Culture is this thing - this intangible cloud - which influences the way we do things. It influences how we behave personally and how we treat others, and inevitably, how we treat our customers. 

This definition is very true of corporations that do not have a defined corporate culture. They rely on handing down culture through behaviours and management styles. We are all familiar with such like, such as blame cultures.

A well-defined corporate culture is more in line with practicing what you preach, supported by;

• Corporate mission statement
• Clear statement of it's vision and values
• Clear definition on how we will treat our people and customers
• Clear indication of the behavioural standards required to be practiced by all

and Tele-Culture?

So, what of the call centre and tele-culture?  Well the good, well-defined cultures of the corporates, will have wrapped their mission and values around their call centre, whilst others, will not have translated or have extended it that far.

Of course many organisations today, still do not have people values or, at least, do not practice them.  The evidence is there for all to see, with staff, unions and public perception around the concerns of the modern day call centre.  These, along with the inherent stress levels in some call centres, are the biggest factors around low staff morale. 

Can you answer the following questions;

• Do you have a mission statement?
• Do you have company vision and values?
• Do you have documented leadership behaviours?
• Do you have documented staff behaviours?
• Do staff enjoy coming to work?
• Is staff morale low / medium / high?
• Are there adequate reward and recognition schemes in place?
• Are there good relationships with other internal departments?
• Is there a desire to fix processes?
• Is internal communication good?
• Do staff have regular meetings
• Is change readily accepted?
• Are staff actively involved in the improvement process?
• Is there an employee involvement environment or merely command and control? 
• Is there adequate feedback on performance?
• Are performance metrics balanced rather than just the ACD numbers?
• Are staff occupancy levels adequate?
• Does staff development and training take place?
• Are there adequate refreshment breaks?
• Are display screens regularly assessed?
• Does job design allow staff time off the phones?
• Is staff attrition low?
• Is staff absenteeism low?
• Is there a low level of stress?
• Is fun at work high on the agenda?
• Can you adequately handle the volume of incoming calls?
• Is there a low level of customers who receive busy tone?
• Is there an ownership of customer problems?
• Are there a low number of customer complaints?
• Is there a low level of repeat calls and rework?
• Do you have low numbers of customers claiming their requests have not been fulfilled?
• If you answered, 'no' or' not-sure', to any of these, there is a cause for concern.

It is now necessary to facilitate some action to bring about: 

• A Change in your tele-culture, enabling cultural change
• Improvement of staff morale, needs to be facilitated by:
• Conducting staff culture surveys
• Identifying your current cultural level
• Facilitated discussions in identifying your culture and behavioural requirements
• Identifying mangement responsibilities to drive the culture

The paybacks are obvious to the bottom line:

• Greater degree of employee satisfaction
• Greater degree of customer satisfaction
• Reduced staff recruitment and training costs
• Reduced costs of customer acquisition
• Reduced customer churn
• First time call resolution, resulting in 15/20% reduction of staff and on-costs or an increase in call capacity 
• "Our people are our most important assets"