that helping customers solve problems and referring them to the training video was good enough. The complaints in the meeting went like this: Joy Campbell says: This goes beyond being annoyed about how much Maria talks, it now affects my pay—it’s being docked. When she does a call, it goes way past product information; she carries on about family, gets wrapped up in their problems, laughs and jokes—but the thing that really put me over the edge was when she told someone she’d put the kids who used our equipment on her prayer list! We don’t do things that way in my country. You should have studied my culture before you joined this team. This is serious business. The lives of many children depend upon our product, and their caregivers need to know our company cares about them. We have to build trust that we aren’t going to sell them something and then hit the road. No one else on this team takes the time to earn health care providers’ respect. We need to make them feel confident in their decision to buy our monitors and not someone else’s. But don’t take my word for it—have a look at the how customers have rated me: my satisfaction scores are exponentially higher than anyone else’s on this team. Karen worried that both she and the team were at a breaking point. As a consultant, to Karen, how would you recommend that she addresses: Resistance to change, Burnout, Lack of trust, cultural differenced conflict, team choesion Also her ability to be an effective leader of the team?
Caribbean Team Vibes and Whatever!
Karen Brown sat in her office and thought about her 20-year career at Bright Lights Corporation
(BLC). Her success at BLC has been from her own efforts and management. She had improved
diversity for the team she led, launched new products and had taken on challenges which at times
seemed insurmountable. Recently, she and her colleagues were part of a team that launched a
number of products in the Caribbean region. The successful product launch had created a huge
demand for the company’s products that required BLC to establish and centralize a call center in
Trinidad and Tobago. The call center would create additional jobs, one of which was her own -
Senior Vice President for Global Operations and Support, where she was based in Trinidad and
was responsible for beefing up operations and customer service given the growing expansion of
the business.
As she sat in her office reviewing the latest department call logs, and reflected on the heated
meeting she had with her team members this morning, she wondered whether she was competent
enough get the job done and exceed the company’s expectations. She wondered whether her team
fully supported her. The call response times were unsatisfactory and if the department continued
on this path, her budgeted figures would turn red. The meeting this morning disturbed her as she
realized that there were disagreements among her team members where there appeared to be a
division along Caribbean and Non – Caribbean groups.
The team comprised two Jamaicans, one Trinidadian from the Trinidad headquarters and one
Panamanian from the Central American sales office. The two Jamaicans, already thinking about
customer support, had spent the past few months working with product developers to create webbased training videos that provided step-by-step product use information, as well as testing
competitor products. The employee from Panama had also spent time with the product
development team and had been an outstanding sales representative. She had transferred from the
Central American sales office to join the Trinidad call center.
The problem was that the Jamaicans and the Trinidadian were angry about the work habits of the
Karen was discouraged that, at the end of their first month of working together, the team members’
call response average was a little over two minutes off target. She was also getting complaints
from the three Caribbean team members. They calculated that together the three spent an average
of five and a half minutes with each customer; when customers wanted further information, the
employees referred them to the training videos. In contrast, they observed that the Panamanian
member, Maria Perez, spent about 15 minutes with each customer, often walking the customer
through the videos over the phone. These longer calls were affecting the compensation of all
members, and the Jamaicans and Trinidadians were angry.
At the most recent weekly team meeting, the tension had been palpable. The Jamaicans and the
Trinidadian understood Perez’s point about the need for customer satisfaction, but they believed
that helping customers solve problems and referring them to the training video was good enough.
The complaints in the meeting went like this:
Joy Campbell says:
This goes beyond being annoyed about how much Maria talks, it now affects my pay—it’s being
docked. When she does a call, it goes way past product information; she carries on about family,
gets wrapped up in their problems, laughs and jokes—but the thing that really put me over the
edge was when she told someone she’d put the kids who used our equipment on her prayer list!
We don’t do things that way in my country. You should have studied my culture before you joined
this team. This is serious business. The lives of many children depend upon our product, and their
caregivers need to know our company cares about them. We have to build trust that we aren’t
going to sell them something and then hit the road. No one else on this team takes the time to earn
health care providers’ respect. We need to make them feel confident in their decision to buy our
monitors and not someone else’s. But don’t take my word for it—have a look at the how customers
have rated me: my satisfaction scores are exponentially higher than anyone else’s on this team.
Karen worried that both she and the team were at a breaking point.
As a consultant, to Karen, how would you recommend that she addresses: Resistance to change, Burnout, Lack of trust, cultural differenced conflict, team choesion
Also her ability to be an effective leader of the team?
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