Since opening its doors for business back in 1980 as a commercial debt collection agency and diversifying into call centre outsourcing in 1997, Hartlepool-based Garlands Call Centres has gone from strength to strength. Contact Centre Recruitment and Training talked to Garlands to discover the secret of its success.

Moving People to CRM
Today, Garlands boasts a comprehensive outsourced Customer Relationship Management (CRM) offering that can be delivered with the flexibility to meet sudden increases in customer contacts, to quickly provide data and resources to assist with special client campaigns, and to provide targeted teams to overcome clients' specific business issues.

It's proven to be a successful formula, but this success hasn't been achieved without the dedication and commitment to staffing issues that Garlands management has given. In fact, they recognise that a major reason for Garlands' success is in the quality of its agents who number some 1250 full and part time staff.

Garlands boasts one of the contact centre industry's most defined and comprehensive agent training and motivational programmes. This is fronted by an impressive Garlands Training Academy, a mentoring programme and a 'second to none' motivational programme whose success can be measured by low agent attrition and high satisfaction rates that are the envy of the industry

"One of the most important lessons I've learnt along the way in developing the Garlands proposition is that the nature of our business is all about people, " says Chey Garland, CEO of Garlands.

"If you're running an outsourced business that aims to address clients' specific business issues and consistently deliver quality results, you must invest in people and give them total access to the best available technology if you're going to succeed."

Built on a technology infrastructure that has Aspect Communications technology at its heart (in the form of the Aspect Contact Server and Aspect eWorkforce Management solutions), Garlands has an enviable contact centre capability. However, it places an equal, if not greater, importance on its HR and training. "After all, our agents are our best assets," Chey explains. "We have developed a HR and training programme that, through rigorous review and assessment, has evolved over the years into one which we believe is the best, most proven and most successful in the business."

Chey has much to support this claim. After all, with agent attrition at 11 percent, and absenteeism at four percent, both well below industry averages, these figures are impressive and enable Garlands to set and adhere to Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with clients that the company claims are way above what is 'typical'.

Simon Reay, Garlands HR and training manager, takes up the story. "I joined Garlands three years ago with the specific job of developing a new resourcing policy to better equip the business with the high calibre staff required to help maintain the company's edge in what was an increasingly competitive market.

"This also coincided with the expansion and evolution of Garlands' business from what was a mainstream call centre to a fully functional contact centre, where the addition of the new technologies and additional contact methods, including email and fax, presented another HR and recruitment challenge."

In the past, Garlands had used local agencies to put forward candidates. However, they were finding the results were increasingly disappointing - often driven by the quality of staff available rather than business requirements. This led to the recruitment of 'passers through' - i.e. staff who perhaps needed a job for a couple of years before moving on to a chosen career. The perception was that call centres were acting almost as job 'clearing houses', rather than as 'employers of choice' for recruits.

Simon got to work and developed a HR and recruitment policy that has removed agencies from the recruitment 'loop' and, today, comprises a department of more than 10 people dedicated to HR, recruitment and training.

He explains the process. "When I joined, Garlands already had in place an in-house developed software package to test various skills. We found this worked well once candidates were through the door.

"We've developed this package further so that it essentially provides computer based testing of core skills and customer service aptitude that are required in a CRM environment - not least of all the importance of the three 'Rs' that are being well debated amongst the industry at the moment.

A multiple choice questionnaire and tests for literacy and numeracy are at the heart of this and all potential candidates must pass this before going to the next stage."

Garlands holds regular open recruitment days and evenings, around one every month or so. Because Garlands is so active in the local region - realising the importance of brand identity and position as a powerful tool for attracting the best staff - these sessions are vastly oversubscribed.

In practice, a prospective candidate responds to an advertisement or notification about a recruitment open day, and calls Garlands to register. At this point, candidates are interviewed over the phone and those that pass this initial stage are invited to attend. They then undergo the PC-based test and have a face-to-face interview.

On passing this, candidates are placed in a 'job holding bank' and, when specific vacancies arise, they are brought in for a second time again for a further interview and role playing scenario.

Simon continues, "Because we manage such a large amount of multi channel business for our clients, it's vital that the agents are placed on the best campaign that matches their skill set. We see these as largely falling into three parts - customer service, CRM and telemarketing. And not everyone will be suited to all three.

So, for instance, to fill a telemarketing vacancy, we'll test telemarketing aptitude with plenty of telephone-based role playing to see how well a potential agent can sell. For CRM, role playing will test how well and seamlessly an agent can make the transition from a customer service call to a CRM call where, for instance, up-selling or cross-selling a product or service may be an important requirement."

Garlands also ensures that the demographics internally of its agents reflect, as much as possible, those of its clients, and strives to get this as mixed as possible with young and older agents.

Once agents are on board, all undergo a two-week training programme at The Garlands Academy, again managed internally. This includes training on the company, its clients, working practices, the technology, and specific training on the particular campaign an agent will be assigned to. Simon continues, "after this, training is very much ongoing, particularly campaign related where, for instance, one of our telecoms clients may introduce a new product or service which our staff must be equipped to deal with."

In addition, an ongoing mentoring programme, provided by the team leaders, ensures that quality is maintained. This is fairly unique within the industry in that, whereas traditionally contact centre team leaders spend vast amounts of time on reports and general administration, Garlands' team leaders really are just that - the main part of their role is people management. So important has this been to Garlands that it has made a strategic investment in a separate, central unit that tends to the administrative tasks (e.g. holiday planning, report writing, chart and spreadsheet preparing etc).

Measurement of the suitability and success of its recruitment policies can be seen in Garland's enviable record of agent satisfaction. This can be exemplified by, for instance, staff absenteeism at four percent and agent attrition at 11 percent, well below the industry average.

At Garlands, agents enjoy better than average benefits. These include the provision of a spacious agent rest room with restful décor. Regular aromatherapy and beautician sessions are also available, and agents are encouraged to take regular breaks on top of their lunch break. Full maternity and paternity benefits apply to all staff and performance related pay has become an important part of an agent's package.

"All staff undergo quarterly appraisals, leading up to an annual appraisal which leads to performance related pay awards within a grading system with differential pay rates depending on whether a new entrant or one much more experienced," explains Simon. "This was introduced in 1999 and is vital in an industry where there is relatively little division of labour."

But, as Simon explains, the company cannot afford to stay complacent. "The contact centre industry is, arguably, one of the most dynamic, fast moving and changing working environments that anyone can work within - and often, depending on the particular client campaign, can change hourly, daily, weekly, and we and our staff have to adapt accordingly.

The use of Aspect Communications' eWorkforce Management software is very useful in this regard, helping the company forecast contact volumes and handling times for voice, Web and email contacts as well as automating certain aspects relating to the task of scheduling staff and other resources to campaigns according to business criteria laid down by Garlands management.

Contact:
Chey Garland, CEO, Garlands Call Centres
Tel: 01429 283000 email: cheygarland@cjgarland.co.uk