Category Archives: Education and Training

Education, Education and Training, Management, Organizational Behaviour, People Management

An Introduction to Organizational Behaviour

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I’ve spoken earlier about OB and how it is used within businesses, but I thought that it might be useful to be a lot more detailed. So, over the course of this year expect regular posts on this topic which you can use in your own learnings.

Organizational behaviour can be defined as the study of how people interact within groups. This study is generally applied in an attempt to come up with more efficient business organizations. The main idea of the study of organizational is that organizations can apply a scientific approach to manage their workers. Generally, the theories of organizational are used for human resources to maximize the individual output of people from group members.

A Breakdown of Organizational Behaviour

There are different philosophies and models of organizational behaviour. The focus on these different areas of study is:

  • Increasing job satisfaction,
  • Improving job performance,
  • Encouraging leadership and promoting innovation.

Managers may adopt different management tactics to achieve the desired results. These tactics may include modifying compensation structures, reorganizing groups and changing the evaluation of performance.

Brief History of OB

The field of organizational behaviour dates back to the late 20s when a company called Hawthorne electric company set up experiments. The experiments were designed to discern how environmental change changed employees productivity.

Between 1924 and 1933, various studies were conducted by Hawthorne electric company. The studies included the study of the effects of different types of breaks on the productivity of employees. The most famous finding from the studies is what is known as the Hawthorne Effect, the change in people’s behavior when they know they are being observed.

Some people have argued that the focus on the finding is to ignore a wider set of different studies that would be credited for the development of organizational behaviour as the human resources professional and as a field of study. The idea of looking at behaviour and productivity in an organization scientifically with the aim of increasing the quality and amount of work an employee can do was backed up with the idea that employees were not resources to be used interchangeably. Instead, workers are unique regarding their potential fit with the company and their psychology.

Organizational behavior has focused on different topics. During the 1940s, organizational behavior focused on management science and logistics. The emphasis was mainly on statistical analysis and mathematical modeling to find the best answers for problems that were deemed complex.

In the 70s, theories of institutions and contingency, as well as resource dependence, organizational ecology, and bounded rationality, came to lead the study as the field concentrated more on quantitative research. These sets of theories and findings helped organizations to understand how they can improve decision making and business structure.

Since the 70s, a good amount of work being done in the field of organizational behaviour has based on cultural components of organizations, and this includes gender roles, class, cultural relativism and gender roles and their unique roles on productivity and group building. The studies take into account the ways in which background and identity can inform decision making.

Focusing On The Academic

You can find academic programs that focus on organizational behavior in business schools. You can also find them in the schools of psychology and social work. They draw from the field of leadership studies, anthropology, computer models and ethnography and use qualitative, computer models and quantitative as methods of exploring and testing ideas. One can study different topics within the field of organizational behavior depending on the program.

Organizational Behaviour in Practice

Human relations professionals and executives can use organizational behavior to understand better the culture of the business and how the culture can hinder or facilitate employee retention and productivity. Executives and human resource managers can also use organizational behavior to evaluate the skills of candidates and the candidate’s personality during the hiring process.

The knowledge or theory application from the field of organizational behaviour can be narrowed down to the following sections:

  • job satisfaction,
  • personality,
  • leadership,
  • reward management,
  • power,
  • authority, and
  • politics.

There is no single way of assessing the suitable way of managing any of these things, but researching organizational can be used to provide topics and guidelines to follow.

  • Job satisfaction theories are different, but some people dispute that a satisfying job is composed of compelling work, concrete reward system, satisfactory working conditions, and good supervisors.
  • Personality plays a significant role in the way people interact with groups and do work. You can know the personality of a person through a conversation or a series of tests. Knowing the personality of a person can give you an idea of whether they are the perfect fit for the particular environment you want to hire them into. You will also know how best you can motivate the employees.
  • Authority, power, and politics depend on each other in an organization. It is therefore essential to understand the appropriate ways and adhere to the rules at the workplace, and the general ethical guidelines in which the elements are used and exhibited are the main components of running a cohesive business.

Why Managers Should Study Organizational Behaviour

The pressures on firms continue to mount, and companies around the world need to utilize their resources in the best way possible.

The success of every organization depends on the effectiveness of the management of the employees. The people’s behaviour in an organization is governed by feelings, ideas, and activities. For businesses to effectively manage people, it is vital to perceive their needs. However, the behaviour of people can differ from one individual to another. This makes it impossible to come up with standard solutions to the problems in an organization.

For this reason, it is crucial to consider the social and psychological aspects when designing solutions to solve different issues in an organization, and that is why managers should study organizational behaviour.

Business Planning, Education and Training, Project Management, Tools

DIDs and SIP Trunking for Dummies

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With regard to real-time communications, there are two aspects that businesses focus on. They would like a system that not only saves them money in the long run but is more efficient than the system they already have in place. This way, they can seamlessly upgrade their system while at the very same time keep their more sophisticated users happy.
 
Earlier, a PBX telephone system and later PRI (Primary Rate Interface) Line, integrated with TDM (Time Division Multiplexing) interface. This allowed 25 to 30 individual voice lines for a single connection and was the most used business telco system in place. It was easy to use and manageable at the time.
 
Various employees connected to the same system could call one another using the employee specified extension or use a programmed digit – “7” for instance – if they wanted to get an outside line. The way these lines were connected to one another is how branches of a tree are connected to the trunk of that tree, hence the term “trunking”. Even though the system worked for decades, it was not cost-effective and it had problems. Thus, as soon as companies saw a way out, they took it and what we call SIP trunking emerged.

How Does SIP Trunking Work?

As mentioned, the PBX and later the PRI system worked well for a long time, but as soon as SIP trunks utilizing VoIP (Voice over IP) was introduced businesses realized that additional alternatives existed. SIP trunks, coupled with VoIP, were faster since it used a data connection to connect users to a network, often the same data connection that the business used to access the internet for other reasons also.
With the development of technology in use, SIP trunks with VoIP services could easily-manage voice signals through a data connection. This helped businesses realize significant cost savings as they were able to make a call and video connection as well as hosting cloud services and managing an e-commerce business all through the same network.

ITSP

SIP trunking used a carrier called the ITSP i.e. Telephony Service Provider that offered the VoIP Services. It relied on internet services and protocols as opposed to circuit-switch voice protocols in use for the purpose. This enabled businesses to merge their voice connections and data usage under a single data connection, allowing them to save serious amounts of money annually. Additionally, it also provides a private system with public access, serving the purpose fulfilled by the traditional circuit-switched voice i.e. transport and termination of SIP trunk calls.
 
 

SBC

The key purpose of using SIP trunking services is to provide a seamless transition between different VoIP gateways. Here, VoIP is the device handling the calls and video conferences, while SIP is the protocol that enables smooth handling of both calls and video conferences. The one element here that keeps this system running smoothly is the SBC i.e. the Session Border Control. It is the device that protects a private network by managing traffic and preventing spammers and blacklisted users, such as telemarketers from gaining access to the network. This keeps the system running smoothly.

What Role do DIDs Play In the Process?

DID or Direct Inward Dialing is a series of numbers that are primarily used to dial into your PBX i.e. Private Branch Exchange or networks. These numbers are allocated to the customer and then forwarded to your respective PBX through SIP trunking services. 
 
The PBX is distinguished on the basis of the last three or four numbers in the series. These digits are known as DNIS i.e. the Dialed Number Identification Services and are responsible for routing the information to the correct telephone extension directly.
Presently, DID services are provided on a PRI circuit. DID services also play a similar role with VoIP communications, using PSTN to reach users directly. It works as a gateway to route and translates calls between the two networks. It is also worth mentioning that with a DID in place, your business can get the much needed local presence which plays a significant role in increasing your profit margin. Not only does it enable number portability but it also provides you with local number availability lacking the toll-free 800 number. This can help you build a local presence without having to change your number.

Why Prefer SIP Trunking Services?

When all has been said and done, as a business owner, your primary concern is probably how the service could best benefit your organization. Thus, here are a few reasons to prefer SIP Trunk Services for your business.

SBC and Networked Policy Management

SBC is the one element of your SIP Trunk Services that keep all the spam at bay while securing your network and keeping it from overloading. Thus, it goes without saying that many SBC based solutions require hands-on policy management as well as configuration, especially if you require a big deployment.
 
This may cost a bit in the initial stages, but if you keep your needs in mind and choose wisely, it will definitely be money well spent for you and your business. Plus, they handle bulk traffic, which makes your entire system run efficiently.

Media Support and scalability

With trends in the world of communication changing on a daily basis, it is a given fact that business will continue to move into better, more efficient forms of media which can improve the pace of business. This includes video conferencing and high-definition audio among the few things.
Thus, equipping your business with state of the art SIP trunk services will ensure that it is always able to keep up with the changing megatrends of the telecom world, keeping your business a step ahead of the competition.
 
Additionally, most SIP Trunk Services are scalable. Meaning, as soon as you have more traffic that needs to be handled, you can easily just upgrade a few components and you are ready for that extra capacity.

Ironclad Security

Most highly ranked SBC and SIP trunking services have a network firewall in place which is backed up by a highly efficient intrusion prevention system. These not only keep spam at bay but also deter data based attacks, enabling it to work with various different systems.

Robust Session Management

As you increase the range of your PRI to SIP services, expanding to VoIP apps, one thing that you will notice immediately is the robust session management of the new system you have in place.

The Bottom Line

At this point, you have a general idea of what of the various aspects of real-time communication dealing with business SIP Trunking services. It is one of those efficient and always evolving systems that can be modified at any time to fit the needs of your expanding business. 
Cogeco, Customer service, Education and Training, Internet, Television

Cancellation – the final step in a long and drawn out process

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Dealing with customers that want to cancel is hard. I know – I’m personally in the midst of trying to cancel my Television/Internet service & trying to keep my frustration in check is difficult to say the least! – however, this blog is not about the customer experience, but rather how to ensure that the customer does not feel the way they do!

But … that being said, my situation does make for a great case study so lets explore exactly what happened & where we are now.

I was a happy customer with my local Television/Internet provider (Cogeco) and paying about $100/mo for their services which I though reasonable.  However this price was based on a 1 yr promotion, so when that year was up and the price jumped to $189, I thought it would be reasonable to see if they would match the prices being offered by their competitors.  In addition, the promotion for new customers now was $75 or something like that, for similar services – unfortunately they were not willing to meet anywhere close to that, and the best they could offer was a $20/mo loyalty discount, bringing my price down to $169.

Well, as you can imagine, I started to look around.  While I was happy with the service, the price was too high in comparison to other businesses.

Fast forward a couple of months and I’d moved to another company and called Cogeco to cancel my service.  I was informed that because I’d taken advantage of the $20 promotion, I’d have to pay a penalty of $70 to cancel.  Doing some quick math in my head, I figured that it would still be worth it as I’d make that back in one month with the new company.  However, the “cancellation specialist” informed me that if I waited till the end of the month, I’d be able to skip the cancellation fee which seemed like a smart move for me.

Today takes us to my 2nd call to a different “cancellation specialist” where I’m now informed that I’m still going to be stuck with that cancellation fee and I’ve actually ended up paying for an additional 3 weeks of service with a company that I could not even use as their equipment was literally unplugged from the wall!

At this point, I’m willing to bite the bullet with the cancellation fee just to move on, but I don’t want to also have to pay for those extra weeks of service as that would have only made sense if I wasn’t paying the cancellation fee!  So I’ve asked for an escalation to the manager (which they cannot do, but promise a 24hr call back … stay tuned).

So long story short, lets reiterate some of the pain points and issues:

  1. Special Offers – special offers are a great tool to entice new business to an organization and the discounts to get customers on board are absolutely essential.  However, when an offer ends and the price doubles, you can expect customers to leave.  You might get some people that just ignore the increase, but not too many I suspect.  If and when customers do call in to discuss the offer, reasonable discounts should be made available to entice them to stay, perhaps even enhancements to the service – Netflix for example, or increased bandwidth or something along those lines.
  2. Hold Times – I didn’t really discuss it in my scenario above, but my hold time was close to 30 – 45 minutes + the time spent discussing the issue with the individual.  This did not help my mood at all, and I expect that the reason for the extreme hold time was very much due to #1 above!
  3. Copious Notes & Details + Follow Through – I unfortunately spent too much time once I spoke to the representative repeating myself with regards to the fact that my issue was not the $70 cancellation fee, but rather the discrepancy in information between the previous representative and this one and that I was now on the hook for an additional service charge for a service that I had not been using.
  4. Unwillingness to help an existing customer – despite my previous point about special offers, there is actually a cost to the business in terms of churn.  By not making me a competitive offer, not only have they lost my business now (short term), they’ve also lost my potential business in terms of upsell opportunities in the longer term also.  Not to mention this post and it’s potential damage overall!  It would have been far simpler and better for them if they were up front right from the start and said there was nothing they could do – sure they would have lost my revenue for a couple of months, but they might have potentially had me return in 6-12 months to take advantage of any “new” customer promotions that they might have then been offering.  

So that’s the scenario, what could they have done differently to not get me to the point where I’m airing my dirty laundry in public?

  1. Allow their staff to negotiate in good faith in an effort to truly retain customers.  A 10% discount on a bill is not really any incentive when the competition is offering 50%.  Something reasonable like 25%-30% would probably ensure that customers were retained, while still helping to maintain the bottom line.
  2. If $’s are not available in terms of incentives, offer additional services that the client might not even need or use as a benefit.  It’s a bit of a cheat, but increasing bandwidth is a great selling point if you know that it is not going to be utilized as then the customer believes they are getting something “better” but there is no real impact to the business.
  3. Staff your queues appropriately with staff that are trained to not only defuse irate customers, but also able to look for solutions and options.  Customer service is not just about keeping someone quiet – it’s about actually helping them.
  4. Remember that your existing customers matter also … churn hurts a business and having to reacquire customers is not only difficult and time consuming, it’s expensive also!  It wastes not only the companies resources, but in this case the consumer also with the reprogramming of devices + the retraining of family members on how to use the devices!
  5. Ensure that your staff provide accurate and reliable information (I’ll let you know what the supervisor says if I actually get a call back) so that the message the first time is the same message the second and third!  
  6. Staff your queues appropriately to ensure that hold times are minimized and offer high tech options to customers to get them off queues.  Tools and technologies like chat, knowledge and phone system call backs are all ways of helping to reduce wait times.
That’s my 2c for today – stay tuned to see how this one ends up and lets see if they can turn me around.