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How OutPLEX Builds a Culture of Performance and Inclusion

And How That Culture Translates into Benefits for Our Clients

Tonya Coker

Chief Operations Officer

Category

Thought Leadership

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OutPLEX is celebrating 20 years in business this year! With so many contact centers to choose from, what is it about OutPLEX that makes the difference to our clients? First and foremost, it starts with those who keep the wheels turning, whether it’s from their home office or one of our onsite locations. We direct much of our gratitude to the culture we’ve built at OutPLEX. Culture is at the heart of what has made us successful. It makes our agents and leaders alike feel included, and they all know how they contribute to the bigger picture.

Our culture breaks down into three parts: Inclusion, Development, and Recognition

Inclusion

One of the biggest challenges to any remote operation is keeping teams connected across state lines and, in our case, across countries. We strive to maintain a spirit of constant and open communication at all times. Years before the pandemic, OutPLEX cultivated an inclusive culture with remote workers. It’s critical that those in their home offices feel just as connected as those agents working in one of our operations centers.

Anyone who visits our offices immediately notices how we enjoy a family-oriented environment. When the pandemic forced us to change operations of our onsite offices, we were already in great practices, but we wanted to do more. One of the first things we did was create a compilation of videos from our executive leaders to let all of our employees know that they, and their families, were on our minds.

Daily Communication

We use software like Slack for agents to keep in touch across our different locations. This gives our agents the same instant dialogue they might have popping their heads up from a cubicle. They can communicate in groups or individually and keep each other engaged.

Leaders and supervisors also cultivate an inclusive camaraderie within OutPLEX’s WhatsApp group dedicated to letting their personalities shine through.

Shared Vision

The executive team works with managing leadership weekly to discuss the current focus, engaging an open and sharing-centric dialogue across different brands. This sharing is critical to operations to develop best practices and solutions across the board.

Managers have a clear understanding of how their organization contributes to the overall strategy. They communicate that strategy, vision, and objectives weekly to their team.

Development

Another of our achievements at OutPLEX is our success in developing our agents. Except for a few particular skillsets, the majority of our different positions start first with excelling as an agent. There is always something unique about each of us that will help us excel in different areas. Whether tech-savviness, leadership abilities, or a passion for training, the management team helps each agent identify the perfect fit for their professional growth and then lays the path for that development. Those development opportunities start with the core fundamentals and extend with where the agent desires to grow.

First, Be A Great Agent

Supervisors get daily data for each agent on their performance the for the previous day, week-to-date, and month-to-date so they can see the circumstantial and trending performance metrics. They meet with their agents weekly to coach them on where they excel and how they can continue improving.

Likewise, Operations Managers then coach Supervisors on their overall team performances and effectiveness as leaders to continue their development.

Get Ready to Lead

The next step an agent might choose is the path to leadership. Through the robust OutPLEX Leadership Institute, our future leaders learn more about our culture of engaging performance along with practical tasks specific to management, topped off with certification of readiness. Agents can take these courses before any promotions are offered. As a result, this provides us a downline of developed talent that requires only some fine-tuning to groom them when a promotion opportunity is available.

Technical Advances Abound

As pioneers in chat functionality and AI Bots for customer service, new opportunities for career development are a great fit for those who desire a more technical or digital role. Bot tuners are an excellent trailblazing example. A talented chat agent is a perfect person to anticipate the types of questions and inquiries that have the potential for automation. They use their real-life experiences to fine-tune bot conversations to ensure that automations feel like human interactions.

Recognition

One of the things we learned long ago at OutPLEX is that retention is not achieved on salary alone. Our culture of inspiring the best from our employees is strong on recognition as a way of repeating the best practices and performance. While our pay is highly competitive, our recognition practices bring even higher engagement.

Wall of Fame

Every month, we nominate agents from each specialty to induct to the Wall of Fame. Maybe they demonstrated significant improvement, the highest metrics, or even a glowing review from a customer. Whatever the reason, those agents stood out. Their picture displays on the wall for the month. At the end of the month, their photo is taken down and signed by the Operations team before presenting to the employee as a memento.

Culture Champions

The Culture Champions spotlight excellence. Each week, they put together a “best of the best” compilation highlighting both of our nearshore sites. They also manage a daily “Kudos” process to recognize team members.

From that, the executive team nominates six people from various brands. Those recipients receive the “Kudos Bag.” And it didn’t stop when agents suddenly had to work remotely. The Culture Champions make personal visits to the winners’ homes to present them with a Kudos Bag filled with swag and other sentiments of appreciation.

It’s All in the Secret Sauce

Our secret sauce at OutPLEX is a mixture of transparency, engagement, appreciation, and a vision of the future. From our U.S. employees to those nearshore and our onsite agents to those who work remotely, those ingredients are what keep our employees engaged in providing the best service for our clients. How can we help your company provide the best customer experience and boost your efficiency simultaneously? We’ll tell you all about how when you contact our team.