Category: Podcasts

Relationship Building Boosts Employee Retention

This week’s guest is Christian Smalls, iQor operations manager in Charleston, South Carolina. Christian oversees a team of about 100 full-time employees. Her management approach is driven by relationship building on all fronts. In this episode, we explore how she has learned the value of relationship-building throughout her career journey in the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector. We find out how she goes about building stronger employee relationships and we see the positive impacts that has on employee retention and client outcomes.

Paving the Way to Relationship Building

Today, Christian oversees a team of about 100 full-time employees across three lines of business in her role as operations manager in Charleston, South Carolina. Relationship building guides her approach to managing the agents, team leads, quality analysts, and supervisors on her team.

Christian joined iQor in 2003 as an agent and embraced all opportunities to learn the ins and outs of customer service. She took part in iQor’s mentoring program for new hires and by 2005 was promoted to supervisor supporting multiple lines of business. She took full advantage of mentoring, training, and other learning and development opportunities over the years, ultimately becoming operations manager in 2015.

In her current role, Christian’s daily responsibilities center on formulating strategies for managing performance and financials for three lines of business. She meets regularly with clients and conducts business reviews on top of managing her team’s performance. She also oversees P&L statements for her team.

The success of these day-to-day responsibilities comes from the strong foundation Christian has built for her leadership strategy. It all rests on relationship building. Her priority is building relationships with her peers, direct reports, leadership team, and clients—everything stems from her relationships.

The Impact of Relationship Building

It is critically important to Christian that she excels at relationship building in order to meet success in all other areas of her role. But, what does that look like with increasing numbers of employees working from home? How can she build relationships effectively when she can’t simply walk up to a colleague, say hello, and strike up a conversation?

Christian conducts daily morning cheQ-ins with her team leads before she and her team start their day. This is increasingly important in a work-at-home environment. Christian recognizes the importance of a healthy work-life balance and being mentally prepared each day. She and her team members use this opportunity to talk game plans, review the previous day’s performance metrics, or discuss anything else of importance in the moment.

An essential part of these conversations is Christian’s genuine concern for her team’s wellbeing—checking in on her team members, asking how they are feeling, and really listening and responding to their answers. By building meaningful connections with her team, Christian ensures her employees feel connected and supported. Building these strong relationships improves employee engagement, reduces employee turnover, and creates an environment in which employees are willing to go the extra mile.

These connections spur productivity and help everyone truly feel part of a collaborative team working towards the same end goal and enjoying the ride along the way. They make going to work a more enjoyable experience, help everyone grow and feel connected, and yield better results for the team and for clients.

In addition to the standing morning cheQ-ins, Christian also engages in a group chat with her team leads to stay connected as they support their lines of business throughout the day.

Christian strongly believes, as her experiences have proven, that people will work harder and stay longer if they feel connected and appreciated. No one wants to disappoint and everyone feels empowered and motivated to do their best when they feel valued and connected. Her commitment to building relationships produces greater job satisfaction, high employee morale, and an excellent employee experience overall.

Growing From Relationships

Relationship building and mentoring is part of iQor’s company culture. Throughout Christian’s years of experience at iQor she has grown with the support of many strong leaders. One mentor in particular stands out for recognizing the potential in Christian when she was a supervisor in ways she herself didn’t see.

Her mentor invested the time to cultivate Christian’s leadership potential, deepening her understanding of operations from the business perspective and helping her analyze different impacts on the business and financials. Her mentor guided her client relationships to help her see even more that she could do to elevate the employee and client experience. Moreover, Christian’s mentor prodded her to step outside her comfort zone, speak up, and work towards reaching the next level of leadership as she continued to learn and grow.

Christian embraced the opportunities her mentor presented her to try different strategies and learn new things. This mentoring and guidance opened doors for Christian, ultimately leading to where she is now in her own leadership journey. The confidence and trust Christian’s mentor placed in her empowered her to support iQor’s business in myriad ways and helped her realize how it really is possible to Be More With iQor.

Customers, Employees, Owners Initiative

iQor’s customers, employees, owners (CEO) initiative is one that Christian is proud to be a part of. From customers, to employees, to the “o” in owners that represents everyone at iQor having a stake in creating valuable employee experiences.

Christian’s role in this global initiative focuses on developing and retaining iQor employees. She works with global operations leaders to reduce attrition and develop strategies for retaining agents. Together they review processes and procedures and evaluate where improvements can be made, from initial contact and onboarding to nesting and production. They review data and reporting metrics to strategically reduce attrition and generate happy employees.

One way the group helps to develop and retain employees is by creating program targets. The targets (often guided by best practices) are created to enhance reporting and help identify trends and areas for improvement to boost employee retention. Better retention means higher levels of employee engagement with stronger and happier employees. This, in turn, yields deeper levels of customer service expertise and improves profit margins across the board.

The Benefits of Boosting Retention

A company culture that focuses on creating positive work environments not only benefits employees but also helps the organization and clients. Indeed, employee retention produces numerous benefits for businesses.

First, improving employee retention produces a stronger network of highly skilled workers while boosting profitability. The more we retain agents and staff, the more time we can invest in them rather than depending solely on new hires. We can vet and cultivate strong workers.

Second, retention advances client relationships and improves the ability to staff client programs. Programs with a strong tenured base of employees facilitate stronger relationships with clients with improved productivity. A lower turnover rate enables clients to know agents, not just frontline leaders, by name. This builds confidence throughout the program, from agent to management to client. These connections open the door to more business, increased growth, and stronger key performance indicators (KPIs). Employee retention deepens employee product knowledge on client programs and improves the quality of customer interactions. That, in turn, generates opportunities to hire more employees and offer career growth potential by promoting from within.

Third, employee retention improves employee morale and performance. CheQ-ins with employees build relationships that boost morale and increase retention, which ultimately creates positive professional experiences that connect back to the organization. If employees are happy they will work harder, perform better, and yield stronger results with a great attitude. Positivity spreads, whether in a work-at-home or work-in-office environment, and retention supports that.

Fourth, employee retention improves the ability to recruit skilled and loyal candidates. It boosts confidence and competition in the pursuit of excellence. High retention rates have generated a competitive staff while helping to attract more skilled candidates that are more likely to stay because it truly is a great place to work.

In sum, building strong relationships with employees and cultivating them on a daily basis has widespread benefits for everyone within the organization and the clients and customers it serves. Christian’s commitment to listening and building relationships demonstrates to her employees how much she values them and is testament to her value as a leader and mentor at iQor.

What Christian Does for Fun

Christian works hard and plays hard. For Christian, playing hard is enjoying family time. Christian loves her job and works hard during the week, committed to excellence. She also embraces her time with her family. She loves cooking and grilling using new recipes her daughters give her. She also enjoys watching a good movie and spending time doing anything with her family.

Learn more about iQor’s digital customer experience capabilities

Mentoring and Hard Work Brings Career Growth for a Project Manager in HR

This week’s guest is Zion Joy Suvillaga, iQor project manager in human resources in Talisay City, Philippines. Since joining iQor without dedicated experience in human resources, Zion has grown her expertise and has been promoted several times. Today, her work as a project manager positively impacts more than 30,000 employees in the Philippines to foster meaningful employee connections. She was recently recognized with the iQor Hero Award for her work on compliance efforts with a government mandate that required great attention to detail. In this episode, we hear Zion’s inspirational story of how leadership development along her career path has led her to success and how her work output has generated wonderful accolades.

The HR Career Journey Begins

Zion (who goes by Z) joined iQor in October 2020 as a seasonal employee on a three-month contract. By January 2021, she was a full-time employee and was promoted twice within the year. She became part of the human resources analytics and audit readiness team in April 2021. The three-person data-driven team was tasked with creating process flows to guide iQor Philippines on how to best conduct human resources (HR) processes. Additionally, the team built the foundation for the human resource reporting structure.

After completing their mission to support HR processes, the team disbanded in December 2021 with each team member receiving an offer to move into a different full-time position at iQor. Z took on the role of HR project manager, handling HR processes for the entire Philippines.

With 16 contact center locations in the Philippines and nearly 32,000 employees, Z’s main responsibilities as an HR project manager include business process documentation and transformation. She covers this end-to-end process from the moment HR sources employees and continues through to the hiring process, onboarding, development, retention, and off-boarding when necessary. Z also manages all HR-driven initiatives that might impact the tools used by HR Philippines. It’s a lot of process work! Throughout it all, she works closely with recruiting, training, and operations to achieve their common goals.

What Z loves most about her current role as human resource project manager is that she’s able to impact the lives and the experiences of all iQor Philippines employees, regardless of level. Indeed, she embraces the opportunity to create positive change and improve the experiences of more than 30,000 employees while they are with iQor. She also enjoys being exposed to different departments and understanding how they come together to achieve common objectives.

Career Growth Stems From Mentoring and Hard Work

From her first days at iQor, Z has supported HR processes and analytics, ultimately becoming a project manager. But, without a background in HR, how did she do it?

She attributes her growth in skill levels to her on-the-job coaching and learning at iQor. When Z joined iQor, she was exposed to incredible and supportive leaders who focused on the individual potential of each employee. These leaders supported Z and others in a multitude of ways to develop their potential. In this, Z says, iQor lives up to its motto to Be More With iQor. She says the saying has great truth to it because leaders at iQor truly guide their employees to be more.

One of her favorite quotes is from Mark Twain whose words inspire Z to believe that truly great people and leaders are those who make you feel that you too can become great. Twain wrote, “Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”

Z says these are the types of leaders she’s encountered at iQor, whether her direct supervisor or leaders throughout other departments that she works closely with such as training, recruiting, and operations.

Z meets regularly with her supervisor, the senior director of HR for all of iQor Asia, in one-on-one sessions with clear goal-setting. The two analyze problems and develop the best solutions. Z enjoys putting her project management organizational skills to good use and being given the freedom to work at her own pace. She also appreciates the consistent and constructive feedback she receives on her work output. This honest and transparent feedback characterizes her interactions with leaders at all levels at iQor.

She says the incredible support all of these leaders have offered her is a testament to the iQorian values. She believes this support has been instrumental in her personal growth at iQor. Further, she’s grateful her growth opportunities extend beyond the mentoring she has received to include a project management course she will soon begin, enabling her to further hone her craft as a successful project manager.

Leadership believed in Z and empowered her with opportunities to learn, grow, and contribute in an area in which she excelled, despite not having prior experience in HR. Opportunities abound for her today and into the future.

An Inspiration to Others

Z recalls growing up in the Philippines in a fairly unknown town. When she moved to the big city, she didn’t know anyone and lacked connections, but through hard work, determination, and helpful guidance from iQor leaders, she grew. She attributes her success to the opportunities and experience iQor presented her along with the mentoring sessions with her manager. The guidance she received has helped Z develop her human resource project management skills.

She strongly believes that working hard, doing her best, accepting support, and maintaining integrity to always do the right thing makes it possible to achieve any dream.

An iQor Hero

Z was recently recognized with the iQor Hero Award for her instrumental work handling a special project focused on compliance efforts with a new Philippines government mandate. The project scope required extensive planning and great attention to detail. The HR analytics and audit readiness team was deployed to determine the impact of the mandate on iQor Philippines’ 30,000+ employees.

Z collaborated with project team members, IT, and other departments to determine how best to prepare and use data. She designed process flows and ensured they were audit-ready. This was essential given that the government does spot audits and unannounced visits, so being audit-ready provided confidence that they were in compliance and a spot audit would be handled successfully.

The award came as an utter surprise to Z, who felt like she won Miss Universe when she was acknowledged with the great honor. She held back tears of joy as she received the award in the presence of iQor executives among other mentors and leaders. She was so moved by the award and recognition of her hard work that once her camera was turned off in the virtual ceremony, she cried buckets of happiness. Her focus has always been on doing her best and striving to excel, no matter how small or large the task. The recognition she received for her project success truly meant a lot to Z.

Through mentoring, support, hard work, and dedication Z turned her short-term seasonal employment contract into a full-time project management position in which she is making transformational differences for HR and is being recognized for her tremendous efforts. She is a valued asset to the iQor team. Moreover, she’s an inspiration in accomplishing so much in a short amount of time in the BPO industry.

What Z Does for Fun

When not working, Z has always relished her time at home, long before the worldwide adoption of social distancing. Despite her outgoing nature and varied interactions with many people, she’s an introvert. She enjoys spending her free time at home with her cats to recharge her battery. She loves her cats! Z and her partner rescue cats from the streets to rehabilitate them and make sure they have a loving home that gives them the care they need. Z also enjoys reading books, listening to music, and watching Disney movies and musicals.

Learn more about iQor’s digital customer experience capabilities.

Coaching and Analytics Improve the Customer Experience

This week’s guest is Adaeze Nwamah, iQor operations manager in Richardson, Texas. Her team of about 60 employees began a client program with a customer service focus. With the team’s tremendous success creating meaningful experiences throughout the customer journey, the parameters of the client program changed. Adaeze and her team embraced the opportunity to ramp up fast and achieved top-performing metrics in customer service and sales. In this episode, we learn Adaeze’s secret formula for utilizing coaching and analytics to attain top-performing status and high levels of customer satisfaction so rapidly.

A Leader’s Own Career Growth Guides Her Management Style

Adaeze began working at iQor five years ago as an agent. She has continually advanced her own career journey through hard work and performance excellence. She quickly progressed to senior agent and then became manager of social media monitoring, handling chat and web support for a client. Through her strong work experience and demonstrated accomplishments, she soon moved on to supervisor before landing her current role.

As operations manager in Richardson, Texas, Adaeze oversees a program for a client in the insurance industry and guides about 60 employees—agents, supervisors, quality analysts, a trainer, and a sales ambassador. She manages the day-to-day operations of the entire site, using tools, resources, and advanced analytics to meet or exceed the client’s key performance indicators (KPIs) throughout the customer journey.

Meeting Program Changes Through Strategic Employee Development

The initial scope of the program she oversees for the insurance industry client was to serve and solve through excellent customer service. Her team members focused on filing claims and building customer loyalty and relationships—it was a pure customer service model to ensure customer satisfaction throughout the claims process.

With her team providing such extraordinary customer service, the client decided to expand the program and the scope of the project changed as a result. It changed fast. Adaeze led her team to quickly pivot to the serve, solve, and sell model with high performance for customer service excellence.

In order to effectively introduce sales into their customer experience model, Adaeze’s team ramped up and embraced the opportunity to grow. With Adaeze’s enthusiasm and support for her team, everyone was excited about the new offerings. Her team participated in a three-week comprehensive training program to help agents better understand the new objectives for adding additional value to the customer through upselling and cross-selling an insurance product. The client was involved throughout the training process to ensure deep product knowledge and support the growth of sales leaders.

Further, the team also made sure the ongoing recruiting process was geared towards the new serve, solve, and sell focus, incorporating the new skill into talent acquisition efforts.

Through in-depth training with experienced agents and new recruits, the team learned 60 agent selling behaviors, from product knowledge to product positioning. They also deepened their sales knowledge to focus on the best lifestyle questions to ask along with other discovery techniques to better understand customer behavior and inform an effective sales approach through a connected digital customer experience.

Purposeful Analytics Inform Coaching and Development

At iQor, data analytics drives strategic customer initiatives. We take comprehensive measurements, interpret them in a disciplined and scientific way, and act on the results to drive excellence. Adaeze’s high-performing team was no different. They utilized iQor’s sQan data analytics program to enhance coaching and development. The program provides helpful insight by enabling supervisors to track coaching sessions to ensure their effectiveness and identify behaviors to reinforce or redirect.

sQan empowers supervisors with information to help guide agents towards the best behaviors to serve, solve, and sell effectively on customer calls. It also helps coaches employ strategies to help agents show empathy and engagement with the customer as part of a comprehensive approach to providing superior customer service. sQan is an essential component of ensuring agents receive the support they need to provide the best customer experience, especially when new program requirements, such as sales, are introduced.

Through another analytics reporting tool that tracks behaviors, sales numbers, customer service survey results, and quality results, coaches have easily accessible information in real-time to provide timely and specific coaching sessions differentiated to each agent’s needs. With access to helpful performance metrics, agents and coaches alike are excited to participate in the process and grow their customer experience capabilities from the training and coaching sessions.

Differentiated Coaching Meets Resounding Program Success

Through hard work, training, and development, Adaeze’s team has met incredible success. In 2021, they were recognized as the top-performing program nine out of 12 months when compared to six other internal contact center sites on the same program. For those months, Adaeze’s team was the number one program site for sales and customer service. The team’s determination and utilization of sQan has made for fantastic performance by all measures.

Adaeze is incredibly proud of her team and all the smiles they bring. She attributes their profound success to two things.

First, the effective utilization of resources. By using sQan alongside extensive learning and training opportunities, Adaeze’s team has embraced the resources available to them. They have incorporated them into their day-to-day experiences to ensure ongoing growth and development in order to create rewarding employee and customer experiences.

Second, divine discontent. Adaeze leads her team to see the positive in any situation. She views divine discontent as essential for growth. She says it’s being proud of oneself for where you are, while also perpetually seeking opportunities to grow and improve. It has worked for her team and has resulted in strong employee relationships. Every day, her team brings their work ethic and determination to do their best while striving to learn and grow more.

Adaeze’s leadership style creates smiles. She has led her team to Be More with iQor and to embrace new growth opportunities, achieving the recognition of number one site. Her commitment to training and ongoing self-improvement is inspiring. She makes it clear that if you work hard for it, anything is possible.

What Adaeze Does for Fun  

When not inspiring her team to be their best selves, Adaeze finds rewarding experiences through cooking and watching Disney movies. In fact, she probably loves Disney movies more than her kids do! Right now, her favorite is Encanto which has her singing those songs on repeat.

Learn more about iQor’s capabilities for amazing customer care.

Exceeding Client Expectations Can Fuel Career Growth

This week’s guest is Kevin Anthony Paredes, iQor director of operations for a telecommunications customer service account in Dasmarinas, Philippines. His time at iQor has been replete with admirable success for the client he supports as well as for his own career journey. Kevin started in the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry 12 years ago as an agent. Through hard work and dedication, he has advanced his career over the years, holding a variety of roles in different vertical industries such as financial and telecommunications. In this episode, Kevin shares his collaborative problem-solving strategies for identifying areas of improvement. These strategies have guided outstanding performance by leaders and agents, exceeded client expectations for customer service, and fueled growth on his career journey amid personal challenges.

Ramping Up for Success

Kevin joined iQor in 2018 as a senior manager for a new client program and has earned tremendous career progression since that time. The launch program he started with at iQor was an offshoot of an existing telecommunications account. The program handled overflow calls from another iQor site, focusing on customer service related to sales, billing, and technical issues. As part of a new team, Kevin was tasked with ensuring the program ramped up to hire a sufficient customer service agent headcount. He was also responsible for making sure leadership was fully trained to provide optimal customer experiences for the client.

Under Kevin’s management, the program enjoyed a strong start. The main KPIs measuring this success were Net Promoter Scores (NPS) and average handle times (AHT). NPS gauges customer satisfaction with the service provided and whether the customer would recommend the brand to family and friends. AHT measures the average length of time the customer is engaged on a call, with the goal that agents resolve customer inquiries and provide a rewarding customer experience in as little time as possible—key components for customer satisfaction and a company’s bottom line.

Kevin met great success in improving the NPS score. His program started with 200 full-time employees (FTE) at launch. At that time, most BPO vendors performed at about 50% NPS. Through a combination of strong leadership, training, and coaching, Kevin’s team rocked it out of the gate. They increased the NPS to 53% which strengthened client confidence in the team and prompted the client to double the FTE headcount by the end of the year.

After a fantastic performance launching the offshoot account for his first project at iQor, Kevin made a lateral move at the end of 2018 into the senior manager position for the main account. In his initial offshoot account, his team provided customer service to consumers from across the United States. With his new position on the main account, his team focused on specific states, providing personalized customer experiences only to U.S. customers on the West Coast. Kevin enjoyed a long tenure with the project which afforded him the opportunity to build strong working relationships with fellow leaders and experts.

Activating Professional Development for Client Support

Early on in his role with the main client account, Kevin recognized the team was facing challenges to meet key performance indicators (KPIs) for customer service. Their NPS scores were in the bottom half and AHT was also below threshold. Determined to turn things around, Kevin used data analytics to inform a plan to improve KPIs.

He seized the opportunity to leverage his training and certification in Lean Six Sigma and put his enhanced problem-solving skills to work. Instead of running the team through the entire Six Sigma process, Kevin simplified it by using a form known as “Plan, Do, Check, Act” to focus specifically on the areas of need instead of doing a 12-week deep dive into Six Sigma analysis and problem-solving. Through the simplified process, he worked with the team to identify the problem, define its root cause, create an action plan, and track the lead and lag measures to determine the effectiveness of the action plan implementation.

In this exercise, Kevin observed an opportunity to improve program outcomes by running a root cause analysis flow. This technique would empower leaders to better identify areas for growth within the program and related courses of action for outstanding customer service. Kevin helped other senior managers understand the root cause, set clear expectations, and create action plans accordingly.

After performing the initial analysis, Kevin and the team decided to focus on leadership development to ensure the program performed at the highest level to meet customer needs. They worked to implement the corresponding action plans and met extraordinary success. Indeed, the focus on transforming leadership skills had widespread positive ramifications for the entire program. Accordingly, their Net Promoter Score steadily climbed from 50% to 60% and then up to 70%.

By the time the team reached 70% NPS, they ended 2019 as the number one site out of all offshore sites among the client’s global BPO partners and they beat the metrics internally at iQor at nearly all of the client’s partner sites. The team exceeded internal KPIs and the client’s vice president visited the site three times to congratulate them, learn best practices, and revel in the performance improvements. Ultimately, the program expanded from 200 to 900 FTEs because of its success in providing meaningful customer experiences and outstanding client relationships.

Although the team was elated to be recognized as the number one site, they knew the pressure was on to maintain that ranking with all the friendly competition aimed at taking the lead. They remained focused on continuing to increase employee engagement and meet client needs to create amazing customer experiences.

In recognition of his leadership and the resulting success for his team and client, Kevin enjoyed continued career advancement and was promoted to operations director in March of 2021.

The iQor Community Rallies Together

Just a few months into his new role, Kevin contracted a severe case of COVID but rallied through it with overwhelming support from the community around him. He attributes his current health and wellbeing in part to the tremendous help iQor provided him throughout his illness.

Initially, Kevin experienced mild symptoms that soon developed into terrible ones. Bedridden and feeling extremely unwell, he received help from his colleagues. In the true iQor fashion of caring for employees, Kevin’s supervisor reached out to human resources which in turn contacted Kevin’s HMO to ensure he received the care he needed.

The HMO began calling and checking in on Kevin. At that point, his oxygen saturation had dropped, he couldn’t eat, and he slept 90% of the day. He needed hospital care, but many of the hospitals couldn’t admit new patients due to the high numbers of COVID cases in the Philippines. Recognizing the need for help, iQor intervened and found a hospital room for Kevin.

But how could he get there? With low oxygen levels, Kevin relied on a large oxygen tank to support his breathing. He couldn’t safely travel to the hospital with it. A doctor from the HMO called and immediately recognized the urgent need to get Kevin to the hospital. With Kevin sleeping, his wife spoke to the doctor and communicated how they didn’t have transportation to get to the hospital and there weren’t any ambulances available. The doctor stepped in and 10 minutes later an ambulance was on its way.

Once in the hospital’s care, it was clear his condition was serious. Kevin immediately underwent numerous tests, treatments, and a plasma therapy blood transfusion. Although determined to get better and maintain a positive attitude, it was hard.

iQor was determined to help Kevin triumph just as he had done for his project teams. Throughout Kevin’s two-week hospital stay, iQor’s HR and benefits team called Kevin’s wife every day to check on him and ensure the HMO provided the coverage he needed to get better. They also assisted with paperwork and accessing government benefits.

With HR and benefits covering that angle, Kevin’s supervisor took the lead in making sure Kevin’s family was taken care of. Knowing Kevin and his wife were in the hospital and his sister-in-law was taking care of their three children, Kevin’s supervisor arranged to send them food every day to make sure the children were fed and his sister-in-law wasn’t overwhelmed.

After Kevin returned home from the hospital, iQor made sure he didn’t return to work for another two weeks to support his wellness and ensure he made a full recovery. And recover he did!

iQor Qares for Employees

iQor’s help didn’t end there. Through the iQor Qares charitable giving program, Kevin received monetary support to help pay his hospital bills. iQor Qares enables employees as well as those outside of iQor to make financial donations at any time in any amount. One hundred percent of the funds raised go to iQorians in need—helping them with unplanned emergencies or other challenging life situations when they are facing financial hardship due to an event beyond their control.

Kevin has immense gratitude for being here today. He is grateful not only for the care he received from his family, friends, and healthcare providers but also for the generosity and daily support from iQor. The help and acts of kindness made a challenging situation more bearable. Through it all, he was happy to return to the company and get back to work.

Kevin never expected support like this from his employer. He views iQor as unique in its commitment to help its employees whenever and however it can, seeing employees as family, not numbers. He has never before experienced that much care from a company. He says this has contributed greatly towards his loyalty to iQor.

“Not only is iQor a business, it’s also a family,” Kevin says.

He has experienced first-hand how iQor truly makes employees feel valued, from recognizing his work and promoting him to caring for him when he was severely stricken by COVID-19. The kindness and support he received, even from iQorians he had no previous interactions with, was amazing to him.

Kevin’s career journey with iQor and all that he has contributed and accomplished, despite the challenges he’s faced, is an inspiration.

How to Donate to iQor Qares

iQor employees can easily set up a donation commitment. It’s simple and safe. If all employees donate just $1 a month, we’d raise $35,000 every month to help our colleagues in need.

iQor employees can donate at iQorQares.com.

Anyone outside of iQor is welcome to make a one-time donation (or as often as they want)!

Contributors outside of iQor can donate on this website. 

What Kevin Does for Fun 

Kevin and his wife have three very young children that keep things fun, exciting, and a little bit crazy! In his downtime, when the kiddos are occupied, Kevin loves playing video games. In this COVID world, he embraces it since he can’t go out anyway.

Learn more about iQor’s capabilities for amazing customer care.

How Active Listening Led to 10x Growth for a Customer Service Program

This week’s guest is Cristy Gavino, iQor director of operations in SM City Clark, Philippines. With an extensive background in the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry, Cristy has inspired impressive growth for the customer service program she oversees while simultaneously producing amazing customer outcomes and meaningful employee experiences. Under her leadership and commitment to customer support, the program’s full-time agent headcount has grown by a factor of 10. In this episode, we hear her strategies for success at iQor as a leading BPO as well as tips for those aspiring to leadership roles in the customer service industry.

Planting the Seeds for Growth in a Customer Service Environment

Cristy joined iQor’s operations team as a senior manager in 2018 at the Santa Rosa, Laguna contact center in the Philippines before moving to the Clark, Pampanga location in 2019 to launch a new line of business. The new customer service program began with a 300-person headcount that consistently created extraordinary experiences for customers and employees alike. These meaningful experiences and strategic initiatives led to significant sales contributions while achieving all key performance indicators (KPIs) such as high performance, profit and loss goals, attendance, and low attrition.

With the customer service team exceeding expectations for sought-after customer experiences and high levels of customer satisfaction, the client expanded the program headcount to 3,000. In addition to increasing the number of full-time employees by a factor of 10, the client awarded iQor three additional lines of business for customer support.

Amid the growth of the customer service program she oversaw, Cristy was promoted to operations director in June 2021—overseeing, supporting, and managing more than 1,800 full-time employees. Her primary responsibility as director is to ensure that customer, employee, and client expectations (including KPIs) are met on a day-to-day basis. These assurances for meaningful customer experiences through excellent customer service result in improved customer loyalty, retention, and feedback.

The expectation for clear and open communication is essential, both with employees and with clients. Obtaining clear goals from the client while maintaining transparent communications with them helps ensure client expectations are met for an optimal customer experience.

The Secret to Successful Employee and Customer Engagement

So what is Cristy’s secret to her program’s growth and success in creating happy customer experiences? The power of listening. Plain and simple, listening to employees makes all the difference.

Cristy says this is what sets iQor apart. In her 15 years of experience in the BPO industry, iQor is the first company she encountered that took listening to the next level. She explains how many companies would listen and present solutions without thoughtful follow-through. In her experience, this often leads employees to lose their trust in leadership and the company overall, ultimately discouraging them from making recommendations the next time leadership seeks them out for feedback.

When an employee shares their feedback, it reflects genuine care about their site and their commitment to being a part of the solution. Placing a high value on each team member’s experience exemplifies a collaborative environment that focuses on employee engagement for continued growth and learning.

At iQor, Cristy enjoys the organizational culture of regularly seeking input, listening with an open mind, taking thoughtful actions, and communicating progress back to employees. One of the most significant industry-wide pain points is that agents do not feel supported. iQor changes that. Supporting agents play a significant role in making customer service sites and programs successful, elevating them from good to great levels of customer satisfaction.

Making Operational Changes From the Ground Up

Throughout all the listening and research, Cristy found that the majority of employees that leave their positions in the BPO industry do so because of interactions with either their supervisor or immediate manager. This is not unique to iQor. What is different, however, is that iQor in SM City Clark under Cristy’s leadership, took the feedback and created and implemented a three-step strategy to improve experiences for all—from agents, to supervisors, to customers, to clients.

A three-point strategy for success with a customer service program:

1. Front-load operations leaders. All operations leaders complete onboarding certification training to ensure they can support high levels of customer service performance on their team. All leaders are product trained; they complete the same training modules as each customer service representative to cultivate a great customer experience. They also personally take calls, which enables them to understand the messaging and relate to their agents and customers to consistently provide excellent customer service, especially in situations when a call is escalated for additional support in the customer journey. These customer service trainings empower leaders with a clear understanding of the expectations for each line of business to guide agents and maintain a clear focus on customer needs that yields customer satisfaction and loyalty. Strong leadership support doesn’t end there. All leaders are enrolled in continuing education courses to help them evolve and learn new leadership strategies to guide even better customer service.
2. Involve operations in the hiring process. All leaders at Cristy’s site in SM City Clark are involved in the hiring, training, and retention process. They work hand-in-hand with recruiting. They have a clear understanding of the client’s customer experience expectations from day one, enabling them to hire applicants who best fit the client’s skills requirements.
3. Ensure operations leaders are present at agent trainings. Leaders are physically present at agent trainings, enabling them to get to know their agents and build solid, professional working relationships early on. Leaders guide, assist, and coach their agents in real time, setting the expectation for excellent customer service achieved through teamwork and support from the very beginning. The trainings simulate a production environment similar to what agents will experience on the contact center floor, making for a smoother transition from recruitment and training to customer-facing. With these partnerships, nine out of 10 agents successfully graduate the training program as they feel more supported, empowered, and prepared to create an amazing customer experience.

This three-point strategy is akin to a streamlined production system. When combined with open communication and active listening, it has produced an environment that fosters powerful customer service experiences with happy employees and satisfied customers. Contact center agents feel heard and valued as part of the customer experience team from the very beginning which creates a foundation for them to provide excellent customer service. This has resulted in low attrition and high attendance rates of 98%, even when the client needs overtime. Agents know leaders will take calls with them and support them in all areas at work, in both work-in-office and work-at-home environments. They feel well trained, well guided and well supported by coaches which make for better overall experiences for employees, customers, and clients. Indeed, employee dedication builds a strong customer service team that results in great customer service and strengthened customer loyalty.

Advice for Future Leaders

Cristy embodies iQorian values through her leadership, professionalism, and the importance she places on each member of her team. These values remain at the heart of everything she does. She gains inspiration from her favorite quote, which is from the Dalai Lama who said, “When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new.”

This transformative approach to leadership development celebrates the importance of listening. Cristy encourages future leaders to share their passion for their job and express their suggestions for process improvements. It takes courage for agents to share their suggestions, feedback, and recommendations. And, most of the time they are right. Leaders can grow by listening with the intent to understand, resolve, and take appropriate actions to eliminate pain points. Agents’ jobs are challenging; valuing their input and winning their hearts can inspire them to excel in their job and develop leadership skills to support their growth into future leadership positions as well.

Cristy believes that a leader’s success is directly tied to their team. Recently honored with iQor’s Top Star Award for her accomplishments and contributions to customer service for the customer service client program she oversees, Cristy sees it as a recognition of her team’s hard work and successes. She takes great pride in how her group has worked together to improve employee, customer, and client experiences.

What Cristy Does for Fun

Cristy is a minimalist with a passion for simplicity. When not at work, she participates in a virtual movement that encourages people to live sustainably and eliminate unnecessary clutter from their lives.

Learn more about iQor digital customer experience capabilities.