From the monthly archives:

June 2011

alegg

Getting To Know Allison Legg

With all of the new faces coming through the doors, I find that I can lose track of who I’ve had the privilege of meeting. I always like to find the new graduates from training and introduce myself to them. If I have missed anyone, I would like to take this opportunity to make up for it!

Allison doing what she does best: work hard!

Hello, my name is Allison Legg, and I’m a Program Results Supervisor here at Incept.

What do I do here? Well, I work mainly with ITxM, which is comprised of two of our clients, Central Blood Bank and Lifesource. I do all I can to help Incept and ITxM meet their respective goals while working with you guys, the Conversational Marketing Experts (CMEs), to help you take ownership of this program as well.

You will see me out in the rows a lot, coaching, educating and motivating. My passion is to help all of you get even better at what you’re already doing well, and I take this responsibility very seriously. If you need help, let me know! If I am unable to give you the answer or help you need, I will find someone who can.

Part of the reason that I love working at Incept is because of the atmosphere; it is one in which I can provide this help to all of you. Incept believes that work should be enjoyable, and so do I. Having fun in the rows, getting prizes and enjoying games and contests are all things that you will find on any given day here at Incept. I love to work in an environment where employees can enjoy such frequent rewards for their hard work.

I also really enjoy working at Incept, because I believe in Incept’s values. Integrity, being never satisfied, compassion, treating everyone like a customer, being present, and having tenacity are all important parts of life both in and out of work. I try to live all of these values in my day-to-day life, and I believe that the workplace is a better environment when it is run with such high standards.

If I haven’t had the pleasure of making your acquaintance yet, you can find me here at Incept throughout the week, and I’d love to meet you. Stop me to ask a question, get more information or just to say “Hi!” I’m always up for a friendly conversation!

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Stephanie

Managing Morale With Motivation

Morale: (Adjective) The confidence, enthusiasm, and discipline of a person or group at a particular time.

Morale is a powerful thing. It’s a state of being you can feel as soon as you walk into a room; one strong enough to influence everyone in the area.

Dave Walter, Vice President of Incept

Good morale can drive a team to excellence, whereas bad morale can get them stuck in a rut from which it’s difficult to return. Maintaining good morale can be a tough job, but the coaches and supervisors here at Incept do amazingly well to make sure that everyone keeps a positive outlook, regardless of the challenges.

Dave Walter, our Vice President, was kind enough to take the time to help me gain some valuable insight on how to manage morale, not just in a conversational marketing firm but in any work place.

Steph: Do you find that it’s harder to keep good morale in a call center than in other work places?

Dave: I don’t think so. People are people, regardless of the type of work they do each day. People just want to be treated with dignity and respect. Positive energy and motivation goes a long way in any environment, especially in a contact center.

Steph: What are the biggest things that boost morale here at Incept?

Dave: Recognition and education. When we show positive recognition and also provide education to help people understand the “Why?” behind our decisions and policies, morale stays high.

Steph: What are the things that drag down morale most quickly?

Dave: Passing judgment without taking the time to ask for input from the Conversational Marketing Experts (CMEs); constant messages about everything that is being done wrong with nothing being said about what is right or good; and a poor relationship with the person’s direct supervisor, coach or manager.

Don't let bad morale spread like a virus!

Steph: How does one person with high morale affect the others around them?

Dave: It’s viral! I often say that good morale is contagious! The more happy people we have, the more happy people we are going to have.

Steph: How does one person with low morale affect others?

Dave: It can spread very quickly. It’s important to identify these issues quickly and address them. If the morale issue cannot be corrected, it’s sometimes best to relocate that person to an area of the center where they can’t drag as many others down.

Steph: What are the best ways you’ve found to boost morale on a challenging day?

Dave: Some public recognition of the things people are doing really well that day. Following that recognition, challenge them to improve even more. Roll up your sleeves and go to work with your people – take calls with them, help coach them through difficult calls and provide some encouraging coaching.

Steph: Does moral fluctuate rapidly, or does it take a while to turn?

Dave: It seems to have the ability to turn bad much faster than it turns good. Morale here is typically pretty high, and we have worked very hard to get it to this point. Accordingly, we are vigilant to keep it strong and not allow those negative viruses to infect us.

Steph: What is team morale like during challenging times of the year? (i.e., holidays, summer)

Dave: At Incept, it seems that the harder the challenge or the larger the obstacle, the more people show their heart and optimism. In short, I think morale is high during these times.

Steph: What is something you’ve tried before to boost morale that didn’t work as well as you had hoped?

Dave: Some of the policy changes. I had hoped and assumed that some of the recent policy changes would be bigger boosts to morale than they seem to be.

Steph: What are things the CMEs can do to help raise morale?

Dave: Encourage one another, support one another, celebrate successes with each other, and make others aware of them. Help each other with tips and tricks to increase performance. Share info with each other to help everyone understand things better. Smile and treat each other as family. Compliment a coworker on something you think they do really well. Create competition (friendly competition, of course) with one another, and have fun with it.

Steph: Is there anything else you’d like to say about morale improvement?

Dave: The larger the group of people committed to increasing morale (and keeping it high), the easier it is and faster the increase happens. High morale feels good to everyone. Please do your part to help keep Incept motivational and encouraging!  After all, we’re a family here!

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bjohnson

What Is Stopping You From Donating Blood?

If you’ve never donated blood before, think for just a moment that a part of you can save someone’s life. Literally.

There is no substitute for blood or blood products. Although the industry is feverishly trying to find a way to manufacture supplements, we are years away from that being a reality.

Do you know anyone that has ever suffered from a trauma due to an accident? How about a burn victim? Do you know anyone that has had heart

surgery? An organ transplant? Or a woman who has had complications during childbirth? Know anyone who has had a newborn or premature baby? What about cancer? Leukemia, cancer and other diseases (such as sickle cell anemia) all require blood and blood products to assist patients in their fight against these diseases.

Every two seconds someone needs blood. Consider that deeply. In the two minutes it takes for you to read this article, 60 people in the U.S. need a transfusion. Odds are that someone you know either has had a transfusion or will have a transfusion in their lifetime.

So we know all of this, yet our nation continues to suffer from shortages. Our society is so busy, so connected and so consumed that donating blood rarely crosses our minds or makes it to the top of our to-do lists.

I am hoping our readers will take the time to donate now. Please don’t wait until a loved one needs blood to realize the importance. You can make a difference today!

Please go to http://www.americasblood.org, click Give Blood, enter your zip code and find the nearest blood center to you. Save a life today.

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bjohnson

Should Blood Banks Have Metrics?

On a recent visit to a blood center, we began a discussion about metrics. The recruiters (a.k.a. telerecruiters, agents, callers, conversational marketing experts, etc.) expressed to me that there’s no place for metrics in blood banking, because we are only about saving lives.

How are you measuring your results?

The statement struck me as odd. Yes, we are about saving lives! Yes, we are about making a difference! Yes, we are about providing patients with a second chance! But isn’t it possible to do all of that and still run a financially healthy organization? Of course we know the answer to that. My quandary is more on the level of how to empower our recruitment staff, or even collections staff (and for non-blood bank organizations, staff in general), so that they understand the business implications of such mentalities.

I believe knowledge is power. Putting someone in a cubicle and telling them to do their job and not worry about the rest of the business is not the way to unify or grow the organization. Some of the greatest leaders I have known in my life have made their way onto my “greatest” list because they filled my brain with the “why” behind all of the tasks I was charged with executing, projects I was leading and decisions I was making.

So, I am asking my blood bankers, business leaders and executers: How do you empower your staff so that they fully understand your mission? Can anyone ever have too much information?

I say no, but would love your input.

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Stephanie

Phlebotomists: Heroes on the Front Lines

Here at Incept, we like to make sure that our blood donors know how much we appreciate their commitment to helping their communities by donating blood.

Sometimes, however, we overlook the people who make a difference every day. Phlebotomists are a vital part of any hospital or blood center. They’re the ones who not only draw the blood but care for donors after they’ve donated and make sure that the blood is safely stored until it can be sent to the hospital.

It’s not an easy job! Phlebotomists need to be able to stand the sight of blood and needles – two things that scare most people. They also need good people skills to help their patients feel comfortable and relaxed. A phlebotomist has to keep a level head in tricky situations. If a donor doesn’t feel well, their phlebotomist needs to take charge of the situation and be compassionate. It’s a tough job but one that really makes a difference.

I have the privilege to be able to speak with a lot of donors on a daily basis, as a blood donor recruiter. Oftentimes, I get asked about the things one needs to do to become a phlebotomist. While I myself am not a phlebotomist, I know several people who are and have looked into some of the requirements.

A lot of colleges offer two-year programs in phlebotomy that include both lecture classes and lab classes. You’ll study anatomy and physiology, blood drawing procedures, patient care and other things to help you get ready for your career. After passing your classes and earning your certification, you’ll be certified for three years. You’ll need to keep up with your studies, though, to renew your certification every three years. Once you get the hang of it, however, you should do just fine.

Becoming a phlebotomist is a great way to help patients and your community. You get to work one-on-one with blood donors and have the ability to make their blood donation experience a positive one! So if you don’t mind needles and want a career that will let you help a wide variety of people, take a look at phlebotomy. It’s a profession where gentle hands and a caring heart are always needed!

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Stephanie

Passing the Test: How Donated Blood is Screened to Keep Us Safe

There are a lot of misconceptions about giving and receiving blood.

Part of my job as a blood donor recruiter here at Incept is to do my best to educate donors and bust some of the myths that might make a potential donor a little uneasy about donating. One of the biggest worries blood recipients (and even some donors) face is whether or not the blood being sent to the hospitals is safe.

Ensuring a safe blood supply is one of the primary focuses of both hospitals and blood centers across the country. From donation to transfusion, blood is carefully screened and tested to be sure that it’s safe for transfusion.

There are two “checkpoints” through which blood must pass before it can be given to a patient:

  • Stage 1: Donor Screening - The first test that blood has to pass is the donor screening stage. When a potential blood donor stops by their neighborhood donor center, or a local blood drive, they must fill out a brief medical questionnaire and be checked over by a phlebotomist before they donate. The questionnaire asks the donor about any medications they may be taking, health conditions they might have, if and where they’ve traveled outside of the country, and a few other miscellaneous questions (i.e., if they’ve received a tattoo or piercing within the last year, etc.). The phlebotomist takes the donor’s temperature and blood pressure, and checks their hemoglobin levels. This step ensures that the donor is healthy and well – not just so that the blood is safe for someone else but also that the donor will have a successful and comfortable time donating.

After the donation, donors are given a card with the serial number of their unit of blood on it. Then they are asked to call if they become ill over the next few days. This helps ensure that the blood isn’t carrying an illness the donor might have had but been unaware of when they donated. The blood in question would then be discarded, ensuring that it isn’t given to someone who may already be in bad shape.

  • Stage 2: Blood Testing - After donation, the blood is sent to the lab to be tested. Some of the things the lab technicians look for are infections of  hepatitis B and C, West Nile virus, Chagas disease, human T-cell leukemia, AIDS/HIV, syphilis and even mad cow disease in some places. They also double-check the blood typing and RH group of the blood to be sure that it’s given to a patient of the right blood type. If the blood comes back as positive for any of the diseases, the technicians discard the blood and make a note to inform the donor of what they found.

It may seem like a lot of work, but all of these tests help ensure that we have a safe blood supply available to our hospitals when we need it. Thanks to donor screening, blood testing and  type matching, you can rest assured that the blood that hospitals end up receiving came from a healthy donor and, most importantly, is safe.

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Jenna Patterson

Enjoying the Perks: How to Help Donors Take Advantage of Loyalty Programs

As much as I hate how high gas prices are this summer, I love when I can pull into a gas station, swipe my customer loyalty card and save $0.40 per gallon. All this simply for shopping at their grocery store from time to time. When I fill up my 13-gallon tank, that’s over $5 that I can save for lunch or one of those extra-fancy coffees. About a month ago, I even won free lunch for a week from a different gas station, all because I swiped my customer loyalty card when I filled up. That’s a pretty good deal I must say!

Blood donor loyalty programs work the same way.

Donors get special perks just for being members. The more they donate, the more perks they are able to receive. By using this information in your phone calls, you can educate donors on the many benefits they can receive just for donating blood!

Here are a few specific ways to do this successfully:

  • Know the program. Product knowledge is crucial. If you know the program’s ins and outs, you can better explain it to the donor. How do they sign up? How do the donor loyalty points work, and what can they be used for? Aside from points, are there additional perks, such as wellness checks?
  • Stay up-to-date with promotions and bonus points. Who doesn’t love bonus points? If there is a new promotion for the donor to take advantage of, tell them about it! If they can earn bonus points for scheduling and keeping their appointment, tell them! If they get a free t-shirt for donating this weekend, tell them!

  • Educate every donor you speak with. Every time I buy groceries, the cashier tells me my current fuel discount and how much I need to spend to save even more. Every time you talk to a donor, you should do the same. Tell them how many points they have and what they can get with those points. More importantly, tell them how many points they will get with their next donation and what those points will earn them.
  • Customize the conversation. It’s impossible to share every program detail with every donor, but by understanding their interests and needs, you can talk about what is important and relevant to them. If you’re speaking to a high school donor, perhaps they’ll be interested in music gift cards. If you’re speaking to someone a bit older, maybe the advanced wellness checks are more important. If they say they aren’t interested in points or recognition, educate them on how they can donate their points to local charities.

Donor loyalty programs are constantly changing. There are always new promotions, new ways to earn points and new ways to redeem them. The key is to know as much as possible and educate as often as possible. If you can help a donor earn a t-shirt or gift card, or even win tickets to their favorite band’s concert, they will certainly appreciate it!

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jhodgson

Getting to Know Jessica Hodgson


Jessica Hodgson, Incept's Program Results Supervisor

I started working at Incept in August 2006. Starting out as a phone agent, known now as a Conversational Marketing Expert (CME), I was nervous as I had never worked in a call center before. When I got here, though, everyone was so nice!

My first week on the phones I did really well and even won a few prizes. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before. I went home and told my mom, “We play games, and they give me prizes just for doing my job!” That’s when I knew Incept wasn’t just a normal job; it was a great place to start a career.

I worked as a CME until I graduated college and received my bachelor’s degree in marketing management. I quickly applied for the coaching program, and soon after my completion I was promoted to Program Results Supervisor, where I was given full responsibility of my own blood bank program. I gained a lot of experience managing that program and understanding the pressure of meeting unit goals.

Currently, I am a Program Results Supervisor for Amber Nelson’s team. I really enjoy working on this team, as we are always trying to come up with better games and incentives for the Conversational Marketing Experts. My favorite part of my job is doing Positive Coach Approaches with the Conversatoinal Marketing Experts. I love teaching them new things and motivating them to do even better in efforts to save even more lives!

Incept has come so far since the day I started. It was a great place to work then, and it’s even better now. I’m excited to see what the future will bring and where I will end up!

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Brian

World Blood Donor Day: An Unsung Holiday of Giving Life

What is stopping you from donating?

What do you think constitutes something to have its own reserved (and celebrated) day each year?

Perhaps it is the billions of multicolored lights, or a bearded intruder sneaking down chimneys with gifts, that comes to mind when Christmas arrives. It might be possible that giant, mutant rabbits suspiciously hiding painted eggs for children is a thought associated with Easter. Or, just maybe, it is the dread you start to get around Valentine’s Day when you hear the special lad or lady in your life drop hints about that pricey gift they’ve been eyeing to prove your absolute devotion.

For me, I can never really understand some of the customs we have for celebrating holidays. Nonetheless, I enjoy celebrating most, whether it be with explosions, marathons of stop-motion animated classics or seemingly endless amounts of honey-glazed ham and turkey.

Today, though, we are not going to talk about jolly, fat men in red suits. Rather than take you on another trip down memory lane, pining and combing through thoughts of the glorious, sugary sieges of many past Halloweens, I want to talk about World Blood Donor Day, a day we recognize at Incept.

World Blood Donor Day is quite the dark horse when it comes to special days on the calendar. There were no glowing neon balls dramatically making their descent, back when World Blood Donor Day started on June 14, 2004. The date was chosen due to it being the birthday of Karl Landsteiner, an American biologist and physician noted for having first distinguished the main blood groups. Rather than being just another day on the calendar, it is a day to say thank you to blood donors for giving the gift of life and also (if you’re eligible) a day to donate blood.

As you might know, blood cannot be made, so it has to be given. What better day to donate than on World Blood Donor Day? It’s right at the start of the summer season, when the need for blood tends to increase, and it only takes an hour or less (in most cases) to complete a visit to a donor center or blood drive to donate blood. As a blood donor, you are literally giving part of yourself to help out someone in need.

How many lives can Santa Claus claim to have saved? What about the Easter bunny? About how many times do you think that rascal has given blood donation a thought?

That is the beautiful thing about this day. It is not celebrated with television specials or over-the-top, non-existent holiday figureheads. It is about the donor. It is about the businessman that finds time between lunch and meetings to donate blood at the office. It is about a high school kid that donated even though his school is on summer break. It is about the typical soccer mom who finds not only the time, but also compassion, between taking the kids to practice to help others. There are no lavish parades on this day. No holiday feast. No holiday medley to be sung. There is something bigger: good people doing a great thing – giving the gift of life.

If you haven’t donated blood yet this summer, what is stopping you?

Photo Credit: http://www.whatsonxiamen.com

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Stephanie

World Blood Donor Day 2011: More Blood. More Life.

June 14th is World Blood Donor Day, which is a particularly important day for us here at Incept.

It’s the day we celebrate and honor blood donors from around the world who give up a little of their time (and blood) to help someone in need. Most blood donors will never know who their blood eventually helps, but they donate anyway – sometimes several times a year –  for no other reason than because they want to do something altruistic to benefit someone else. World Blood Donor Day is for them.

World Blood Donor Day was started on June 14th, 2004, in Johannesburg, South Africa by the World Health Organization (also known as WHO), as a way to encourage voluntary blood donation throughout the world. This holiday really demonstrates the need for donors to regularly give blood to prevent shortages in hospitals and clinics within their community. The need for donors is especially dire in developing countries where the amount of blood donated is scarce. According to the WHO, out of the 80 countries with low blood donation rates (ie: countries where fewer than 10 people out of every thousand donate), 79 are developing nations. By celebrating World Blood Donor Day, we’re able to raise the awareness of just how important being a volunteer blood donor really is.

Some might ask why hospitals and blood centers don’t simply offer to pay individuals for their blood if the need is so great. Admittedly, this is an idea that makes sense, but it’s not without risks. By offering to pay for blood, it raises the likelihood that the blood you received wouldn’t be safe to give to someone else. Studies have shown that blood donated for profit is more likely to come from individuals who have medical conditions that could make it dangerous for another person to receive their blood, or that the “donors” themselves might donate too frequently, putting themselves in harm’s way. By only taking volunteers, blood centers are more likely to have donors who are healthy, making the blood in our hospitals that much safer.

This year, the theme for World Blood Donor Day is “More blood. More life.” This theme really drives home the need for more people to become regular donors. Even here in the U.S., we sometimes have blood shortages. Out of the 38% of people eligible to donate blood, fewer than 10% actually donate on a regular basis. When you consider that about 4.5 million Americans alone will a need blood transfusion every year, the need for blood donations becomes staggeringly obvious.

Donating blood is very important. By spending just one hour to donate a pint of blood, you could be helping up to three people who desperately need it.

From all of us here at Incept, we want to wish you a happy World Blood Donor Day this June 14th!

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