Discouraging absenteeism and indicating to agents that this behavior is closely monitored and addressed decisively where necessary.

As we have worked to implement these ambitions in our personnel, we have found that taking small steps toward our goals helps all members of the customer service team to establish and take on tangible goals. This is reinforced with the receipt of daily, weekly and monthly feedback from supervisors, which is supported by documentation, performance reports and recorded copies of all calls.

Working Environment:

A key to our success has been our emphasis on a positive orientation in all things. For our agents, this is a must to be a part of the team. We are a distinctly fun and enthusiastic team, and we expect that all newcomers will demonstrate the same qualities of being outgoing, tolerant, patient, sensitive and genuine. These are qualities that help team members to fit into the culture at the Call Centre as well as to conduct their job responsibilities with greater effectiveness.

There are a number of policies which we have adopted as a way to maintain this environment. Among them:

We remain in close communication with the staff, using daily motivation emails and dispensing positive quotes throughout the day. This is underscored by a daily morning meet-and-greet in which we speak to one another face-to-face and with candor about our satisfaction on the job.

Performance is managed closely by supervisors, who work to eliminate unnecessary absenteeism; to praise individual performance; to gauge company wide performance in the face of economic challenges; to monitor and report daily call logs; to provide constructive feedback to individuals where needed; to address agents who are not performing or behavior according to expectations, and; to provide morning reports on the previous day's individual and collective performances.

We engage in various fun activities that build warmth, a sense of camaraderie and team orientation. Fridays have been renamed Happy Fridays, and all team members are invited to dress casually. We engage in various fun motivational activities on Fridays and we find that team members tend to look forward to this day. Other activities include...

We pair the highest quality of customer care with a concerted interest in ensuring that the customer leaves a phone call feeling positive about the experience and about Greenstar as a whole. Therefore, we supplement the various fun parts of our operation with very detailed techniques of micromanagement and agent oversight. This helps to produce a continuation in the trends of growth. The diagrams featured to the left illustrate a rate of growth since this time last year that seems to contrast the implications of the new economic reality. It is thus that we continue to monitor the work of our personnel with respect to specific goals of quality management through the following methods:
100% call recording is implemented which allows us to review the content of all calls received, offered and abandoned. This is an essential training tool which we are now able to use in order to address specific areas of need or strength on the part of individual agents.

We also use a mystery shopper program in which a member of our team will call into the Centre roughly 6 times a week in order to present agents with real-time challenges. The response and performance in such calls is used as a tool for evaluation and a way to train the agent.

We also retain charted recognition of the percentage of calls which end in complaint status; we chart the rate of abandoned calls with an intent to reduce this number, and; we provide personnel with detailed reports on their progress in training and performance.

Team Development Strategy and How This Integrates with Growth Plans for the Organization:

Greenstar is a progressive organization that promises to bring great innovation to the field of waste disposal, management and recycling. Its future is already very bright. The Customer Service team reflects Greenstar's push toward growth, its standards of excellence and its positive attitude. In the face of new economic realities, our operation has proven one of its greatest strengths.