Leading the Way Podcast: Sally Hurley, CEO, VIPdesk Connect
A true disruptor of the call center industry, Sally Hurley, CEO of VIPdesk Connect, joins Leading the Way to share how her organization focuses on the human connection to empower their virtual teams. With 70% of the company being women and moms, one of the many benefits of this innovative virtual business model is the gain in flexibility to work from home and maintain a better work/life balance so the client gets a higher quality experience. We talk about the common challenge of attracting quality talent and what it takes to make them successful and productive.
Sally is a pioneer of the virtual call center model and she’s breaking all the rules of the old, antiquated industry that is generally viewed as a cost center--giving her clients the opportunity to afford customer service without having to send their calls offshore.
In this week’s podcast, hear Sally’s approach to culture, the challenge of attracting quality talent, effective virtual leadership, and why it’s important to elevate gratitude as a core value to impact positive change.
Key Soundbites
- On leadership– “I view my role (as a leader) as shining the light on others, to set a vision. This is who we’re going to be, and these are the things that are not acceptable.”
- On transparency– “Our values are about how we interact with each other and how we interact with our clients. Transparency has to do with how we communicate with our team and clients. It doesn’t exist in this industry and we are changing that.”
- On leading virtual teams - “Communication comes to mind. We do all of our meetings on video, being on camera so that we can look you in the eye and vice-versa. Humanize the meetings because people can be distracted. We start every meeting with good news, gratitude, and a human element of their personal life, a water cooler conversation. We also have social media channels, virtual book clubs, and virtual happy hours.”
- On customer experience – “By taking care of good people once you have the good fortune of getting them, they, in turn, then take care of those customers. We always go back to, are we doing enough to take care of the people, are we listening to them, are we flexible enough? That is our sole focus.”
About Leading the Way
Leading the Way is a weekly radio show and podcast series that highlights influential business leaders and leading people practices from i4cp. Co-hosted by Emmy award-winning television anchor and radio host, Scott Murray, and i4cp’s Angel Carlton, the show features interviews with respected business leaders from the world of business, sports, entertainment, healthcare and philanthropy.
The show airs live every Sunday at 4 pm CT on KLIF 570 in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, the global audience is invited to listen live on www.klif.com and the weekly podcast debuts on iTunes or Google Play and the i4cp website the following week.