When your alarm rings each weekday morning, what is your typical response? Do you rush out of bed, excited for the day; or do you tend to “snooze” the alarm a few times, dreading what’s coming next?

If you’re in the latter category, this blog post is for you. Fear not and take heart! We will attempt to help you find hope in your workday. Seven tips from bayt.com just may be the inspiration you need to keep going back to the 9-5 grind (or, the best 8 hours of your day!).

The first is a big picture tip: Clarify your goals. Before you begin, ask yourself what you want to achieve.

Next, establish a game plan to reach those goals. How can you reach your goals? By creating a series of manageable steps that are achievable, provides not only a sense of success, but also a forward momentum that will lead to the ultimate goal. Be sure to ride the wave of success when you reach your goals. It’s easy to forget about the steps that led to your success, and the amount of time it took to get there. This positive wave can then provide the energy to continue onto the next goal. In celebrating success, don’t forget to reward yourself. When you reward yourself, the anticipation of that reward is culminated and a sense of excitement is felt!

As with everything in life, it’s important to keep things in perspective, maintain a healthy work/life balance and most importantly, THINK POSITIVE. Positive thoughts lead to positive actions; a great way to “stay positive” is to recall a moment of success at work, a compliment from a co-worker, or an upcoming day off. Visual reminders, such as displaying positive quotes in your cubicle, can also remind you to think positive.

Tell us what keeps you motivated and excited to go to work each morning on the Comments tab, above!

Angela Garfinkel's recent blog post about the 3 types of employee motivation programs for call center agents provided guidelines for programs that work – in both the short- and long-term. How and when to offer these programs is critical in their overall success toward meeting goals and enhancing productivity in call centers. Another key factor is what to offer for incentives. We gathered a list of ideas for incentives that have had success in various organizations. We would also love to hear about programs that your organizations have implemented that were proven to be beneficial. Please share your successes in our Comments section.

These ideas are listed in order of least to more expensive:
Choice to work on projects they prefer. When an agent has met goals and earned the incentive, giving them a choice in the work that they do helps agent feel in control, and promotes buy-in and interest.

Certificates referring to goal met. Certificates can then be posted in the agent's work space, or a community area, such as break room.

Employee of the Month Parking Spot. This is a particularly valuable incentive if your organization has a large parking lot, and a parking space close to the building would be desirable.

Shift bids. This is an easy one: give agents the chance to bid on a preferred shift time before other employees can bid.

Favorite candy or soda.

Complimentary team lunch. This can be a catered lunch on site, or if possible, meet the team at a restaurant and spend an hour or two eating and getting to know each other.

Money. We found an anecdote on the Internet about a manager who spent his incentive budget on currency in denominations of $1, $5, $20, and $50 bills. Employees would reach in the bag to select their reward. People who selected the $50 got cheers, and the ones who got $5 knew that there were still $50 bills left in the bag!

Company gear. Items such as clothing, mugs, or office supplies can be nice incentives.

Goody bags of useful tools for desk or home. Tape, mini staplers, Post-It notes are a few ideas.

One extra 15-minute break time the day they meet goal. This can provide a nice change of pace for a day.

Small tokens/prizes. Koosh balls, small photo albums, crossword puzzle books or a decorative item for the agent's workspace can be a nice reminder of accomplishment while agents are on calls.

Afternoon snack from a fully-equipped snack cart. How fun to have a cart roll past your desk at an appointed time and you get to choose any snack from the cart!

Gift certificates for massages, manicures, pedicures, movie passes. This idea works if your agents would value these types of gift certificates.

Gift cards to favorite stores or restaurants. Amounts can range from $5 (meeting a daily goal) up to $50.

Fun team activity. Bowling, miniature golfing, volunteering together on a Habitat for Humanity build, attending a hockey game or other sporting event, are just some activities that could build team morale.

Flexible hours, paid time off. This incentive involves your workforce management team, and would be more difficult to implement. For some agents, time is their most valuable resource; giving them some flexibility in their schedule, or an extra day off, could be a powerful motivator to reach goals.

This is not a comprehensive list of incentives, and we are always interested in hearing from you! Have you tried any of these incentives? Do you have a tried and true incentive that works well for your agents? Click on the orange Comments tab at the top of this post and please share your thoughts!

Experts estimate the onboarding process of new call center agents can cost up to $10,000 per new hire. The recruiting process brings qualified call center agents to your organization; the training and mentoring processes integrate the agent into the organization's methods, procedures and beliefs; and strategic employee motivation programs can keep the agent feeling valued and appreciated. Call centers that overlook the human side of working will find the recruiting and training processes occurring more frequently than organizations that take the time to implement incentive programs. Great B2B Telemarketing employee motivation programs include 3 major components:

1) Short-term: It is critical to provide specific, measurable and attainable goals to your B2B telemarketing call center agents on a daily basis. If the overall goal of the program is not attainable because a rep is newer or for reasons out of the call center rep's control, be sure to adjust your goals so that they are attainable by each person on the team. If you're afraid of the team shooting too low, set both a goal and a super goal. Super goal is usually about 25% higher than goal.

Be sure you are clear and specific about your expectations for accomplishment for that day and provide updates throughout the calling shift regarding actual performance and what level of performance is needed to finish at goal for the shift.

Periodically it works really well to provide a daily incentive to help boost performance over the top, particularly if you've had a couple of bad days in a row or have hit a plateau in performance. Be careful about overdoing daily incentives with your B2B telemarketing agents though because they will stop working if they are expected and not special.

2) Long-term: In a call center, I consider long-term to be a monthly incentive/recognition program. A month may not seem like a long time, but when you consider the real-time changes that the B2B telemarketing call center agents are dealing with, a month can be a considerable amount of time. I recommend that there be two levels of incentive/recognition on a monthly basis. One recommendation is setting a team goal and then rewarding the team for achieving their goal and also reward individuals for their individual contributions. Don't just give a top prize to the best seller each month though because it will end up demotivating the people who continuously end up as #2 or #3 and you need the entire team to feel like they are contributing and being rewarded appropriately.

3) Ad-hoc: What gets measured gets done. What gets rewarded and recognized gets done well. When you identify a specific area of opportunity with your B2B telemarketing agents (closing %, average order size, upsell %, etc.), a great way to get specific focus on improvement is through an ad-hoc incentive/recognition program focused on improvement in the focus area. I like the "Beat Your Best" contest where each B2B telemarketing rep is given an opportunity to earn recognition/incentives based on exceeding their best number(s) they have had within the past week, past month, etc. This gets people individually focused on improving and it will impact your team's performance overall.

By balancing the short-term, long-term and ad-hoc incentives and recognition programs, you will be rewarded with sustained levels of performance with your B2B telemarketing programs.


The author of this article, Angela Garfinkel, is the President and Founder of Quality Contact Solutions. Quality Contact Solutions offers B2B telemarketing solutions that achieve sales results.

'Tis the season for New Year's resolutions: to keep yourself accountable and give yourself something to strive for. According to usa.gov, some of the most common New Year's resolutions include drink less alcohol; eat healthy food; get a better education or job; get fit and lose weight; manage debt; manage stress; quit smoking; save money; help others.

Any of those sound familiar to you?

Each January we begin with great intentions, and the first few days we are careful to make the right choices. New gym memberships spike in January and the parking lots are crowded as the New Year's resolutions take hold. Then, for many of us, life gets in the way and we feel we are too busy or overwhelmed with daily demands to meet the challenges of these resolutions. We simply cannot fulfill the requirements and self-discipline needed to find success. And once again, our resolutions are tossed to the side, to be considered with regret at the next New Year's Eve party.

Make 2014 the year that you achieve a resolution! Keep yourself accountable by sharing your resolutions with friends or family, and then make a plan to achieve that goal in 2014. Break the resolution into small manageable goals, create a timeline and then make sure you stick to it! The best part of achieving those small goals is crossing them off your timeline; the progress is visible and satisfying.

In addition to the resolutions that most people make (according to usa.gov), here are three more to consider:

1. Keep learning! Identify one or two areas you would like to dig into deeper – could be work-related, or home-related, such as learn to cook a new type of food or how to do maintenance on your lawnmower. Read this article from Lifehack about how to cultivate the habit of lifelong learning.

2. Stay connected to family and friends across the country – make it a point to connect to a defined number of people each month – by phone, Skype, e-mail, or visit them! It is very easy for life to get consumed with the day-to-day minutiae but the connections that are maintained with a little bit of effort provide richness and satisfaction to life.

3. Take a break from technology. Yes, you read this right … put down your smartphones, laptops, video game controllers, and look away from your TVs. Go outside, talk to your neighbors, take your kid for a bike ride, clean your gutters! Take a step back from issues you can't control, and focus on those you can; your presence will be noticed, and without a doubt, great memories will be made.

Happy 2014 and here's to keeping those resolutions!