Workplace Wisdom Breaks: Actionable Insights for Customer Service Professionals

A unique monthly subscription that offers flexible, easy-to-use, motivational and skill building tools designed especially for busy supervisors.

Developed in conjunction with supervisors and managers, the content of each Wisdom Break is tailor-made to help service reps meet the inherent challenges of working in a fast paced, frequently demanding, and often stressful customer service contact center environment.

Wisdom Breaks are available via an annual subscription. Subscribers receive a different Kit once a month for 12 months.     

Wisdom Break Kit Features:

  • A beautifully designed one-pager featuring one of the 22 Aha!s from the customer service fable, The Napkin, the Melon & the Monkey, by Barbara Burke.
  • Practical advice from 2 trusted sources:
    1.     Expert Wisdom from best-selling author and customer service expert, Barbara Burke. Using experience gained from working with thousands of service professionals over the past 25 years, Barbara takes one of the Aha!s from her customer service fable and writes a brief, easy-to-read article with fresh, actionable insights any service rep can use to make their life easier and their job more enjoyable. Topics include: how to use an apology to diffuse an irate customer, why having a friend at work is good for your career, how to handle an irksome co-worker, and how to make organizational change work for you.
    2. Peer Wisdom features practical tips from service reps who have used and benefited personally and professionally from applying that particular Aha!.
  • Conversation Guide. This set of thought-provoking questions can be used to open a team meeting, as a topic for a quick huddle, or as a conversation starter with an agent.
  • Artwork: Keep your Aha! theme alive by down loading a JPEG of the colorful heading of the Wisdom Break (similar to the image above/right). Post the image on the call center monitor, paste it into your email signature, display it on your employee intranet or in the company newsletter.

Wisdom Break Kits are designed to be used by supervisors as a coaching and development tool to improve agent performance and motivation. 

Supervisors use their Wisdom Break Kit subscription to make a difference in a variety of ways. These are just a few examples.

  • The Aha! becomes the call center’s Theme of the Week.
    • Copy and distribute the latest Wisdom Break to employees accompanied by a “food for thought” question to get them thinking about how the Aha! can be applied in their life. Post the one-pager around the center and in the break room.
  • The Aha! is a ready-to-go motivational topic for regular team meetings.
    • Select from the list of questions from that issue’s Conversation Guide to brainstorm with your team how they can apply the Aha! when working with customers.
    • Create a “story circle” to give reps the opportunity to share their stories of how they’ve used the Aha!.
  • The Aha! provides a creative tool for improving QA scores.
    • Each of the Aha!s can be easily correlated with a specific agent behaviors on the phone. For example, when discussing QA scores with an agent, connect Aha! #10 The less I talk, the more I learn. with the call quality component:  “Actively listen to understand the customer’s issue.”
  • The Aha! is an ideal tool for “in the moment” coaching.
    •  For example, if you are out on the floor and notice a new rep fresh out of training trying out a new skill, provide some encouragement by mentioning that it was a great example of the latest Wisdom Break: Aha! #13: Spreading my wings is the only way to fly.”

Stay in the Loop

Wisdom Break Kit Subscriptions will be available in March or April. If you would like be notified when we have a sample issue ready to preview or the date when we will start accepting subscriptions, please provide your email address.

Stay Tuned!
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