How one sales team stands out: One group of 12 leaves low morale behind

By Bob Davis

Imagine being, as I was recently, in a 400-seat customer contact center for a major telecommunications company. The vast majority of the representatives do their work in a mediocre, robotic way. Their job is to handle customer service calls and transition them into sales opportunities, but they are demoralized because the last couple of years have been hard on them. They are required to do more with less. They have seen layoffs and wage freezes. Most remember better times and miss the good old days. Yet right in the middle of this sea of bad attitudes and below-par performance is a team of 12 people who shine bright. They exceed all of their goals, have fun at work, and have great attitudes about their jobs and about themselves.

How does this small group maintain positive attitudes and attain high performance despite the dismal atmosphere created by the other representatives? The answer to this question has powerful implications for any organization.

Let’s begin by noting that these top-performers work together as a true team. They are pleasant and upbeat with customers and each other. When one gets a sale, the others join in celebrating it. If one struggles to close a sale, the others do all they can to help. The team leader is very supportive and seems omnipresent. Recently, he worked side-by-side with a new team member for an hour until she won a sale.

The customer contact center in this case rotates representatives between teams every six months. The high-performance group has members coming and going but continues to do exceedingly well. When I was observing them, they had just welcomed three new members.

Here are seven practices that make this team stand out, even in an environment where other teams are achieving lackluster results.

1. Driving a sense of belonging
Maslow had it right when he said most people are motivated by a sense of belonging. Again, during the week I spent observing this high-performance team, three of its members had just joined from another group within the customer contact center. It was clear to the new members from day one that this team was different than their previous ones, and their biggest concern was how to fit in. They recognized right away that a competency model was at play within the team, and that they did not measure up. The team leader had created an environment that encouraged excellent behaviors. To have a sense of belonging, the new members knew they had to reach for excellence. They understood they did not have the sales skills to make it on their own, so they asked for coaching.

2. Setting crystal-clear, compelling performance expectations
The team leader was remarkable in this area. He checked in with everyone daily to see what their goals were for the day. He let his representatives set their own goals, but if the goals were not high enough, he told them his expectations. He has monthly one-on-one meetings with each representative to help them set monthly goals and break them down into weekly goals. It was clear to me during my time with them that all the team members knew their goals and where they stood toward meeting them at all times.

3. Providing timely and meaningful performance feedback
The team leader always worked closely with his people. He knew when they were following the call flow and when they were starting to drift. He was able to coach them on the spot because he was always there. “When do you do your email,” I asked. He answered, “Does a basketball or football coach do email while his team is on the field?” No, and neither does he.

4. Transferring essential skills
All team members have individual strengths. The thing that was remarkable about this group was that they helped one another and shared their strengths. They had brief daily meetings that included a skill-transfer process: One member who has mastered a skill teaches the others to do it just as well.

5. Inspiring high performance with urgency and motivation—from the top down
I found it interesting that the team leader drove success from the top down. He began each day working with his top-performers until each won a sale. This started the day off right with a sense of urgency and motivation for the entire team. He then coached everyone else throughout the day.

6. Leveraging the physical environment
The team leader had a huge scoreboard in the center of the work area, where everyone could see it at all times. It had all key metrics for every member of the team along with their achievement to goal updated daily. The entire team celebrated and recognized successes. And the workspace had balloons, streamers and other festive decorations—it looked like party central.

7. Demanding excellence
On this team, everyone knows what it takes to fit in. When the team leader finds someone not motivated on their own, he demands excellence, holds then accountable for their goals and eventually writes non-performers up if they don’t attain excellence.

In a separate case recently, I saw another good example of demanding excellence. I was working with one of our clients, a large newspaper that is building an outbound online advertising team. The company is committed to high performance and the steps outlined to make it happen. One goal set from the very beginning is that each team member is to make 200 dials per day. One new representative would not do it. Day after day, the team leader communicated expectations, but to no avail with this individual. After two weeks, the company let the representative go. This was unfortunate, but you are either serious about having a high-performance team or you’re not.

Back to our team of 12: These people are happy and positive, while most of the other employees in the customer contact center are not. Our organization will now work with these other teams to apply the seven practices to change the environment, boost morale, and take the entire customer contact center to a dramatically higher level of performance.

So belonging to a successful team is wonderful for morale—and creates another positive result. Faced with today’s business challenges, many companies today find morale at an all-time low. Building high-performance teams within these organizations using the principles demonstrated by our one small team is the answer to turning around not only morale but also profitability.

My consulting practice specializes in building high-performance teams from scratch or by transforming existing teams. Do you have a success story, idea or comment about this topic? Please share it by posting it below, and let’s keep in touch.

Bob Davis is the president of Robert C. Davis and Associates (www.robertcdavis.net), a consulting firm in Alpharetta, Georgia, specializing in improving sales, customer service and retention results in customer contact centers across North America. Bob is also co-founder of Surpass (www.surpasscalls.com), a highly specialized outsource customer contact center serving the needs of business clients across the country.