Outsourcing specialists and CX professionals gathered in Denver, Colorado, this September to attend ElevateCX, a premier event for people working in the customer support, experience and success industry. Founded by Sarah Hatter about 10 years ago, ElevateCX has since grown into one of the most prominent CX community platforms around.
Spanning over two days, attendees and representatives from companies such as Interfolio, PartnerHero, Saltbox, Assembled, Urbanstems, and TuneCore, took the opportunity to engage and discuss pain points and industry growth areas that could be transformed into opportunities. The overarching themes touched on the CX team cultures within Business Process Outsourcing companies (BPOs) and how it can be improved on.
The Boldr team at ElevateCX. From left: Jose Vizcaino, Abbey Sparks, Ray Torres, Mari Parker, David Sudolsky, Kaitlin Foster
On the opening day there were numerous discussions about finding better ways to invest in employee experience, to be on the lookout for transferable skills, the introduction of new performance metrics platforms, and an urgent call to improve goal-setting and accuracy within teams. Throughout the day’s proceedings it became clear that customer happiness, which is always assumed to be the primary focus within teams, was not the primary focus at the event.
It was Nicholas Zeisler from Zeisler Consulting who said that CX culture is about enabling team members to get the job done. While this seems straight-forward enough, the next question is unavoidable: how can we better enable our team members? The discussions that followed, all tied in with the notion of enabling team members, whether through processes and practices, or by alternating viewpoints when it came to managing our teams.
Ideally we want team members who can troubleshoot like Batman, as Brie Carranza from GitLab pointed out, but sadly Gotham is make-believe and consumers and clients in the real world do not want a caped crusader to solve their problems. They simply want the agent on the other end of the line to be genuinely interested in their query or concern. Ryan Klausner, Head of Customer Experience at Who Gives a Crap, spoke about eliminating work burn-out among our team members, while Elyse Mankin, Director of Product Support at Help Scout, encouraged leaders to rely less on the ticket count and more on what our teams really care about.
Mari Parker, COO of Boldr
The topic of ethical outsourcing came to the fore on day two, when Mari Parker, COO of Boldr, brought a great deal of clarity (and humility) to the discussion of company culture in her presentation, Making Space for the Whole Human in Our CX Teams. In a game-changer discussion, she stressed the importance of creating a culture of coaching, staying on top of the mental health of our team members, and inspiring through conscious leadership, which ultimately goes beyond simply enabling team members, but also establishing a culture for them to operate and thrive in. This view was echoed in a subsequent presentation by Meg Pallazollo, Head of Member Success at Trust & Will, about the importance of building a team culture with empathy.
Boldr, a staunch advocate of outsourcing with a conscience, was one of the sponsors of this year’s ElevateCX event. They celebrated their inclusion and their contribution to the industry by giving away copies of their most inspirational must-read leadership books available. Boldr will next be at the Support Driven Expo in October 2022.
James Fouche is a Content Writer at Boldr, an author and a columnist. He is passionate about sharing his love of reading and writing with others.