Customer Service HEROs

Today I read an interesting blog post by Monica Postell titled “I Want to be a Customer Service HERO.” In the post, Postell discusses the HERO designation that was put forth by Josh Bernoff and Ted Schadler in a July/August 2010 Harvard Business Review article titled “Empowered.” In this context, the definition of HERO is: Highly Empowered and Resourceful Operative.

In the blog post, Postell asserts that “[e]mpowering and enabling employees is one of the keys to launching and sustaining a successful customer service strategy.” She goes on to say that encouraging employees to cultivate ideas based upon their everyday customer interactions, as well as bringing the voice of the customer to light, can be effective tactics to empowering employees and improving the customer experience.

However, in a contact center setting, where you may be driven by key performance indicators (KPIs) and call scripts, how do you empower employees to be HEROs? Are there mechanisms in place to enable your agents to surprise and delight customers? When managers and quality assurance specialists in your contact center listen to call recordings, how do they react to your contact center HEROs when they “think outside of the box” or go “above and beyond” for a customer? Does your call recording solution allow you to forward unique interactions to others within the organization so that resourceful employees can be recognized and rewarded?

Everyone has the potential to be a HERO — working to improve the customer experience and create great work environments. How do you define HERO within your contact center? What attributes to your HEROs have, and how do you recognize their contributions?