Why Safety & Operations?
Aaron Slavin, a compliance call center expert with over 10 years of experience, joined us on the Contact Center KPI podcast to share his secrets on balancing employee safety with operations.
The compliance world is not always the “fun” thing to talk about, but ensuring employees are safe while maintaining a profitable business is important.
Key takeaways from Aaron Slavin
1. Have your threat matrix in place
Know exactly when incidents escalated versus when the threat wasn’t credible. Having a threat matrix in place allows teams to ensure processes are followed and incidents are handled.
And yes sometimes this requires getting law enforcement involved.
At the end of the day, your employee’s safety is the number one priority. Threat management starts with training.
2. Put safety before sales
Two factors to consider when a threat happens. Proximity and nature of what was said.
If the person on the phone is within 50 miles of the office, that needs to be escalated.
The nature of what was said is where training comes in. It takes experience to gauge the level and difference between a disgruntled customer who is frustrated vs. an actual threat against an employee’s safety.
3. Rely on a team, not one person.
Aaron recommends having a 4 or 5 person compliance team that all goes through the same training and is a part of every threat.
It allows people to be more candid when something does occur as their decision isn’t the “final” say.
When it comes to shutting operations down because of a threat, a company can lose thousands of dollars. That is a heavy weight on a person’s shoulders, and that is why a team is better.
Plus, it doesn’t hurt to have strong personalities on that team. You want someone who isn’t afraid to disagree with a situation.
