guys anymore, right?
00:26:41 Dave Hoekstra
Maybe.
00:26:41 Dave Hoekstra
Maybe it's a result of?
00:26:43 Dave Hoekstra
Like you and me defending these guys.
00:26:46 Dave Hoekstra
Ad nauseam for the last 10 years that it finally started to change the trend a little bit, right?
People.
00:26:52 Dave Hoekstra
So yeah.
00:26:53 Dave Hoekstra
Tell you the one thing that kind of jumped out to me on this on this there's a there's a section of this about harnessing technology and how we can use technology. And one of the things that I was a result of this survey.
00:27:07 Dave Hoekstra
Is having these contact centers really start to embrace analytics now? We have historically had a lot of success with.
00:27:16 Dave Hoekstra
Qm departments embracing analytics, but not so much workforce management team. So as somebody who spent a lot of time with workforce managers, managers, how do we get workforce management excited about analytics and by analytics, I'm typically meaning right speech to text transcription, analyzing the the words and.
00:27:37 Dave Hoekstra
That come in and then providing insights based on what people are saying and calling.
00:27:42 Dave Hoekstra
We haven't had a lot of luck getting workforce managers really.
00:27:45 Dave Hoekstra
How would how would you get a workforce manager to start to focus on analytics?
00:27:50 Martin Teasdale
I I think analytics is is critical.
00:27:52 Martin Teasdale
And as I mentioned at the start, this kind of relationship, I got better, our teams got better because I had a good relationship with WFM. This research shows the importance that agents put on WFM.
00:28:07 Martin Teasdale
And the need for analytics and the need for people within WFM who understand it, produce it. The key I think is then when they when they're sharing it, they're using analytics to tell stories.
00:28:22 Martin Teasdale
The the number one thing for me when you're in operations and you're.
00:28:27 Martin Teasdale
Chasing all your metrics and everything is fast and everything needs to be done quickly.
00:28:32 Martin Teasdale
You need to get to the. So what an analytics does that that for me, that's what insight is.
00:28:39 Martin Teasdale
So you can take all of this data. You can take all of these reports through analytics.
00:28:44 Martin Teasdale
Can say ah, this is the Pareto moment.
00:28:48 Martin Teasdale
This is where.
00:28:49 Martin Teasdale
I've managed to find the 20% that equals 80%.
00:28:57 Martin Teasdale
And.
00:28:59 Martin Teasdale
Your your WFM people that are out there right now need to be the storytellers.
00:29:06 Martin Teasdale
They need to be the people that come with the insight and say what our stats are showing us is this, which means this.
00:29:14 Martin Teasdale
You know, because once you then get to the. So what?
00:29:17 Martin Teasdale
Because we can all get given dashboards.
00:29:21 Martin Teasdale
And I remember doing some work with a financial regulator over in the UK and they produced big a three dashboards every single day.
00:29:32 Martin Teasdale
Would would share them across the teams and someone was sat at their desk with this huge dashboard and it looked great.
Hugh.
00:29:39 Martin Teasdale
Every kind of chart table you can you can think of and I said.
00:29:45 Martin Teasdale
Where do you start on?
00:29:46 Martin Teasdale
What? What's the thing that drives the most activity for you and your team or changes your behaviour or helps you understand how a process can be improved?
00:29:55 Martin Teasdale
How best to utilise your schedules?
00:29:59 Martin Teasdale
And the manager that I was with said, oh, but don't don't use it anymore. It's just.
00:30:06 Martin Teasdale
You know, so all of this activity that people were putting all of this work into just wasn't being used because.
00:30:13 Martin Teasdale
You say analytics, you know that kind of analysing what the data is telling you so that you can go and make a difference. And I don't think there's anyone better to do that than competent people from WFM.
00:30:29 Martin Teasdale
So if people have that functionality.
00:30:33 Martin Teasdale
Through your.
00:30:34 Martin Teasdale
Through your kit, your services, they have access to you and they're not using it.
00:30:38 Martin Teasdale
You know that this is something that can supercharge their performance.
00:30:42 Martin Teasdale
They just need to tap into it.
00:30:45 Dave Hoekstra
One of the surprising things that I learned at our annual user event C3, we had a really great session from one of our customers and he talked about how he merged the QM and WFM departments together and they all report up to him. And I remember turning.
00:31:02 Dave Hoekstra
Their room and asking.
00:31:04 Dave Hoekstra
How many of you?
00:31:06 Dave Hoekstra
In a QMW FM department.
00:31:09 Dave Hoekstra
Apartment and I think more hands went up than I expected, but still not nearly enough.
00:31:15 Dave Hoekstra
Would you say you're a big proponent of making those departments in one section, like led by 1 leader?
00:31:24 Martin Teasdale
I think, well, I've seen some.
00:31:26 Martin Teasdale
I've been lucky enough to do judging for a number of years for the European awards over here, and there was some really progressive companies who.
00:31:37 Martin Teasdale
Have merged them because what they and their rationale is these are people. So Q Emma analysing interactions, producing data that leads to insight. Wfm are analysing behaviour, customer behaviour, call contact behaviour.
00:31:56 Martin Teasdale
Employee behaviour gathering a great deal of data and it's not just about the continuation, the running of the machine, it's about making.
00:32:07 Martin Teasdale
Operation better.
00:32:09 Martin Teasdale
Those two departments.
00:32:11 Martin Teasdale
Are your expert areas for that, so that kind of cross pollinisation I think can can work really well. I think dependent on where the where your centre is.
00:32:24 Martin Teasdale
The makeup of the team. How?
00:32:26 Martin Teasdale
Good, your technology is.
00:32:29 Martin Teasdale
You've got to be.
00:32:30 Martin Teasdale
It's got to be a.
00:32:31 Martin Teasdale
It's got to be a considered thing because I think if you jump straight into that you could cause some confusion, but I've I've seen it work really really well.
00:32:40 Martin Teasdale
Know it.
00:32:41 Martin Teasdale
It does make a difference.
00:32:43 Dave Hoekstra
Like like a lot of things, it comes back down to the.
00:32:47 Dave Hoekstra
The the the person or persons that are putting the strategy together. If you just said OK, everybody reports to me now that not really going to change things, but.
00:32:58 Dave Hoekstra
Utilizing those tools 'cause as a W FM person, the thing that I got the most excited about, the kind of analytics was.
00:33:08 Dave Hoekstra
I was always understaffed always. And so if you could tell me a scenario where I could potentially find out how to reduce my call volume just a little bit, even if it's take away 25 calls a day.
00:33:24 Dave Hoekstra
That the power of 1 proves that that could swing the needle the other direction.
00:33:30 Dave Hoekstra
So how could I find a way to get better at reducing the number of calls we take? And so by looking at things like callbacks or first call resolution or?
00:33:40 Dave Hoekstra
Finding those keywords.
00:33:43 Dave Hoekstra
It was huge for me and I also find this is no disparagement on our QM teams, but I also find that the analytical minds tend to reside a little more in the the workforce management department.
Yeah.
00:33:57 Dave Hoekstra
Than in the QM department and giving them, giving us nerds access to that kind of information can usually lead to really good things. You just really need a good set of checks and balances to work through.
00:34:10 Dave Hoekstra
So yeah, I appreciate that.
00:34:10 Martin Teasdale
100%.
00:34:12 Martin Teasdale
I think we're we're much more open now.
00:34:14 Martin Teasdale
It sounds like you were way ahead of the curve.
00:34:17 Martin Teasdale
But I think generally speaking, we're much more open to the things like marginal gains.
00:34:23 Martin Teasdale
You know what are the small things we can work on that once you you keep doing them and if you can, if you can.
00:34:31 Martin Teasdale
Release your teams, because I I get I completely agree with your point about the difference sometimes between WFM and QA.
00:34:39 Martin Teasdale
Because but that I think that's because the QAQM teams haven't been given freedom to say look rather than just saying whether something has or hasn't happened really start to think about the interaction.
00:34:56 Martin Teasdale
Tell us what what good is?
00:34:57 Martin Teasdale
Us what good is?
00:34:58 Martin Teasdale
Show us how we can be better for the customer, you know.
00:35:01 Martin Teasdale
Because I think all of us will have examples of I worked with a guy from.
00:35:08 Martin Teasdale
He was a WFM manager and the more he produced, the more he started to share things with the wider business and said, oh, I've had a look at this and I think we can, you know, you talk about that kind of reducing calls.
00:35:23 Martin Teasdale
Ways to reduce AHT, reduce call dropout, really improve our callbacks which were a huge huge area.
00:35:35 Martin Teasdale
Once that was added up, you know in terms of return on investment, all of a sudden this guy got given a wider remit. He was able to upskill his team and that then morphed into.
00:35:50 Martin Teasdale
Something that is still WFM, but it's actually really providing.
00:35:55 Martin Teasdale
All process improvement, continuous improvement efficiencies he was giving U.S. data and ammunition to help us make our teams better, make our processes better. And that all came from.
00:36:07 Martin Teasdale
Somebody that was probably. Yeah. I was good at Excel.
00:36:12 Dave Hoekstra
Yeah.
00:36:13 Dave Hoekstra
Yeah. And my favorite thing about this, this process is happening in the technology, in our industry and with the various vendors that are out there doing this process is that the line is really starting to blur between all of these different departments, right?
00:36:29 Dave Hoekstra
Qm departments are trending much more towards being analytics gurus than they are just the listen to calls and score the calls, right? Wfm and QM.
00:36:40 Dave Hoekstra
And then analytics are now all starting to kind of weave into this.
00:36:45 Dave Hoekstra
You know the departments are not even called WFM anymore, right?
00:36:49 Dave Hoekstra
Just the analytics department, that kind of.
00:36:52 Dave Hoekstra
And so we're starting to see some really cool things in the way the different software products are are merging together too.
00:37:00 Dave Hoekstra
That's what's really exciting.
00:37:01 Martin Teasdale
Does that? Does that make it harder for you guys?
00:37:04 Martin Teasdale
Always thought about.
00:37:07 Martin Teasdale
Being, you know, by the time I got to be a senior leader, we would put out RFPs and we wanted to upgrade.
00:37:17 Martin Teasdale
Or gain new new technology.
00:37:20 Martin Teasdale
And you you only you know I've only really seen it from one side of the of the table.
00:37:25 Martin Teasdale
But given how much crossover there is now, given how technology's changing so so quickly, I've often wondered, you know, from your point of view.
00:37:36 Martin Teasdale
How?
00:37:37 Martin Teasdale
Could I have been a better?
00:37:40 Martin Teasdale
Or a better potential customer in that process.
00:37:46 Dave Hoekstra
I am so glad you asked me that, that, that, that is such a great, you know, just so, so, you know, I, you know, I was I did pre sales for many, many years.
00:37:56 Dave Hoekstra
Lots of software demos working with sales teams and working with lots of different prospective customers.
00:38:03 Dave Hoekstra
How could you be a better prospect? I think #1.
00:38:09 Dave Hoekstra
Honesty is really tough to come by from a customer, right?
00:38:15 Dave Hoekstra
You think about the process of you going and you buy a car and it's everything is keep it keep keep it under the vest and and hide it and never share the never share your feelings and there's some truth to that but.
00:38:28 Dave Hoekstra
So many times we would work with a prospect, we would work with them only to find out that once the deal is signed and we start the militation process.
00:38:40 Dave Hoekstra
That there was actually 10 things that weren't really shared as part of this process.
00:38:48 Dave Hoekstra
And that goes both ways, right?
00:38:51 Dave Hoekstra
Some vendors are not exactly as forthcoming as other things, but when you can be honest, I'd say right up to the line of being brutally honest with a vendor. You are going to help them.
00:39:03 Dave Hoekstra
So much. Understand what they what they can and can't provide.
00:39:07 Dave Hoekstra
You know, we all want your business.
00:39:09 Dave Hoekstra
We all want to be part of that process.
00:39:13 Dave Hoekstra
Honesty can can really, really help if you're just forthcoming and say you know what.
00:39:18 Dave Hoekstra
We can't afford that price.
00:39:19 Dave Hoekstra
Oh.
00:39:20 Dave Hoekstra
Well, let's go back to the drawing board and see what happens.
00:39:24 Dave Hoekstra
Hey, you know we right up front.
00:39:26 Dave Hoekstra
The number one thing is if you cannot integrate into X platform, we have to go find another thing right? Being very clear about what are those deal Breakers can actually save so much time and energy.
00:39:41 Dave Hoekstra
That's a, that's another.
00:39:43 Dave Hoekstra
That's a huge part of of of doing it and say the other thing too is.
00:39:50 Dave Hoekstra
This is probably maybe a bit controversial, but again you ask the question.
00:39:57 Dave Hoekstra
We have had so many situations where.
00:40:03 Dave Hoekstra
The sales process goes well the the you know, the contract is signed that everything is everything is going just smashing.
00:40:11 Dave Hoekstra
And then we get into the implementation process and we don't get good commitment from the the parties involved. People don't show up to all the trainings. People don't.
00:40:23 Dave Hoekstra
Their schedules are tough to reconcile.
00:40:27 Dave Hoekstra
You know, they sometimes just don't pay attention, right?
00:40:30 Dave Hoekstra
Sometimes somebody gets let go in the middle of training, right?
00:40:35 Dave Hoekstra
Those things happen.
00:40:36 Dave Hoekstra
Right. But the number of times where we come back and reevaluate the situation after the implementation and the customers like we don't really have the highest confidence in you guys. And I'll go talk to the consultant who did the training and they're like nobody was there.
00:40:54 Dave Hoekstra
Nobody showed up like I couldn't like so and so was on their phone the whole time we were there.
00:40:59 Dave Hoekstra
Person stepped out every half hour for another.
00:41:02 Dave Hoekstra
And you know, we just we only have a certain amount of time to do these so.
00:41:07 Dave Hoekstra
Really, really committing to the process is a big thing, and if you're not going to commit to the process.
00:41:12 Dave Hoekstra
Not go through the.
00:41:13 Dave Hoekstra
So those are a couple things that I would say.
00:41:18 Dave Hoekstra
And then maybe finally, the answer to.
00:41:21 Dave Hoekstra
The overall question is, you know when you're going through this evaluation process, they have a button.
00:41:28 Dave Hoekstra
Have a.
00:41:28 Dave Hoekstra
They have a.
00:41:29 Dave Hoekstra
We have a feature and those are important.
00:41:31 Dave Hoekstra
But I also would say look at the relationship as well.
00:41:35 Dave Hoekstra
This is a really, really big part.
00:41:37 Dave Hoekstra
Do you?
00:41:38 Dave Hoekstra
Do you like the people you're buying from?
00:41:40 Dave Hoekstra
You get the good vibe from them.
00:41:42 Dave Hoekstra
They do they.
00:41:42 Dave Hoekstra
Do they work well and?
00:41:44 Dave Hoekstra
You know sales is sales and ultimate for a lot of.
00:41:47 Dave Hoekstra
It comes down to the the cost and what you're going to get, but relationships do matter in this industry and you know are you are you going to get the kind of support and service and contact ability with these?
00:42:00 Dave Hoekstra
With those people. So.
00:42:02 Dave Hoekstra
I little bit of a rant.
00:42:03 Dave Hoekstra
I'm stepping off my soapbox now, Martin, but that's a great question. Thank you for asking.
00:42:04 Martin Teasdale
Yeah.
00:42:08 Martin Teasdale
I love it because what I heard was be candid.
00:42:12 Martin Teasdale
Be committed. You know you're spot on. You absolutely need.
00:42:17 Martin Teasdale
Great team that are going to. Otherwise what's the point that that would really, really frustrate me to to have that feedback to to us as the as the customer. If our teams hadn't shown up bearing in mind.
00:42:34 Martin Teasdale
We're whatever we're doing would be would be getting this technology or service to make things better.
00:42:39 Martin Teasdale
You need people committed.
00:42:44 Martin Teasdale
You know, and that kind of the the relationship I think is is again you've hit the nail on the head.
00:42:49 Martin Teasdale
I can remember being in in some of those discovery meetings and you'd think if this is how these guys are showing up now.
00:42:59 Dave Hoekstra
When when commissions are on the line.
00:43:01 Dave Hoekstra
When, when quotas are on the line, right?
00:43:03 Martin Teasdale
Yeah.
00:43:04 Dave Hoekstra
That's that's a fantastic way of looking at. It is like the.
00:43:08 Dave Hoekstra
This this process that we're out right now is the most responsive that we're going to give, but they're they're going to be in this and you know I I I think it's a I'll give one more tip.
00:43:14 Martin Teasdale
Yeah.
00:43:19 Dave Hoekstra
Is a great tip that I received from an old boss of mine that I used to watch him in action as we as we went through.
00:43:26 Dave Hoekstra
Software vendor demos.
00:43:30 Dave Hoekstra
There are two words that could mean the difference between the feature doing what you want and the feature not doing you want.
00:43:37 Dave Hoekstra
Those two words are show me.
00:43:40 Dave Hoekstra
It's shocking to me how many people in a software discovery or a demo session they say does your software do X.
00:43:50 Dave Hoekstra
And the person says yes it does.
00:43:52 Dave Hoekstra
They say great, thank you.
00:43:56 Dave Hoekstra
Right. And then they find out later it doesn't work the way they want it to.
00:43:59 Dave Hoekstra
Maybe does it have the right boxes to check?
00:44:03 Dave Hoekstra
Show me and you have to be.
00:44:05 Dave Hoekstra
You don't have to be like aggressive about.
00:44:07 Dave Hoekstra
Just can you show me how it works? If they don't show you how it works?
00:44:12 Dave Hoekstra
It might be a reason they don't show you how it works.
00:44:14 Dave Hoekstra
If you say show me and.
00:44:15 Dave Hoekstra
They walk you through that.
00:44:16 Dave Hoekstra
Process. You know that that is a that is a a key thing.
00:44:22 Dave Hoekstra
Yeah, I think great.
00:44:23 Dave Hoekstra
Thanks for asking and hopefully hopefully we can continue in these sessions to give people advice on how to deal with these groups. 'cause. You know, there's a there's an art to it at the time, so.
00:44:34 Dave Hoekstra
All right, Martin, we've now gotten to my favorite part of of.
00:44:39 Dave Hoekstra
And so every time we have somebody on that does that has been in the contact center industry for a while. We do what I like to call the call center lifer quiz.
00:44:48 Dave Hoekstra
So have a few questions for you.
00:44:50 Dave Hoekstra
Hopefully nothing too challenging, but this is just to get.
00:44:52 Dave Hoekstra
Know Martin a little.
OK.
00:44:54 Dave Hoekstra
So first question in the call center lifer quiz, what is your favorite KPI?
00:44:59 Martin Teasdale
Great question.
00:45:01 Martin Teasdale
Great.
00:45:02 Martin Teasdale
My favorite would be.
00:45:07 Martin Teasdale
Employee engagement.
00:45:08 Martin Teasdale
So you know Esat or enps, it would be the response my teams would give in a in a survey in how they're how they're feeling.
00:45:21 Dave Hoekstra
Awesome. OK.
00:45:22 Dave Hoekstra
Good, good answer.
00:45:23 Dave Hoekstra
Right.
00:45:24 Dave Hoekstra
In your career, what was that moment or moments where you said I kind of like this?
00:45:32 Martin Teasdale
It would be, I think, from the kind of leadership point, it would be my first meeting with.
00:45:40 Martin Teasdale
The Contact Centre director I I mentioned it was.
00:45:46 Martin Teasdale
Phenomenal. You know that it just I felt.
00:45:50 Martin Teasdale
I felt like I could do anything and I would do anything for for this leader and it kind of it showed me what real leadership looks like and just what a fantastic environment to be able to to try out the contact center world was.
00:46:06 Martin Teasdale
I was already hooked, but I didn't quite know what I wanted to.
00:46:10 Martin Teasdale
And then after after my first interaction, which was with our new, our new boss, very first meeting, I came bouncing out and I was like I I'm going to love working for her and I want to be a leader halfway as good would be great.
And.
00:46:27 Dave Hoekstra
OK, fantastic. Now I feel like we might have already answered this question, but who's the person who had the biggest impact on your career?
00:46:35 Martin Teasdale
Yes, I don't mind Tara Mullin.
00:46:37 Martin Teasdale
Her name is her name still. And yeah, she was.
00:46:42 Martin Teasdale
Phenomenal that, you know, there's there's been plenty of other people.
00:46:47 Martin Teasdale
A guy called Andrew Mutch, who was my last boss when I was employed again.
00:46:54 Martin Teasdale
Huge supporters of what I do now as well, and I think that kind of.
00:46:59 Martin Teasdale
You know those bonds that.
00:47:01 Martin Teasdale
That you form and someone believing in you when you might not always believe in yourself.
00:47:07 Martin Teasdale
But they're equally happy to take you out your comfort zone and challenge you.
00:47:10 Martin Teasdale
Yeah, those two in particular.
00:47:14 Dave Hoekstra
Awesome and I.
00:47:15 Dave Hoekstra
So the next question I think you've kind of already answered, but maybe a little more detail, what was what was that first?
00:47:20 Dave Hoekstra
Was the first time you put on the headset.
00:47:22 Dave Hoekstra
Was the job.
00:47:23 Martin Teasdale
So it was we would doing stationary sales believe it or not. So we would do office supplies.
00:47:30 Martin Teasdale
To so.
00:47:31 Dave Hoekstra
Oh, a little Dunder Mifflin action there. Yeah, OK.
00:47:32 Martin Teasdale
Yeah, yeah, another another show I absolutely.
00:47:36 Martin Teasdale
I prefer the US office to the UK1.
00:47:41 Martin Teasdale
Yeah, I'm not sure.
00:47:42 Dave Hoekstra
I won't tell Ricky Gervais.
00:47:43 Dave Hoekstra
Said that, but OK.
Replay.
00:47:44 Dave Hoekstra
Ahead.
00:47:44 Martin Teasdale
He doesn't.
00:47:45 Martin Teasdale
He still gets paid.
00:47:47 Martin Teasdale
Yeah. So yeah, it was it.
00:47:49 Martin Teasdale
It was stationary sales and my as I mentioned, the training, the training was here's the phone system you gonna use and here's our catalogue.
00:47:57 Martin Teasdale
Have an hour reading that.
00:47:59 Martin Teasdale
And away you go.
00:48:01 Martin Teasdale
In fact, once I for a small art Gallery in London.
00:48:05 Martin Teasdale
And then I misread the size of bubble wrap that they needed, and I sent them a truck's worth of like 7 foot bubble wrap.
00:48:17 Martin Teasdale
And they they they sent. They were good sports about it, but they sent a picture.
00:48:22 Martin Teasdale
Of their, their team stood next to this. This bubble wrap like.
00:48:27 Dave Hoekstra
It's just like it's spidel tap when they make the Stonehenge.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, I love.
00:48:33 Dave Hoekstra
It that's great.
00:48:34 Dave Hoekstra
Well, that's and it's funny, I would bet.
00:48:37 Dave Hoekstra
All the money I have.
00:48:39 Dave Hoekstra
That those stories still pop into your head all the time when you're talking to others about being in a contact center.
00:48:46 Dave Hoekstra
Think.
00:48:47 Martin Teasdale
Oh, just I I was telling someone the other day. Actually, again, someone not from the industry.
00:48:53 Martin Teasdale
You know how amazing it can.
00:48:55 Martin Teasdale
And the laughs that you have. And I think this is really important for people to be in the moment and, you know, just appreciate the where they're at because.
00:49:04 Martin Teasdale
I I can remember getting a customer on the phone. Who?
00:49:07 Martin Teasdale
It was absolutely livid, was just screaming, screaming at me from the word go and I'm I'm very laid back.
00:49:15 Martin Teasdale
I'm very calm.
00:49:16 Martin Teasdale
I never really.
00:49:17 Martin Teasdale
I don't really lose my.
00:49:18 Martin Teasdale
I never did then, but when the call finished I.
00:49:23 Martin Teasdale
Took my headset and just kind of threw it at my screen and with perfect comedy timing that my mate that was sat next to me just sort of turned round and went.
00:49:34 Martin Teasdale
Best call you've ever had.
Not.
00:49:37 Martin Teasdale
That just made.
00:49:38 Martin Teasdale
It just made me laugh and I was able to just get straight back into the to the next caller, you know, because of because of him.
Yeah.
00:49:47 Dave Hoekstra
I think I think the.
00:49:48 Dave Hoekstra
Thing from a you.
Know.
00:49:51 Dave Hoekstra
Doing remote work, the one thing that I think probably is the biggest detractor of that is not having that.
00:50:00 Dave Hoekstra
That buddy, that person you sit next to it, really get to know my mind was Joe Jimenez.
00:50:06 Dave Hoekstra
Joe, if you're listening, you're, you're the guy that he sat next to me, and we would just have such a good time taking calls during the day and.
00:50:15 Dave Hoekstra
Still still have such great memories of that.
00:50:18 Dave Hoekstra
Final question of the call center lifer quiz. What's the biggest mistake that you made that others could benefit from knowing about?
Oh.
00:50:27 Martin Teasdale
That's a great 1, so my first, the one that I probably refer to the most was when I first became A-Team leader.
00:50:36 Martin Teasdale
Failed miserably because I alienated half of my team.
00:50:40 Martin Teasdale
Well, maybe even more than half, because I made the assumption the MIS assumption. I thought everyone was motivated like me, communicated like how I like to be communicated to.
00:50:54 Dave Hoekstra
Thought. Thought.
00:50:55 Dave Hoekstra
Things the same way you thought about things.
00:50:55 Martin Teasdale
Yeah.
00:50:56 Martin Teasdale
Know. So I was high energy.
00:50:59 Martin Teasdale
We, the team I have, the team I took over was one of the lowest in our performance rankings and I love that and I my first meeting with the team was like this is we're going to be the Phoenix from the Flames.
00:51:12 Martin Teasdale
Going to be amazing.
00:51:14 Martin Teasdale
We're going to show everyone's very competitive.
00:51:17 Martin Teasdale
I said we're gonna have.
00:51:18 Martin Teasdale
And you know, just it was, I could.
00:51:22 Martin Teasdale
I lost half the team straight away because I didn't take the time to consider them as individuals and to understand how we could build a collective bond through everybody's idiosyncrasies.
00:51:35 Martin Teasdale
So it would be to take the time to understand your team.
00:51:40 Martin Teasdale
And that you are going to have to amend your communication.
00:51:44 Martin Teasdale
You know some some people respond really well to very visible reward and recognition.
00:51:50 Martin Teasdale
Hate it.
00:51:50 Martin Teasdale
You've got to know that you know. So yeah, that it would be that first because I was crestfallen.
00:51:57 Martin Teasdale
I thought I was going to be an amazing team leader.
00:52:00 Martin Teasdale
Straight from the word go.
00:52:02 Martin Teasdale
And I absolutely wasn't.
00:52:04 Martin Teasdale
But you know something like that sticks with you.
00:52:08 Dave Hoekstra
Now that's.
00:52:09 Dave Hoekstra
It's like, you know, take a look at. But you know, it's funny.
00:52:13 Dave Hoekstra
Don't think anybody.
00:52:16 Dave Hoekstra
In their first kind of management assignment.
00:52:20 Dave Hoekstra
You have to learn that by failing you you you almost have to you.
00:52:23 Dave Hoekstra
Nobody comes into these things immediately and says I.
00:52:26 Dave Hoekstra
Know.
00:52:27 Dave Hoekstra
The magic tricks to making a team work together.
00:52:29 Dave Hoekstra
It reminds me of the.
00:52:30 Dave Hoekstra
Bad news, bear, so I don't know if you're a fan or not, but the the 70s version of bad news bears or the the team of Misfits and the coach that.
00:52:38 Dave Hoekstra
Doesn't want to be.
00:52:38 Dave Hoekstra
And now they all kind of come together.
00:52:41 Dave Hoekstra
That's fantastic. Well, mark.
00:52:43 Dave Hoekstra
This has been a pleasure, but you have one more assignment. I always give our guests the last word. So if you have one piece of advice or one thing you'd like to share with our listeners, the floor is yours.
00:52:56 Martin Teasdale
I would say much like the agents of just.
00:52:58 Martin Teasdale
Shown us through.
00:53:00 Martin Teasdale
The voice of the.
00:53:01 Martin Teasdale
Research from Calabria and myself is take pride in in our industry and let people know where, you know, we are a great industry to to work in.
00:53:13 Martin Teasdale
We need.
00:53:13 Martin Teasdale
We need to talk about that more.
00:53:16 Dave Hoekstra
That's fantastic.
00:53:18 Dave Hoekstra
Well, thank you so much for joining us here on the workingsmart. This has been an absolute pleasure.
00:53:19 Martin Teasdale
Thanks.
00:53:19 Martin Teasdale
Having me.
00:53:23 Dave Hoekstra
Do another episode or two.
00:53:24 Dave Hoekstra
Is great.
00:53:25 Martin Teasdale
Please to come on my podcast.
00:53:28 Dave Hoekstra
Remember, OK. Deal done.
00:53:31 Dave Hoekstra
Yeah, we'll, we'll, we'll make that happen and then we can ask all the great questions.
00:53:36 Dave Hoekstra
So thank you so much for joining us.
00:53:37 Dave Hoekstra
Been fantastic to our listeners out.
00:53:40 Dave Hoekstra
Make sure you check out get out of Rap podcast with with Martin as well as the the team leader community that's out there looking to help other contact centers and other.
00:53:52 Dave Hoekstra
Talent in our in our system here.
00:53:55 Dave Hoekstra
Learn and grow.
00:53:56 Dave Hoekstra
That's what it's all about. If you were to ask me the biggest mistake in my career was not knowing that there are other communities and there are people out there to help. And that's what you guys are trying to do with.
00:54:06 Dave Hoekstra
What you're doing, and we really appreciate it, so.
00:54:08 Dave Hoekstra
For the rest of you guys, I'm going to put a link to the survey results in our show notes so that you guys have access to be able to see that connect with Martin on LinkedIn.
00:54:18 Dave Hoekstra
Ask him.
00:54:19 Dave Hoekstra
Tell him that he's he's the second best podcaster in the country.
00:54:23 Dave Hoekstra
Industry that's really great to hear. But Martin again, thanks for joining us.
00:54:27 Dave Hoekstra
Appreciate it.
00:54:28 Martin Teasdale
No, I've loved it and I'm quite happy with the silver medal.
00:54:31 Dave Hoekstra
Oh no.
00:54:32 Dave Hoekstra
Whatever, don't even start with me.
All right.
00:54:34 Dave Hoekstra
Thank you everybody.
00:54:36 Dave Hoekstra
Have a great rest of your day from everybody here at calabrio and get out of rap.
00:54:40 Dave Hoekstra
We really appreciate the time and we'll talk to you again on the next episode of Working Smarter from collaborative Bye everybody.
00:54:45 Martin Teasdale
Thank you, Dave.
I.
