I am - BIG TIME. I love dogs (especially my overweight dachshund), cats, pretty much animals in general. When our new Spot On peer to peer recognition program was introduced, I thought "Great! He's so cute!" But I really didn't think about how to use the Spot On recognition program in a business environment. I wondered, "Would Spot be taken seriously?"
Just a few days ago, I was given the challenge to begin our own peer to peer recognition program in our sales suite of about 25 people. My only instruction was to use Spot On. My boss, Kurt Carlson, Director of Positive Mojo, was quick to help as we both decided to introduce MaryJo Chicklon as our Spot On Expert (you can email our Spot On expert at spoton@baudville.com!). MaryJo has been a customer service star at Baudville for four years. With her experience, great rapport with customers and awesome attitude, I knew she would be a great liaison for our customers.
MaryJo and I met and quickly had some cool ideas based on SpotonBaudville.com. We ordered the program, put all the pieces in front of us and brainstormed how we could begin using it as soon as possible. Then, we discussed some of our concerns. We already have a peer recognition program at Baudville; we knew we didn't want to detract from its success. How do we make Spot On just for our department?
Another challenge we talked about were all the various positions in our suite - inbound calls, outbound calls, artists, eCare specialists, Tech Support - how are we going to meet everyone's goals?
MaryJo and I wanted to encourage teamwork, helping each other, and also thanking others for what we sometimes take for granted every day. We decided to incorporate our corporate value "Nurture.” It seemed a perfect fit.
We also wanted to have all of our sales and support professionals know as much about Spot On as MaryJo and I do. Why not have peer to peer training instead of the typical "boss up front and showing slides" training, we thought? I immediately LOVED this idea from MaryJo and, after a few tweaks, the training will start on Wednesday with a fun Kick Off day in our suite. We've set up all the parts of the system in our Coaching Area so two people can log off the phones, get away from their desk and learn about the Spot On program.
Employees earn a token for being trained and a token for training the next person! We've paired up our trainees so that they are training people in areas other than their own - again reinforcing the team attitude in our suite. Within 2 days, everyone will be trained and talking about Spot On with our customers.
It's only the beginning, but already the ideas are flying around our department: using paw prints or Spots as visuals to hang around our cubicles, tokens for helping someone, token for hearing someone talk about Spot On with our customers, turning in tokens for prizes, fun dog "treats" to go along with the Kick Off (have you heard of Puppy Chow? it's really a people snack made of cereal, chocolate and peanut butter- YUM). We often get more attention when there's food around an event!
We're finding Spot to be very accommodating to our needs, our suite, and as a great complement to an existing program. I'll let you know how the Kick Off goes next week!
Brenda and her dachshund, Teddy Bear.
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Brenda has been a Baudvillian (a.k.a. Baudville employee) for over seven years and is currently the Customer Service Supervisor at Baudville. Her two favorite dogs are her overweight dachshund, Teddy Bear, and Spot (naturally!). She regularly blogs about her experience implementing the Spot On recognition program in the Baudville sales suite.
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