Key Takeaways Into More Productive Customer Engagements with Richard Blank.The Science of CX podcast.
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Science of CX podcast. Key Takeaways Into 
More  Productive Customer Engagements 
with Richard  Blank
The Science of CX is a groundbreaking new weekly podcast developed 
to  address the millions of businesses that need to learn techniques to 
compete better  in today’s business landscape, by using CX as the 
cornerstone of a new strategy.  Join Steve Pappas in the lab as he puts 
his 25+ years to the test to make your  business (soar, grow and 
accelerate).
Getting to know Richard the man. How did he end up with such a large collection 
of restored  pinball machines and jukeboxes?key ingredients to ensure an effective 
micro-expression  conversationHow agents can positively handle and grow from 
negative calls and feedback  from customersRunning a small business? Well tune in 
and find out what tips Richard has to  help you leverage your everyday 
conversations into a goldmineTime and numbers. Find out  whether or not it's 
productive to measure your employee’s efforts based on the number of  hours or 
sales made Richard shares with us his unique and world-class system of training 
and  mentoring new agents An exercise you can easily pick up in helping you 
become a better  micro expression reader
Key Takeaways
Learn how to turn new customers into the most loyal customers and be 
on the  mind of everyone in town. Whether you’re a beginner or 
seasoned expert, you will  learn something useful in each and every 
episode.
CXpert - interviews with CX Leaders and Influencers that have made it 
their  business to treat customers like a million. Steve, will use his 
years of CX-Centric  business knowledge to bring out cool ideas for 
every business owner to
learn new techniques and also avoid some
Steve has built a career transforming, growing, expanding and turning around 
businesses. He  has created successful companies by delivering remarkable 
customer experiences. Steve  makes sure each employee has the actionable 
knowledge necessary to make better  decisions, build great culture and serve 
customers in a way that increases loyalty, referrals,  sales and satisfaction.In his 
recent role with Panviva, the knowledge cloud company,
Steve expanded the Australian software company successfully into the US to a 
market  powerhouse position. Steve also advises many companies annually on 
their CX strategies.  Industry associations, publications, and Fortune 500 
companies invite him to speak and write  about CX best practices in healthcare, 
finance, utilities, insurance, and telecommunications.
A successful entrepreneur in his own right, Steve has built and sold six companies. 
He has  spent many years cultivating his approach to CX and each company has 
held to the mantra of  “the customer is at the center of the universe.
In fact, his first CX initiative was a college Honors project where Steve redesigned 
the student  registration system to ease the process of registering for classes and 
enhance the student  registration experience. He then went on to running an 
Technology Division with over 12,000  employee customers, while working for one 
of the largest global government contractors. All  the while addressing internal 
customer expectations and increase customer satisfaction and  productivity.
Next, he perfected the concepts of personalization with marketing automation 
tools to better  target and deliver one-on-one communication with customer 
messaging. Now, Steve is  focused on helping business leaders build great 
strategies to deliver the ultimate in customer  experiences and drive their 
business to new heights.When he is not driving CX strategy or  launching 
companies, Steve plays the guitar and mentors startup business. He lives in New  
Hampshire with his wife and sons.
you're listening to the science of C. X. A podcast that hopes to inspire business 
owners and  leaders to learn new techniques and turn prospects into customers, 
enter customers into  raving fans. My name is Steve Pappas. I'm known for my 
relentless pursuit of all thing’s  customer across my career. And in my six startups, 
I've had to learn how to make decisions in  business that customers really respond 
to. Let's spend some time together and help your  business soar grow and 
accelerate. Well, welcome everybody to another episode of the  science of C. X. 
I'm Steve Pappas, your host and as always, we look everywhere to find the  
experts that can help you in your business journey as well as your customer 
experience  initiatives within your organization.
Today is No exception. Today we're going to be talking about some remarkably 
interesting  areas. We're going to cover a lot of material. Please take notes if you 
want or you can come  back and listen to it multiple times because that makes it 
seem like we have more listeners.  Hey, yeah, do that. Instead listen to this 
episode 3, 4 or five times. That'll do it. Anyway, we're  going to be talking about 
advanced telemarketing strategies. We're going to be talking about  conflict 
management, interpersonal skills, customer support, rhetoric, Gamification, 
employee  motivation and phonetic micro expression reading.
Have I piqued your interest yet? Well, we have a gentleman on today. His name is 
Richard  blank, and he comes to us from Costa Rica, and he is the head of a great 
business process,  outsourcing contact center, but he's also an expert in so many 
different areas that we want to  talk about. So why don't we bring him in from the 
virtual green room? You know, there's no  real green room of course by now, but 
let's pretend he's coming in from the green room and  we'll welcome him to the 
show.
Richard, thanks for joining us today on the show. See, that's an amazing 
introduction. I'm so  happy to be here, really enjoy your work and cannot wait to 
share amazing ideas with your  audience today. That's great. Well, I'm going to 
give folks a little bit about your bio just so they  understand where we're going to 
start from and maybe some interesting things about you too.
So, Richard's journey in the car Contact center space is filled with twists and 
turns. When he  was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees 
for one of the larger call  centers in san Jose Costa Rica with a mix of 
motivational public speaking style backed by  tactful and appropriate rhetoric.
Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10,000 bilingual telemarketers. I 
think he  learned a few things along the way. Richard blank has the largest 
collection of restored  American pinball machines and antique rock ola jukeboxes in 
central America making  Gamification a strong part of Costa Rica Contact center. 
Culture. Richard blank is the chief  executive officer for Costa Rica’s Call center 
since 2008. Richard also holds a bachelor's  degree in communication and Spanish 
from the University of Arizona and a certificate of
language proficiency from the University of Sevilla Spain, a keynote speaker for 
Philadelphia's  Abington High School, 68th National Honor Society induction 
ceremony.
Giving back to the high school is especially important to Richard as such. He 
endows a  scholarship each year for students that plan on majoring in a world 
language at the university  level. So, I've got to start Richard with the first part 
here that just jumped right at me as the  largest collection of restored American 
pinball machines and jukeboxes. Now if anybody  knows me, they know that I love 
pinball aside from playing guitar for the last for years. I love  pinball, I don't quite 
go into the Galaga and those things that my wife loves but I love playing  pinball.
So, tell us what you have got, I'd love to know what kind of pinball machines you 
have Steve,  I'm so glad that you started with dessert first and naturally our 
favorite class in school was  recessed. So absolutely. I grew up in the seventies 
and eighties and the arcades were just  some of the most amazing places to 
make friends and compete. It was so new and the
artwork on the cabinets and the marquees, it really was an experience and always 
wanted that  game room like Ricky Schroder and silver spoons.
I was jealous. So, I wanted one and down here since I own a call center and I have 
the space,  I go treasure hunting and one man's trash is another man's treasure 
and they just really do not  know what they have in their bodegas. And so, I will 
find a machine and bring it back here.
And with specialist I restore them now regarding my pinball machines. The 
oldest one that I  have is a 1976 Bally's freedom. And one of the newer ones 
would be like, let's say a last  action hero where a doctor who I have an M. B. A 
fast break in a mouse.
And around I got Williams, space shuttle 1987 I got a judge Dredd Street fighter, 
two lethal  weapon, three jokers, World cup hook and Jurassic Park. So, it turned 
out into a hobby  became an obsession. And when you're a married man, you 
decide which hills to die on which  swords to fall upon. And my wife and I have this 
agreement where pretty much everything is in  her favor. But the one thing she 
knows that makes me happy of restoring these old classic  jukeboxes and pinball 
machines because what an error and the craftsmanship and the fact  that they've 
been preserved for decades shows that people really cared about these  machines.
Now you and I was awfully expensive growing up. So, it seemed like a luxury. But 
the fact that  we can afford it. It really is something that I take full advantage of 
when I have the moments  with just not my agents but myself. There's always a 
pinball marathon going on down here.
Well, it's great that you have the employee engagement to do that. But I'll tell 
you, we had  bought one, we had a terminator pinball machine at one point that 
had the gun for the pinball  release, but it took so much to get it into the 
basement of the home that we were living in  when we sold the house.
We negotiated to sell the pinball machine, so I didn't have to get it out of there. It 
was so heavy  to move, and I wasn't about to, but I have been in the market for 
another one right now. The  prices are through the roof on all those two. I was 
looking for an Adam’s family or another  terminator, but the Adams family was the 
one that kind of thrilled me and as well as jukeboxes,  it's funny, we have a lot of 
similar interests in collection.
I don't have any jukeboxes. I wanted to cut my teeth on the first one and I have a 
buddy in the  UK that restores German jukeboxes and he's one of the largest in the 
world that restores  those early seventies and eighties jukeboxes that were built in 
Germany. I think it was like N C  D M or something like that and that's an 
interesting market. But let's get on to some of the  other areas that we're going to 
talk about. I gave folks at the beginning of the episode, a lot of  terminology that 
we're going to be talking about today.
And one of the things that I really wanted to discuss, this idea of phonetic micro 
expressions, I  don't know if our audience knows what that really is or maybe some 
do and of course they'll  yell at me in the comments etcetera. But can we talk 
about these things because let's jump  into some of these areas that we're going to 
get across and are these all used the things we're  going to talk about? They all 
used in the contact center, and can you train people in all these  areas?
They're used in my call center and just depends on the sort of profiled agent that 
you have  there. Let me take it back a bit. Everybody studies micro expression 
reading. There was a tv  show called Lie to Me that specialized in where you can 
judge people's postures, their eyes,  their face, their hands. I mean there's books 
and seminars about it now when you're on the  phone, three of your senses are 
removed, your taste, touch and smell. And the scientists claim  that when you do 
have one that is removed, your others expand.
So, I expect you to do much more active listening and then people can also argue 
that you  can't see people on the phone, but I beg to differ because there is image 
streaming, you have  metaphysics when you read a book, it's better than the movie 
because of imagination. You can  use more descriptions and more adjectives but 
let's just concentrate on the sound of speech.  The average attention span is about 
30 seconds to two minutes, conversations have  introductions, bodies and 
conclusions. So, if you have a controlled environment, you can have  a consistent 
variable and then you can see inconsistencies.
So now we have a base of how we're going to study speech and 32nd segments. 
Okay your  tone is what represents your emotion, and it should be confident and 
empathetic because that  should be consistent on your end. People will talk about 
a mirror imaging technique Steve,  and I agree with that. But you also need to 
know how you're speaking for your adjustments.
So, your mirror imaging isn't about you sitting across from someone and crossing 
your arms  and tapping a finger. No, you don't have that over the phone.
So, eliminate any sort of mirror imaging face to face. I study the rate and the pitch. 
These are  things that can be done in any language. I do not study semantics. The 
word choice. I'm  studying the tone of your voice which is mine is consistent. I 
could care less what your tone is.  That could be a flag or a mask, but you study 
someone's rate of speech and how loud they  speak their pitch and every 30 
seconds to two minutes. Think about the X. Y. Chart that you  had in pre-algebra, 
you can see how fast or how loud they're going.
You consistently market every 30 seconds to two minutes. I would back it up with 
an  answering speed because that is something that you cannot control. It's more 
subconscious,  you can manipulate your tone rate and pitch. But the professional 
interrogators and police  officers’ usual throw the question in the fourth or fifth 
time to really judge the answering speed.  So, if you can do that xy chart with a 
horizontal line behind it and kind of gauge from 0 to 10  where you're going, you 
will see areas of spikes or dips and in my opinion that's the time to  ask a tie down 
or pin down question or clarification question.
And these are certain times in which you're able to assist the conversation of 
moving forward  for better clarification and it's not really giving away your power 
on that. You're really doing  more of the Wuwei the less struggle the rudder of the 
ship. And so, this phonetic micro  expression reading can be done just mind you 
this in your 1st 30 seconds. I don't know you  and one is the loneliest number in 
your second minute. We could have a match off one and a  one fast and high, low 
and slow by five at least.
You might have an odd man out in regard to your quadrants because after you've 
gone all four  quadrants you have to repeat a quadrant, but most of the time 
people are in quadrant, on the  top and the fast and so by your 10th 30 seconds to 
two minutes. Think about it like this, it's  about 4. 5 to 5 minutes on something like 
that. And by your 11th you should know how  somebody is speaking that's 5. 5 
minutes in on a 10-minute conversation. And by then you will  know how to close 
the deal.
And so, once you see it you can't unsee it. After three weeks it becomes habit and 
once you  start paying attention to it it becomes very lucid and clearer. You are not 
lying and I'm not  manipulating but these people are obviously giving away certain 
tell signs on how they speak  on first time or even long term conversations and if 
you do catch somebody being facetious or
not as clear, maybe ask them to repeat it using other senses or using another 
example to see  if they're consistent. And so, I think it's an excellent way not to be 
offensive because passive  aggressively you could once again use a me-too 
technique with somebody.
Let's just say you can't hear them. It's a bad connection on a cellphone or a dog is 
barking in  the background. I try to fall on that small sword instead of placing 
blame on them, it's for my  clarification Steve, did you say 123 or ABC because the 
worst thing you could ever do Is have  somebody so upset and go down rabbit 
holes because now you need to restart your phonetic  micro expression, reading 
the Tarot Card Reader said you could read two different reads in 10  minutes 
depending if it's sunny or raining, same person, same hour, but it could be a 
different  read.
So, the greatest thing you could do is to ride that weight and keep it at that apex if 
you can. It's  like when people said lucid dreaming, you really don't want to 
readjust your body to be able to  keep that consistent breathing and body posture. 
With someone that you're speaking with, you  try to keep them as consistent as 
possible. There's a little wiggle room there but don't go  extreme and if you can 
handle something like that, fall on these swords, get clarification.
I think your audience would have some extremely effective conversations with 
people on the  first time. This is a remarkably interesting area because we do 
have an awful lot of folks that  either work in contact centers or are managing 
contact centers or even outsource to contact
centers. And the training of agents tends to be remarkably similar in most 
organizations but  they're not thinking about how they can better control they’re 
usually using the approach  where gee I'm sorry you're having that problem. So, 
they're falling on the sword most of the  time.
But if you think about the calls, right? If you think about the types of calls that 
come in, I mean  they're not picking up the phone because they're just calling to 
say thank you or their  colleagues to say gee what an excellent product this is. 
They're usually picking up the phone  or they're making a contact with them 
because there's an issue, there's some type of an issue  either they don't 
understand, they don't know how to fill out, they don't know how to do  something 
or there's a more negative issue.
So, if you think about the incoming approach that happens, a lot of it tends to be 
negative. And  unfortunately, the contact center agents these days are feeling 
increasingly of society's
negativity coming out of the pandemic. You know, because people who are very  
understanding more, more understanding during the pandemic, but they’re taking 
it out on  front line people. So, I don't know how you guys have seen things. But 
from the folks that I've  spoken to in the last few months, it seems like most of the 
calls are key issues and they have  to diffuse right away.
So can they use the phonetic micro expression method that you talk about to kind 
of even the  playing field and get them to calm down so that they can explain 
what their issue is better
rather than they're ready to blow up at any moment type of thing. Sure. And I'm 
glad that you  brought that up, that's a subject that I can easily address and apply 
the phonetic micro  expression read because mind you my friend you could start 
the call yelling and cursing and at  the end thanking them.
So naturally your phonetic micro expression reading might be adjusted with raid 
and Fitch. But  I would never say that I'm sorry unless you specifically spilled the 
drink or broke the window  because then you might get offended because this 
individual speaking with you is so nice,  they didn't do it but they're apologizing for 
someone else's broken window. So, my suggestion  from my agents immediately is 
to thank you Steve for sharing that with me. I understand your  position didn't 
mean that I agree with it, but I understand your position and allow me a moment  
to make it work and fix it for you.
And so now the audience, your client coming in, guns a blazing isn't really putting 
all that  anger at the individual because that individual did not make that problem. 
They're taking the  shrapnel; you say the incoming. That's a wonderful way to use 
it incoming Obama grenade.  But I like to defuse. There's a technique that I use 
called the buffer boomerang technique. And  so, if somebody comes at me with a 
negative tone, I will like sponge and buffer that negative  tone. I will name drop 
you and say Steve.
That's an excellent question, repeat back your question what it was to show active 
listening.  So, there's a connected key lock there and then boomerang it back as a 
plus three. So, I could  potentially my friend readjust the tone and the pace of the 
call to then put it back into that  phonetic micro expression reading that you need 
to really nail it. But I believe that people are  frustrated and mind you this there's a 
lot more omnichannel non voiced support. So, prior to  that phone call they might 
have filled out a couple forms, send a couple of emails that only  elevates the 
stress.
So, when they're calling, they're almost letting off steam. And if you allow them to 
speak, you'd  be surprised how it goes from attend to it to both in pitching the rate 
they cry it out and then  everyone calms down. You've taken copious notes. Now, 
Steve, you mentioned A B. C. And D.  What about the Richard? Thank you, Steve. 
And e there's nothing wrong with raking and  reviewing and meeting minutes. It's I 
can't just solve it with you with a magic potion. These  things, someone is coming 
to you emotional, they don't know you you might need to repeat  your name 
multiple times in third person because now they're embarrassed.
Three men it's in to ask your name Steve. So, you could say okay at the end of 
this call,  Richard, you're going to say Steve. You really helped me out in this 
section you know, oh  thank you Steve. Great. I got them I anchored. And so, 
these are certain soft skills to just be  polite, show your manners, Take that certain 
control of a conversation, more of a shepherd  with its sheep. They zigzag but 
they still go back in the barn. So, I don't need so many jagged  edges.
There are no straight lines in nature and and I love empathy with somebody 
because when I  use your name, I will usually use it in a transitional sentence or 
confirmation. And then during  the conversation I will use personal pronouns as 
you know the yours and ours just to make  sure that I'm keeping your 
conversation going in your attention and then landing in the bomb  when I 
dropped the name drop and you should take these calls every 30 seconds to two  
minutes because as you say, they could change. But this gives you an excellent 
chance, my
friend, if you really want to look at it logically that if somebody is calling in, you 
have a chance  to retain the client, you have the chance to up sell them.
If that's what you're doing, you could get a referral out of it. But look at it like this, 
let's say we  drop the ball. Worst case scenario, this individual will take the time to 
do an exit interview and  tell us areas in which we could have improved or what 
our competition had done to earn their  business and as long as you're willing to 
keep an open mind and I don't like the word  constructive criticism. I mean you 
fumbled the ball; you should have known what you were  doing.
Then just call the balls and the strikes and let you know that you made this error 
and learn  from it and don't do it again. And these are the sort of things call by call 
person by person  instead of doing 100 calls a day Steve. Why don't you have your 
agents take 95? They're  taking extra couple three minutes on the phone to let Mr. 
jones relax a little bit. That is the  secret to the successor old school style. This is 
interesting because as you're explaining some  of these tips and techniques, it 
occurs that it doesn't just apply in the contact center world.
I mean this could be if you're a brick-and-mortar store, it could be your pizza 
place. There  could be people calling because hey, you got the wrong toppings on 
my pizza. The delivery  was wrong or there could be all kinds of things, but it 
applies to all areas of business and  people running small businesses could learn 
from these same techniques. Don't you agree?  This could save a thanksgiving 
dinner. A marriage. These are just diplomatic soft skills of  attentive listening and 
prioritizing, but I couldn't agree with you more and I never even shared  with you.
My favorite technique. It's the positive escalation when I call a place and people 
always give  the gatekeeper a bad rap. But these are the individuals that the CEO 
and the owners love the  most and they're the first impression and the strongest 
warrior of the tribe. They're the first one  there, representing them in the best light. 
And so, for me, I'd like to understand their protocol. I  like to properly introduce 
myself and say the name of their company and ask how their  company is doing 
sometimes better than they do just to at least give them a taste of how I  speak 
instead of just immediately asking to speak to you Steve.
And then if this individual decides to transfer me the first thing, I'm going to let 
them know prior  to the transfers that they did an excellent job. And I will be 
mentioning that verbally to the  owner of the company and at the conclusion of the 
call with the owner of the company, I will  also mention that in writing. So, if I 
happen to call your company back, the Richard Circle's  complete because this 
individual remembers me, and I've heard dozens and dozens of times.  I thank you 
and saying I've been here for a decade and you're the first person that wrote about 
 me to Mr. jones.
And these are individuals that will tell you anniversaries and promotions or no 
Steve’s direct  extensions. 1 25 calms on Thursdays at two. Thank you, 
Catherine. I appreciate it and I love  them to death. Those are the greatest 
insiders. It's a plethora of information and the moment  that you start bullying 
your way in there or pretending they're waiting for your call or your
insistent. That's why they're there to hang up on you. But there's a certain 
way to be not  clever, but you have 30 seconds to make a first impression.
Half of that is your speech her speech and give a couple of seconds of silence. So, 
you really  got about 12 seconds to speak. That's not a lot. My suggestion is to say 
things that they're  most familiar with which is the name of their company and 
their own name and then you got to  do your own name as well because you can't 
be anonymous. The whole call that's shady. You  can use a little bit of that in the 
beginning by just doing a name spike in a proper introduction  and if you get the 
past to pitch, you have the momentum and then you do once again that sort  of 
escalation.
It It seems to work for me because it separates you from hundreds if not thousands 
of people  that are prospecting that business interesting back to the contact center 
for a second. You  talked about have your agents take 95 calls instead of 100 but 
most of the contact centers that  I've dealt with over the past 20 plus years. 
They're driven by their average handle time.
They're driven by the numbers to some degree. They're even told when they're 
going to the  bathroom. How do you resolve that to a contact center manager that 
is just driving everything  by the numbers.
So, you're an intake coordinator for a law firm for lawsuits against firings or 
disabilities and  somebody calls in and they happen to become emotional for a 
minute. What are you going to  do Steve look at the clock and say Mrs. jones. 
Please hurry up. I only have two more minutes  to talk to you. You know what 
would happen? It wouldn't be for the client or for me, the agent  might resign on 
something like that. So as much as we want to stick to certain metrics, you're  
talking about an artist of speech.
Somebody that is in the moment that's in the now that wants to assist this 
individual the best  way that they can and by limiting their ability to build that sort 
of rapport or to allow someone to  get it out. Which could be the key to closing the 
deal or to Upsell for something or to get that  referral. I don't do things like that. 
Now we're not doing extreme where someone's doing 50  calls a day instead of 
100. But you can see there's an average but that's what it's called an  average and 
if you say you just want to look at conversion ratios.
Look at that too. But everyone once again is an artist and they have their own 
special sauce  and some people are graded intros, other bodies, other 
conclusions. But my goodness  gracious is somebody is in the moment and 
they're connecting with someone and they're  standing up instead of sitting 
down and you could tell they have the glaze where they're not  staring at 
anyone. They're just thinking of the client, and everyone can see them doing 
this.  You don't think that that energy spreads on the floor. You don't think that 
that's important as  well.
That sort of synergy. So, these rigid centers that judge you on your bathroom 
breaks and your  handling time you're going to break the agent. I mean you can do 
that and grind it out, but you  might have an attrition rate. But if I give somebody 
the ability to expand on a call and to be  themselves my friends. So, they're not 
just plastic and going through the motions then I can
create an ace, I can create a leader. I can create someone that will come to 
me at the  conclusion of the call and say you know, Mrs. jones started 
crying.
I go she alright, She goes, yeah, it took a couple more minutes but I connected her 
through to  the counselor and I gave additional notes because we had to speak 
about her husband just  passing away and the fact that she has to move and other 
things that would have never been  qualifying the call because you're supposed to 
be asking her just certain questions but know  this individual added additional 
things and then they say, thank you for listening. You're the  different company 
than the ones before that. Just put me through the assembly line and you  know 
that it's the mom and pop.
It's the bed and breakfast. You'd rather go to the small hardware store sometimes 
because  you know the man, I'll drive an extra couple of miles from my favorite 
restaurant Steve. That's  the sort of the science that you're talking about. It's 
amazingly simple. It's how you feel and  how you were treated. What about the 
price? What about the price? Sometimes it's worth the  money. It's not always 
about saving a dollar. It's about supporting your business or if I'm  having a day 
with some blues, you come over to me and just let me know you're happy that  
I'm there and you sit with me for a second.
So, as we get older, my friend, those are the sort of relationships that we see at 
businesses  and you, and I understand that the grind and we also understand 
when your favorite client  walks through the door. So, I like to pay that forward the 
best that I can. Absolutely. So, I went  down that path and I think your answer and 
your philosophy is brilliant. Unfortunately. I mean  it's the way I believe too that 
the contact center folks in an organization should be revered  because they are 
your front line.
They hold things together. They are the impetus for the referral the up sell the 
further sell the  expansion all those things. Yet still in today's world, C E O s don't 
always think that way. They  look at a contact center as a cost center rather than 
the proper way of looking at it as it's an  expansion center. It's a focus group. It's 
the lifeblood of the company because those folks  have the most contact with our 
customers post sale, they become the hub of the post-sale  journey and 
unfortunately maybe it'll take another generation before enough sea level folks  
understand that.
So that brings me more to the conversation of culture. How do we develop a 
culture in our  contact centers especially and I know this can spill out into the rest 
of the business, but how  can we develop a culture that rewards and reveres the 
contact center agents as being the  customer success vehicle, the people that help 
our customers become more successful using  our products and our services. You 
must look at it Two ways. If you yourself are not centered  in balance, it would be 
exceedingly difficult to expand and to think of others.
I can't hit the ball and drag johnny as much as my agents here have become 
bilingual, which  shows structure and dedication over years outside the 
classroom. I expect them to do the  same thing if they're thinking about being a 
telemarketer as a profession besides the eight  hours that they put in here, they 
should be doing dedicated practice outside of the center,
reading in English watching certain movies or speeches so they can take 
certain parts of  rhetoric that inspired them. That they saw transitional 
sentences or effective. You could do  case studies in history and find out certain 
speeches that moved people.
And then secondly, I mentioned the word synergy. These individuals were a very 
social  environment. If you and I are working out at the gym Steve, we're going to 
be pumping each  other up to put up three or four more on the bar and put more 
plates up. So, I expect the  audience, the agents to feed off their energy and to 
share ideas and to pick someone up when  they're feeling down. As I mentioned, I 
created a Gamification culture. So, I have a place  where people can let off steam, 
recharge batteries hang out with me and meet people from  other departments.
So that assists me in one way. But also, since once again English is their second 
language.  The fact that they are getting a return on investment. I see that these 
agents are much more  focused for intense periods of time because of the 
translation. So, it's less area for distraction.  But here's the best part my man 
regarding my culture when I first came down here 27 years  old, I didn't start sea 
level of my friends call center. I taught English decided to stay and then  worked at 
the center and so I was with the proletariat for four years, I went through so many  
departments.
I saw the good and the bad and what it did for me was it enabled me to see areas 
to enhance  it for the agent and for the client to give them their dignity, so they 
don't feel like robots are  expendable. And when I had the opportunity to start this 
business, they couldn't fool me  because I was on the phone, I've done this before 
and I hate to say it, I'm not bragging but I  am the sin save my dojo in this 
industry where people burn out and they look down upon it, I  thrived really 
excelled.
But I saw the art in it. Look at it like this, you're very selective of the campaigns 
that come in  here, we're in a strict catholic country. They must go home and tell 
their parents what they do.  If I brought in something gray area or shady, no one 
would take it. So I'd have no friends of my  chuck e cheese birthday party and so 
you have to do an account to not only where the client  feels okay offering it, but 
the Asian would feel comfortable making the calls because if it's a  forced fit, if it's 
out of place and out of character, they're not going to last long, they're not  going 
to sound natural and we're not giving anything real specific here.
But as I say, I must ensure that what I'm bringing into this call center something 
where I'm able  to fulfill the needs. Now I can add scripts and suggestions, but 
initially it must be something  that just does not compromise any sort of ethics 
interesting. Well, let's cover a little bit more  because I'm fascinated by not only the 
culture, but the organization that you've built to help  organizations that want to 
outsource their contact center. So, we could talk a little bit about  your training, 
you're coaching your mentoring methods and then what does the knowledge  base 
look like for your agents to always do a better job?
Because quite frankly, I mean you're going to do as good or better a job than the 
company  you're representing because you're going to keep the account and 
you're going to keep them
happy and keep them over the course of a lifetime. So how do you train 
differently? How do  you coach and mentor folks and keep them so that you don't 
have the attrition level that a lot  of places have today. That's a wonderful 
question real fast in regards to attrition, I have more  of a natural attrition than a 
forced attrition because companies such as amazon hp intel and  oracle and 
Sykes are here, so I'll lose somebody for a scheduling conflict for the university of 
 boyfriend or girlfriend works there closer to their home, very rarely, if not never 
someone will  say that I insulted them, yelled at them, gave them the walk of 
shame.
It's just maybe an ex-employee with some sour grapes. I treat everybody with 
dignity, and I  look for ways to delegate and promote them, but initially it's really 
the psychology prior to any  sort of skill set. So, fear is a morbid anticipation of 
things that haven't happened yet. The fact  that they learned a second language is 
10 times harder than any campaign. I'll put them on. I  also believe in the right 
bus, right seat philosophy. And so, when they come into the call center  besides 
starting their day playing pinball to make friends and relax a little bit.
We really do focus on quality assurance so we can grade their calls for certain 
metrics. But I  try to do certain breakthroughs like when they're filling out their 
resumes with me and putting  in all their credentials, I'll ask them to turn the 
page over Steve and give me a couple of  paragraphs of a coming of age 
moment, let me know when you beat up a bully or save the  kitten from a tree. 
And so, I could use this when they're having a rainy Wednesday to remind  them 
of when they were a champion.
These are things they always have in them. It's just a matter of getting it out and 
keeping it  consistent and so let's just say in the first day of class, it's especially 
important not just to  lecture them when they just nodded you and walk out the 
door. You need to have checkpoints;  you need to have interaction. You can go over 
a certain segment and then just maybe have  somebody stand up in front of class 
and read the next paragraph. Why? Because you're triple  gunning. They're reading 
out loud their public speaking, they're doing it in front of the boss.
Imagine those sorts of butterflies you would have, but if you could triple or 
quadruple your  training daily where then you go upstairs, you record yourself 
reading the script, where you're  practicing it. You're not just reading it, you're 
speaking into a recording device, then you're  listening to it and then you're doing 
a self-analysis for self-adjustments over the things we  spoke about. You'll know 
when you're pausing is off or when you're too loud or too best. Are  you stuttered 
or mispronounced a word and I'm allowing you Steve to write it out phonetically,  
at least learn how to spell it.
But the vowels are sometimes tricky for Latinos, so it's okay to be able to switch 
things around  so it's pronounced a certain way, and these are the sort of 
adjustments, minor adjustments
that we make for somebody to feel more comfortable initially. So, they don't pick 
up unhealthy  habits and kind of like bedside manner. I can't stress enough; the 
name drops and the act of  listening and the confirmations because people feel 
much more comfortable when they're  being listened to, and you are taking your 
meeting minutes and if we need to repeat  something in the military alphabet.
A it shows that you're extremely involved and engaged in the conversation. A lot 
of the times  people served in the military, so they think that's cool and you're not 
just making up words and  going along. These people know that you are actively 
trying to spell their name, their email  address correctly. And so, I've seen the tens 
of thousands of phone calls. That that's the most  effective way of not to offend 
somebody when you can't hear them well or they have an exotic  name or if it's 
something where you just say, yeah, okay, but the next thing, you know, your  
email bounces back.
It would have been better off to confirm if it's L for lima, you know, and just to 
make sure that  you got it. And as I say, these are the sort of things like in school, 
you come to class, you do  your homework and you do your quizzes, you can still 
not do so well on the final exam, but  you're going to pass the class, you will be 
preparing yourself and marinating and softening up  the call in the relationship in 
order to convert it. And sometimes my friends, it happens a  second or third time 
don't expect a cold call close.
I tell my clients to put their checkbook away. A lot of the times, I just want to 
answer their  questions and show credentials and reintroduce them to other 
people on the floor that they  can meet and make a better decision. So don't feel 
rushed. People will see that, and they will  be apprehensive to move forward with 
you. So let it happen at a natural pace. So, you said  something about you QC. All 
the calls and I think I remember you were talking about your Hall  of Fame, you 
know, the best and the worst calls.
I mean is that used as a training method for everyone to understand both the 
good and the  bad types of calls. Absolutely. Remember you were mentioning 
earlier about people calling in  the first round of calls coming where people are 
upset if they can ride that wave and they see  the bark is, there's no bite. It's just 
barking and that we calmed mars jones down. We listened  to Mrs. jones, we 
separated piles, we were able to move forward. The call didn't take that long  
because we didn't have to repeat things because we were confirming things.
We eliminated rabbit holes. We did the mirror imaging. We did the phonetics; 
we did the  drops. It's beautiful. Now you have this toolbox. It's not a to Z. 
There are steps that can be  skipped or moved back to how about we look at it 
like this? I loved romantic tragedy. So, I  consider that a hang up call is a 
romantic death. Where am I going with this? Let's just say  you're just hardcore 
carpet bombing, making outbound calls and no matter what you say,  you're 
calling a place that she says, don't call again or not interested or we're good.
Thanks, and hang up. I always look at it like this. If you can do a company 
named spike and
do a name, drop of the individual before they hang up on you. I think that's a 
beautiful death. I  think at least poor lome knows you got something out of that 
call. But then they wouldn't be  surprised that you could anchor yourself by just 
getting them out of that trance by saying their  name in that 1st 30 seconds. I've 
had Times where we bought another minute, bought another  three minutes and 
just by default, nothing on our own.
We couldn't move forward. I'll give you an example. People can call me, and we 
could be on  the phone and 99% were ready to sign the contract. But then they 
ask if we do Chinese, I
don't have Chinese agents, I don't do graveyard shift and I can't match offshore 
prices India  and the Philippines. So just by that alone, I'm not able to move 
forward, but 99% fit. So how do  I feel about that? A little disappointed. But then 
again, I was able to go 15 rounds lost on the  decision, but I was still able to make 
my points listen to their points build rapport, have some  labs introduce, fantasize 
good call.
So, another couple of questions, what type of companies or what type of 
industries do you  guys mostly handle calls for inbound or apa? Well, I'll let you 
know five. We don't do, we don't  do sports books, casino stocks, pharmacies or 
sweepstakes. I have nothing against it. Just  don't want to do it. But I'm looking for 
small to medium sized companies in the United States,  Canada Central America 
and Europe that would need individuals to make outbound lead  generation, 
appointment setting or inbound customer support. And it's amazingly simple.
Our agents are college educated; they're dedicated. I don't have a blended or 
mixed center.  They only work for your campaign, and they have some amazing 
skill sets here. Costa Rica  really packs a punch regarding business process 
outsourcing. I have mentioned some of the  big boys, but there are tons of call 
centers here and since we're the only democratic society in  central America, they 
don't have a standing army. So, there's a 95% literacy rate Steve so as  much as 
people might see telemarketing call centers as transitional sort of jobs or 
something  in the United States, as you say, has a certain rap here.
It pays more than most vocation. So, I'm having some extremely educated 
bilingual people
with degrees walking in this door and working with me. So, it's amazing the sort of 
people that  you meet here. Very eclectic, all diverse types. That's great. So, if a 
company called and says,  okay, we want to get started, what is that initial 
onboarding looks like time wise especially and  system wise and how quickly can 
you be up and running to take their calls? Great. Well let's  just say I accept the 
vertical and I'm comfortable with that.
There's a pre-launch checklist that my floor manager and chief technical officer 
sent to that  company. It's exceedingly difficult for me to start moving forward 
without stations being set up  connections, made scripts for bottles, reporting and 
contact because once the ads go out and  people come in, it's really a seller's 
market. I got to be able to explain it to their candidates a,  the campaign that 
they're doing the incentives that they have and the metrics that they're  
expecting. It just can't be fantasy time. It needs to be something that's concrete.
And so, once we bring the people in, it really all depends on the training time. I've 
had people  go as low as a half a day just to teacher CRM and do a little bit of role 
play for fun and others  do longer training sessions, even up to a month. That 
concerns me because we do follow all  Costa Rican labor laws and there are 
certain call centers that are known for like for an  example, sykes has the MetLife 
account and supposedly people will be there for an entire  month training and 
then on their first day of coming back to work, they just don't show up.
And by Costa Rican labor law, they need to get paid for that month they go on a 
certain list as  being a jumper and it's not fair, but that's the name of the game. 
So, the longer the training,  the more I'm concerned because people sometimes 
can take advantage of that and just use
that as a placeholder until they can find another job. So, if we have certain 
awfully specific  checkpoints to ensure that this agent really has done their due 
diligence, really engage really  up to speed.
That's a good risk compared to just doing five days’ worth of classroom, talking 
about  merchant process outsourcing and stuff like that. It needs to be awfully 
specific, and I have to  ensure that this client that I'm speaking with does have a 
track record. If it's a brand-new pilot  project, then we need to invest in the process 
and there shouldn't be any surprises and I must  let them know what to expect 
when building a campaign, there may be attrition. We may need  to readjust the 
script, call certain area codes, or do certain things.
But I guess the most important thing about it is being forthright, when it comes to 
onboarding  people, I can easily have somebody in five business days, depending if 
you need 10 people  give me up to 10 business days, you know, and maybe we can 
hire people piecemeal, we can  catch them when certain campaigns and other 
centers and as I mentioned, it's very  competitive out there. The more that you put 
out the start date, the more that you're going to  lose people because they need a 
job between those times and now since Covid came, it really  adjusted to the work 
from home.
So there is an advantage of the brick and mortar because of internet redundancy, 
my  generator and on site I. T. Support but Steve, I was exceptionally fortunate 
during Covid to be  able to adjust my business model virtually because if I owned 
a brick and mortar only like a  bike shop or a pizza parlor, I'm in big trouble as 
much as I lost a lot of the essence of the  center and the camaraderie? I was able 
to survive. But you know, the labor pools changed. I  must ensure if there is 
training, they should be on site to know the company culture and at  least meet 
us before going home.
It's one of those things my friend where I really did see a huge shift that when I 
first started this  back in 2000, that's great. Well, in the last few minutes that we've 
got, you know, I'd ask you  whether we could give our listeners an exercise. We 
talked about the two-paragraph coming  of age. Can you explain an exercise that 
folks can do as homework after they listen to this  episode. And that might be 
interesting for them to learn more about the content that we gave  them here 
today and then when we come back maybe you can give folks a way of getting in  
touch with you guys if that's something that they're looking for.
Thanks Steve, I appreciate it. Let people do the Triple watch. They should watch 
something  without sound, they should watch something without sight. And if you 
want to study the visual  body language, that's great. Just watch something 
without sound. You can assume what  they're doing and then if you want to study 
the phonetics, to choose a channel that you don't  understand the language. Like 
for me it would have to be Chinese or German or something  like that. Italian 
French and Portuguese are too like Spanish for me.
But if I watch the Chinese channel, it's extremely easy for me to do that phonetic 
micro  expression reading because I don't understand any semantic. So even I'm 
taking out the tone,  I'm just studying their rate in their pit. Do not get study it that 
way while you're on the phone,
once again these are things that you can do. You just draw your xy chart the 
horizontal line  and every 30 seconds to two minutes point to how Mr. Jones's 
speaking just for practice, but it  is about practice. It's about dedicated practice.
Record yourself, listen to yourself. I don't like how I sound. That's what everybody 
says. But  guess what you that's what you got. So, you need to adjust it and as you 
and I have a mirror  and our beards look great because we do look great. You could 
do the same thing with your  voice as well. Record it, master it adjusted. And if you 
do that, you'll see that you'll get more  positive reinforcement from people. There 
will be more I guess inclined to ask you for advice  because you were sympathetic 
about it and the way you spoke about it and finally if you are in  a certain situation 
where there's emotion and its tense, you should choose to speak last.
And if it's not something where you need to immediately give an answer then you 
should sleep  on it so you can decompress and come back the next day a little 
more levelheaded and  prioritize and that's an excellent way to grow and to crack 
some codes and to get to various  levels. You don't always need to prove your point 
at that moment. There are other ways to do  it. So, you don't overreact overextend 
and say something you regret. So, it's not like you're  being weak. No, you're being 
considerate of it and you're being tactful about it.
If you're in the moment and its face to face with somebody if you must, even 
though it looks  funny, you should close your eyes when speaking. So, there's less 
distraction and you're not  energy being sucked from you. They might say why you 
close your eyes. I'm allowed. There's  no rules to this. It's not tag you're asking me 
something emotional, so allow me my focus and  my balance and if somebody is 
being aggressive with you, I think you should look in between  their eyes, it looks 
like you're looking in their eyes.
So it's not like you're looking away or allowing them to suck the energy out of you, 
like  Medusa, but it is a certain technique sir where instead of losing your direction 
and your energy  and your breathing, you can regroup yourself and these are the 
sort of conflict management  skills that have assisted me and having more 
productive conversations when they could have  really gotten out of hand. That's 
great. I mean this has been filled, filled with great techniques,  tips and insight as 
well. Thank you for being so generous with your expertise.
This has really been a wonderful episode, Richard. How can people get in touch 
with you if  they're thinking about outsourcing if they're thinking about needing a 
contact center because I  think by the end of this, they understand what you bring 
to the table. So how can they get in  touch with you? I really appreciate having me 
on the show today with you, your audience and  allowing me to share this 
information. The first thing they should do, my friend is by a first-  class plane 
ticket. Come down here to Costa Rica so you can enjoy some eco-tourism, go to  
some beaches and waterfalls but your audience can give me a call at triple 
82716750.
Or send me an email. CEO Costa Rica’s call center dot com. And finally have an 
exceptionally  large Facebook fan page about 98,000 local Costa Rican Ticos. And 
they can't wait to meet  you, Steve. You're going to have tens of thousands of new 
fans in central America. I can't wait.  Well, Richard, thanks again for joining us 
today. I really love the thing that you said earlier and
I'm going to add something to it. So, each agent is a voice artist, and this is a 
message to all  the C E. O. S out there that have contact centers and folks that 
have agents working for them  that each agent is a voice artist and I think you 
should let them create a great interaction.
So let them create, let them build those great interactions. So that's it for our 
episode of the  Science of C. X. I'm Steve Pappas, your host. We've had Richard 
blank on today from Costa  Rica call center and I want to thank you all for joining 
us. If you like the content that we bring to  you, please feel free to drop us a review 
wherever you get your podcasts and until we meet  again, please stay safe. Stay 
healthy and do take care everyone. Bye bye. You've been  listening to the science 
of C. X. My name is Steve Pappas.
I really hope you've enjoyed this episode and if you have the highest compliment 
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And we'll see you in the  next episode. Finding one place to see all customer 
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Richard’s vision quest journey is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years 
old, he  relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call 
centers in San Jose. With  a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by 
tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard  shared his knowledge and trained over 
10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the  largest collection of 
restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in  Central 
America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the 
Chief  Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008.
Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from 
the  University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the 
University of Sevilla,  Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High 
School 68th National Honors  Society induction ceremony. In addition, inducted 
into the 2023 Hall of Fame for Business.  Giving back to Abington Senior High 
School is very important to Mr. Blank. As such, he  endows a scholarship each year 
for students that plan on majoring in a world language at the  university level.
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#Scienceofcx
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Center,  Outsourcing, Telemarketing, BPO, Nearshore, Sales, Entrepreneur, 
B2B,  Business,Podcast,Gamification,Leadership,Marketing, Radio, Guest, 
Money, education,  trainer,
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