In this series we will discuss Contact Center industry trends and best practices, as well as sharing success stories and pain points with some of the most innovative professionals in the industry. Join us as we learn and grow together in order to provide world class customer service to each and every one of our clients.
Dave Hoekstra: Welcome to Working
Smarter, presented by Calabrio , where
we discuss context centered industry
trends and best practices, as well
as sharing success stories and pain
points with some of the most innovative
professionals in the industry.
We're glad you're joining us to
learn and grow together in order to
provide world class customer service
to each and every one of our clients.
My name is Dave Hoekstra, product
evangelist here at Collabrio.
And my guest today is a, is an old friend.
we've known each other for quite
a few years now, and I'm very
excited to have Klaus Bang.
Klaus is the senior workforce
manager at AB group, which is
a Danish insurance company.
For those of you not in the know
with your Danish insurance companies.
we're very excited to have Klaus here.
So right off the bat,
Klaus, I have to ask Bang.
Is that a traditional Danish
last name or is that, did you
make that up just to sound cool?
Klaus Bang: Yeah.
Hello, Dave.
Thank you for having me.
I've been so excited to, to come on and,
great to be here and, and the last name.
Yeah.
actually, I don't know if the stereos,
called a bang and all of some very
famous, very expensive, hardware.
And there's so others
have the name beside me.
I don't know if it came from
them, but, yeah, that's my name.
Yeah.
Dave Hoekstra: So you don't share
in the Bang Olufsen fortune of,
high end car stereos, do you?
Klaus Bang: Yeah, I wish,
but, unfortunately not.
I think actually there's some Dutch,
in the last name, but, yeah, I know
there's some Viking blood in it for sure.
Dave Hoekstra: speaking of Vikings,
this is our first, episode with a
Dane on, and I'm very excited because,
there's, so much, there's, so lore in
workforce management with Denmark, right?
In, I, this is fascinating to me
because, I have, I consider myself
a bit of a scholar of Erlang, right?
And that just means I know
that he's from Denmark.
That's, where, so I, this is actually
where I really wanted to start with you
is, having been a Dane your entire life
and a really understanding Erlang, let's
talk about that because I think a lot
of our audience knows the name Erlang.
And, but they mostly know it as the
formula that kind of runs workforce
management, but, tell us, a little
bit about what you know, about Erlang
the man, not Erlang the formula.
Klaus Bang: Sure.
Sure.
Erlang is like, he's what
Elwes is or was to Ragnusa.
You never know if he's there or
not, but, that's what I consider
Erlang to the WFM, that's.
What Elvis was for the rock music, some
might even go say he's like a prophet like
Jesus was, I don't know, but he's, he's
right up there, he's, he's something else,
but, I will tell you a bit about him.
And then he was a Dane, as you say,
and he was born in the, year 1908.
No, actually, that's wrong.
That's when he died.
He was born a 51 years earlier
in the 1878 and he was a Danish
mathematics mathematician.
He was an engineer and he lived
using a statistics and he, got
hired by the Danish phone company.
in the start of the 1900 and they asked
him to, to develop a query theory, to,
to find out how many phone ladies do we
need to sit on these old phone systems,
plucking people in to talk to each other.
And he needed to, to calculate.
we put out some wires in the country.
How big does these wires have to be?
so he made the, he made
a lot of famous formulas.
he made the, calculated
measure called Erlang.
And that basically tells you
how many calls can be in this
wire until it's full of calls.
yeah, so, that's Erlang and, and there's
a particular formula that he made, called
Erlang A and there's also Erlang C.
and the cool thing about these formulas
is that those are the formulas that we
use today when we calculate our staffing
needs and that's in Caleb and that's
in many other, WFM toys that we use.
And, The Erlang C formula to,
start with that's, using that you
calculate how many you need to sit
on the chairs to answer the phone
to, to answer the queues at all time.
And you, you expect the, people
calling in to have, infinite, patients.
And you know that works well, if you're
like, the taxes or something, you have
no other choice, but why I work at
the insurance company, if you're not
fast enough to answer the phone, then
the people will hang up and they will.
Call someone else, maybe a competitor.
And to avoid that, we
made the Erlang A formula.
And that's what I've
been working with lately.
That's what I want to,
take a deep dive in.
Yeah, with you.
Dave Hoekstra: Yeah, absolutely.
okay.
First of all, it's really good to know
that the story I've been telling about
Erlang and, how Erlang, the formula
came to be was pretty accurate, right?
I was very worried that you were going
to tell me that there was some bad
information that I have about Erlang,
but I think my story that I've been
telling has been pretty accurate.
And yeah, you're right.
So we've got Erlang C, which, Which
assumes infinite patients, right?
And, if anybody has ever worked in
a call center before, that's really
rare actually is infinite patients.
And so Erlang A, which,
can, take into that.
and this is, the part where we're
going to get a little nerdy here, but,
you, for those of you that can't see.
Klaus is wearing his WFM Ninja
t shirt, that's, was given
to him by Collabra actually.
so he's, the Danish WFM Ninja is if
you really want to get a sense of
who we're talking to here on this.
And, the discussion of Erlang A,
This is where I think I got this
is where you and I got to know each
other really well because you and I
were talking one of the things that
I like to ask people quite a bit.
as we're speaking, is do you know where
your service level targets come from?
And most of the time you can
imagine what the answer is.
It was like that when I got here.
It was like that when I got here, right?
And you can almost see the lightbulb
go off in their head a little bit.
that's a really good question.
I don't know why.
And, One of the coolest things, as you and
I were, speaking, you said you actually
had a great answer to this question.
And so I'd actually like to start there.
So when I said to you, Klaus Why is your
service level target set the way it is?
Tell me, why,
Klaus Bang: Yeah.
I know because, the service level
indicates, your customer's patience.
And, and I have to start somewhere
else because I wanted to do the
prediction of the answer rate in Callio.
By getting there, I needed
to use the Erlang A formula.
And to, get to that, I needed to know
what is the patience of our customers.
I looked at our data and I found
the target we want to be at.
We want to be at a 90 percent answer rate.
And I thought, okay, What is the patients
off our customers these days where we
hit our target on 90 percent answer rate?
How many number of calls do
we answer within 60 seconds?
service levels that basically a
percentage of how many customers do
you want to answer within 60 seconds?
And I could see on our data that when we
answered 45 percent within 60 seconds,
then we had an answer rate of 90%.
In Calabrio and in my analysis, I
put 45 percent within 60 seconds,
I told the company, this is our
new target for service level.
Dave Hoekstra: And what did they say?
How did they, were they like, okay, sure.
We trust you Klaus.
Or did they want some proof?
Klaus Bang: they have, a high level
of trust in me, but, I explained to
them, I took them on the journey and
explained to them why it needs to be
here and it was actually not that hard
to convince them because they were like
many others, they didn't really know
why the service was the way it was.
and they didn't really.
But one thing that they really cared
about is how many customers do we answer?
What is our answer rate?
That was what was important to them
among many other KPIs, of course.
But that's what they really worried about.
They didn't worry so much about.
Okay.
How many percentages within
how many seconds do you say?
And no, that didn't work.
Really.
Dave Hoekstra: how long ago was
Klaus Bang: this?
this was actually not that
long ago, half a year.
Dave Hoekstra: Half a year, okay.
And what is, what's the difference?
What, has it done to your
staffing requirements?
What has it done to your overall
performance making this adjustment
in your service level target?
Klaus Bang: what has us done
really is that we can be a
very precise in a, our targets.
we have a target at
work, 90%, answer rate.
And, we use the budget modules
also we have in a Calipo.
And that's where it really started.
we had a summer last year where we
were missing staff, always behind,
had to work extra and so forth.
And we were like, okay, we don't want
to end up in this situation again.
How come we didn't?
Figure out how many staff we
needed at the, right time.
and I was like, if we start to look at
the, answer rate, which should be our
target to, to get to know that, then
we need to know our service levels.
We need to know our customer patients.
We need to have full
control of our shrinkage.
We need to have full control
of our average handling times.
We need to be precise in our forecasting
measures, all that, and when we are there.
Then we can get the right answer rate,
the prediction of the right answer rate.
And then we can look at our budgets,
our FTE budgets, and then we can
predict where we're going to be for
like a year ahead or two years ahead,
whatever we want, and be sure to hire
the right staff at the right time.
Dave Hoekstra: And so
you're telling me it worked.
Is that what you're telling me?
It
Klaus Bang: worked.
And the funny part is, we didn't,
get into my, WFM history, really.
But, 15 years ago, I worked at
the Danish bank, at Danish bank
in Denmark, the biggest bank
called Danish bank, funny enough.
And, they had very high service level
there and they had very high answer rate.
They wanted to answer All calls.
So we used Erlang C there.
Actually, the only calls that we didn't
want to answer was the one who just,
put the phone down within 12 seconds
because they, died wrong or whatever.
So we use the Erlang C formula there.
And, we had problems in the end.
So when I came to, to the insurance
company, we, we had, two large company who
just merged for one and a half year ago.
And, Both companies were using
Calabria actually, we were
using them in different ways.
And now that we built a new common
foundation for the WFM, that was
the point where we could say,
okay, now we really know what we
want and we want the answer rate.
How do we get there?
And I knew Erlang and I said,
He actually did make a formula
for, just this, instance.
And, and I got news
Dave Hoekstra: for you.
Klaus Bang: Yeah, exactly.
I have 100 years old news
for you and we can use that.
Dave Hoekstra: So that's fantastic.
Now, okay.
You said it now I want to get into your
history a little bit, because I do like to
know how'd you get to where you are today?
Like, where did it start?
How, what, I often find that talking to,
especially WFM people, we don't grow up.
Nobody asks us when we're in
elementary school, what do you
want to be when you grow up?
And we say a WFM analyst, right?
So how did you, arrive
at where you are today?
Klaus Bang: actually, I started
somewhere completely different,
as many WFM specialists do,
I was working with my hands.
I was working with IP telephony,
which was new at the time.
And, and then I thought, all right,
I need to try something different.
I had a good friend working at this
big bank and they said, we have
an opening in the IT department.
I know I like math and I like analysts
and I like to document things.
And so I said, okay, that
could be interesting.
And, and then I found out that this it
department, it wasn't really as an IT
guy, it was at something called WFM.
And I was like, what is that?
But okay, maybe it's, I, if I can
just get my foot inside the door,
then I can always go to the real
IT where the real magic happens.
So I'll just take this WFM job,
whatever it is, let's find out.
And, and I came in and there was a,
this old guy sitting there and, and
he taught me everything he knows and
he knew a lot and then all of a sudden
I found out, okay, this WFM, this
is a, this is actually pretty cool.
It's much better than it.
This is what I want to do, and this
center was a, it was a huge center.
It was a open 24 seven,
all days around the year.
And, on, on the most busiest of
years, we got 50, 000 calls a day and.
I don't know in the American standard,
but in Denmark, it's pretty high.
we're like 5 million people.
yeah, so, that was pretty high.
So that was, yeah, I learned a lot there.
That was interesting.
Dave Hoekstra: Now, the,
were you good at math?
In school?
Yeah.
You were.
Okay.
Cause I wasn't.
I was terrible at it.
And, one of the things that I liked
about workforce management, there
was just enough data and, looking at
information to keep me interested.
But I actually liked
the people part of it.
I liked working with the people
and helping them, find ways to
better their schedules, better
their lives, things like that.
And so I, hate math.
I hate it so much I can't even stand it
and it's funny that I'm in a job where
I, have to talk about things where people
use math all the time but I, I'm always
curious about whether or not you, use
math and all right, so you started there
and is that kind of a, journey you just
continued to work with over the years?
Klaus Bang: Yeah, I was there
for 13 years and, things, that's,
the beauty in the WFM world.
Things really change, even though you
think you have control of everything,
then you get a new director and then
we're going to make a new department and
we're going to move calls here and there
and then you can just, start over and,
that's always a lot of fun, I think.
but.
After 13 years, I thought, okay, I need to
try something new, not new because I love
WFM, but maybe a different environment.
and, in insurance, there are,
a few different parameters
than in the banking business.
So, that's nice to learn
something new there.
Dave Hoekstra: Now, speaking
of change, you recently have
facilitated a couple moves, within
your insurance company, right?
You're combining some contact centers.
You had some companies come together.
what's going on there?
What, and, what are some lessons that
you learned in merging different groups?
Klaus Bang: Yeah, it was a culture
thing and it was, extremely interesting.
we had, two companies and
they were both using Calabrio.
they had their contact centers
and more or less the same build.
One of them were on one physical
location and the other had
four different locations.
So, there was some differences
there, of course, but it was the
same system that we used really.
And then one of the big difference
that I learned was that in, in
one of the, Companies, they used,
everything they could incalibrate.
They also makes it everything and
they empowered the employees, they
empowered the leaders and, yeah,
that was how they were using it.
And the other part of
the company, they were.
holding things back a bit,
holding them in a tight leasing.
I don't want to automate this.
I want to be in control.
I want to do this.
And the employees, they had to
write the WFM team asking, Oh,
can I get some administrative
time or something like that?
And the WFM team were
putting it into the schedule.
So actually in one of the companies,
they were like three times as many
WFM employees, and they weren't really
handling that much more employees than.
The other company.
Dave Hoekstra: Interesting.
Klaus Bang: Yeah.
The, what company I was from, that
doesn't really matter, but, of
course it was the automated one.
of course.
Oh, wait.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Of course.
no.
The other day they knew
what they were doing.
They were just doing
it in a different way.
And that was the culture thing about it.
but, the fun thing about this is that, we
said, okay, let's try and automate some
more things because, we want to do more.
We need to do more work and we
don't have the resources and so on.
We need to merge all this and we're
going to be a lot of busy doing this.
So we want.
Have that much time to do like day to day
planning and moving a lunch or whatever.
So, we, started on the journey of
automation and they're one of the
things we had a employees writing to
us asking for some administrative time.
We put that into the plan right back here.
It is, or, if we weren't fast enough,
they started concept with their
leader saying, Oh, I need some time.
And then they just did it and they were
out of adherence and, things like that.
We also made it that.
Okay.
And, it saved the WFM team like
an hour a day doing these manual
things, and it saved the employees
a lot of time asking for it.
And in the end, they started using
less administrative time because
they got the power themselves to
actually put it into the schedule.
Aha.
Yeah, so we, we earned a lot
of time by doing, working
smarter in Calibrio, actually.
Dave Hoekstra: This is why you have
a t shirt that says WFM ninja on it.
Yeah, it's because You get the concepts
right the concepts is if you start
saving time here other places become
more productive And when you become
more productive you find other ways to
save time and it creates this Rolling
process of continuing to work for it.
So is that move done?
Are you still in progress?
Klaus Bang: No, it's
more or less done now.
And, I just need to add also
to, to, to what we did there.
It also raised the employee
satisfaction actually a lot.
and that's, an, that's a thing sometimes
you, forget in WFM and, in my WFM
career, when I started, it was a lot
about, being productive, finding the
little parameters that could gain
us some extra employee power, or,
just thinking about the customer,
and not really so much the employee.
But now as I grow older, I start to
learn, okay, if we have certified
employees, then we have less attrition.
Then we don't need to hire as many.
And then we have more stable
average handling time.
Maybe we can sell some
more, all those things.
And, yeah, WFM is not always
about just turning the screw.
That's a Danish expression, but,
turning the screw and getting
the most of your employees.
Maybe you need to think about
the employees also a bit.
Dave Hoekstra: I love it.
And you're right.
I've noticed that you and
I are about the same age.
And so we both started in our roles
about the same time in our lives.
And as we've grown older, when I first
started in workforce management, There
was not even anything that was aimed at
the employee because, the technology was
relatively new, and it was still learning
and everything was focused on staffing and
schedules and really maximizing the, as
much as you can get out of an employee.
And throughout the years.
I've noticed that I still am
very, concerned about the agent,
themselves, and who's taking these
calls and who's answering these chats.
And, oh, as we, get into positions where
we can make decisions, we, decide we want
to do things that help these employees
that we've never forgotten about it.
And I've noticed that a lot of contact
centers are now being run by, People our
age and they have the same process, which
is why a lot of these employee facing
features have become very, important.
And yes, I totally agree.
And who knew?
That if your employees are happy in
their job, that they want to stay.
I, I'm glad we figured this out.
We just cracked the code
Klaus, you and me right here.
Klaus Bang: I think it's important every
time we talk about doing something, you
need to stop and say, okay, if we do this.
Who gains by this?
Do we earn more money?
Do we do something for our customers or
do we do something for our employees?
And you tend to forget the
employees while you're dead
historically, but, not anymore.
We need to empower the employees
and we will see results.
Dave Hoekstra: Yeah.
So what, other kinds of automation
have you guys built into, you, you
mentioned it a high level, maybe give
me a specific example of some of that
automation that you might've, that you
might, that has really benefited you.
Klaus Bang: absence, for instance, when,
when we do absence, when we do the big
vacations in Denmark, we do it like.
In a social kind of way, people that give
their wishes and then we talk about it.
We sit by the fire camp Talk about okay.
What can we do?
Look at the fg budgets Okay, can we
move something so we can just give as
many people vacation as we want as they
want And then we try to do that and
once we do that, then we we set some
parameters We say okay We can afford
to have this number of people off for
vacation Only half of the quota has
been met so far, but the rest is just
automation And then it's just, I don't
know if you have this expression in, in,
in America, but in Danish we have first
to mølle and that means first to come
to the, mill to get the corn, grained.
So you know, just, yeah, first
come first serve, you have it.
Dave Hoekstra: That's it.
Yes.
That's how we would say it.
We don't necessarily use the mill analogy.
no.
We do that.
We, yeah.
First come first served.
Yeah, no.
And that's great.
Klaus Bang: We have, yeah, we have
a lot of agriculture, so I guess
that's why we're talking about the
mill, but yeah, anyway, so we do
first come first serve for that.
That's just a small part of it.
We do a, day to day absence
also, and we do it automated.
We use the app.
So in theory, people, they can
sit Sunday evening, look at their
schedule saying, okay, I need to get
up at eight in the morning and work.
I don't really want to do that.
I'm tired.
I was watching football all day.
Then they can just go in,
ask for absence between.
Eight or nine, if there's room for it,
just get automated approved right away.
And then they can sleep in, that it's, it
took some work with the leaders because
they were like, But I don't know what my
employees are doing and they're not here.
Oh, I can see they took some time off.
Oh, all right.
Is that okay?
Okay, I guess that's okay.
So yeah,
Dave Hoekstra: when you rolled it out
Did you roll it out a very small and
then get bigger or did you turn it on
for everybody all at the same time?
Klaus Bang: We just went full blown
on it and turned it on for everyone.
Yeah, and, some were very worried
about it, Okay, I can see a lot
of people got time off right now.
is that really possible?
And what about the customers?
But, so far things, they work.
They've been working.
But, of course, sometimes the
system can make a mistake.
Because the system is not better
than what you feed it with.
And if the forecasting is not correct,
or if the customers decide they want
to call a bit more than they usually
do on a Friday afternoon, then maybe
we already gave some time off there.
And then, you can't really get that back.
But as a human being,
you could do the same.
You need to trust the
system and just do it.
Dave Hoekstra: Yeah, and as
long as your forecast is good.
Yeah.
That's, the key.
Okay.
Changing gears a little bit.
You and I talked a lot about.
Idioms between our various
languages and what I want you
to teach us a Danish idiom.
And you mentioned there's something
about a goat being shaved.
Is that, what, is that?
Klaus Bang: Yeah.
Yes.
So, then that goat is shaved and
that's really when you, do a job and
that's finished and everything is all
right, then the goat has been shaved.
Yeah.
That's a saying.
Yeah.
Dave Hoekstra: Say it in Danish again.
Klaus Bang: Okay.
Dave Hoekstra: we'll work
on that, but I love it.
learning about the first to the mill
gets the corn and then, first come
first served and now shaving goats.
This is the kind of stuff you can
only learn on a Colabrio podcast.
I'm a, I, And I want to point out,
you, you, got dubbed the WFM Ninja
by some of the Collabrio employees
here, which I think is great.
And you've got this awesome t shirt.
You wore these amazing shoes
to our customer event in
Copenhagen, which was awesome.
How did that, make you feel?
Klaus Bang: Getting the Ninja shirt.
Dave Hoekstra: Yes.
Klaus Bang: it was great.
I was, usually I'm not that easy to
surprise, but I was socially surprised
and I really didn't know what to say.
And as you can hear, I usually don't
have a problem saying anything,
but, no, it was a lot of fun.
And, yeah, it was cool.
It's a pat on the shoulder,
I'm very happy about that.
Dave Hoekstra: That's great.
you deserve it, my friend.
you've been an amazing, person
to work with over the last few
years, as you and I've gotten
to know each other a little bit.
And, we're very excited to make
sure that you get that recognition
that you obviously deserve.
So it's great to partner up
and, do this episode, but,
we'll, be doing other things.
All right.
So What I like to do with some of our
guests, especially the ones that have
been working in the contact center for
a long time, I call it the call center
lifer quiz, where, if you've been
in the contact center industry for a
while, I have a few questions for you
and I want to run these by you, quick
answers, don't have to go into too much
detail, but tell us about, so first
question on the call center lifer quiz.
What is your favorite KPI?
Klaus Bang: Oh, that's, that's one
of the worst questions you can ask
a WFM employee because they love
them all, but my favorite one.
I think actually it's occupancy.
And the reason is really
because I love that word.
I really love that word occupancy.
Yeah.
But seriously, adherence is a,
great one also, I love that.
Okay.
Dave Hoekstra: We can, do
occupancy and adherence.
I love it.
Okay.
Second question.
What was there a moment in
your career where you said.
I actually like this.
What was that moment?
Klaus Bang: I'm, I don't know if I can
pinpoint it really, but one of the times
where I really love doing what I do is,
when I make an, I make some analysts
and I can see, okay, if we do this,
then we can, improve our, services.
We can improve our answer rate.
We can save some employees and, we can do
this faster and better, build something.
Dave Hoekstra: Yeah, it's a good feeling.
Klaus Bang: Yeah.
Yeah.
and of course it's also nice
when, an employee come ask,
Oh, can I get some time off?
And you say, yeah, of course you can.
Dave Hoekstra: Yeah, that's,
it is a good feeling.
I, agree with you.
Okay.
who is the person or role that has
had the most impact on your career?
Klaus Bang: I think it's my old
colleague, Sean Bramley was his name,
at the Danish bank that, that, taught
me most of what I know and, taught me
to, to break down the walls, in the WFM.
yeah.
Dave Hoekstra: Great.
Fantastic.
have you ever worn the headset?
Were you an agent?
Klaus Bang: yeah, but, in a very small
contact sense of being two people, I don't
think you can call that a contact sensor,
Dave Hoekstra: but
Klaus Bang: I did service.
I did service.
Dave Hoekstra: Yeah.
If you're tied to a phone, Yeah.
I
Klaus Bang: was tied.
I was tied.
Yeah.
Dave Hoekstra: Yeah.
All right.
and so what, was that job?
Klaus Bang: that was IP
telephony, it's, it was all new.
And, in Denmark we had some really bad
wires everywhere and, the, quality was
so low and I had to support that and
it was almost impossible because, yeah,
the, internet connection was so poor.
So that was, challenging.
Dave Hoekstra: It's it just
can you repeating itself?
I can't hear you.
Cause the phone lines are poor.
the phone lines are poor.
That's why I'm calling you.
I'm sorry.
I can't hear you.
They're very cheap.
So just.
Yeah.
All right.
So final question to the call
center lifer, what's one of the
biggest mistakes you made in your
career that others can learn from?
Klaus Bang: Not really
sure I made that many.
No, of course.
no, I think, I think in general, just,
when you do some kind of, analyze
work, just double check it, because,
once you gain the trust of your
bosses and they receive something for
you, they're going to run with it.
So make sure you are accurate.
Dave Hoekstra: Yeah, you can't
really, the, as we would say in
America, the cows are out of the barn.
Yeah.
Once, once they're out of the barn,
you're not getting them back in.
Yeah.
Klaus Bang: So yeah.
Yeah.
I would say that.
Dave Hoekstra: Is there a Danish
equivalent of that phrase?
Klaus Bang: I don't have
to think about that.
Nothing springs to mind.
Nothing springs to mind.
Dave Hoekstra: That's okay.
It's okay.
Okay.
So that concludes our
call center life for quiz.
You did fantastic.
We now have a better idea
of who Klaus Bang is.
and so as we're getting close to wrapping
up, one of the things that I really like
to do is to give our guests the final
word or, tell us, something you learned
or give us some, wisdom or advice here.
So Klaus, the floor is yours.
Tell me, tell me, expose some wisdom.
Klaus Bang: All right.
All right.
Thank you.
Yeah, I was listening to, to some of
the other great podcast and One guy was
on and he was saying keep it simple.
I was like That's what I wanted to
say because I love to be simple.
So I'm going to say something else and I'm
gonna, I'm gonna do it in a, in a Viking
way, I think, because I have a big post
out in the hallway with the Ragnar from
the Vikings, I guess most know him and
if they don't, they should see the show.
But anyway, Ragnar, he says, don't
waste your time looking back.
You're not going that way.
And I think that works really well
for the Vikings, but for a WFM
employee, I would turn it around
saying, spend time looking back.
Learn from it and use it in the future.
Dave Hoekstra: Okay.
Yeah, it's, good to do debriefs.
It's good to do, come back to things
later and say, all right, what
happened, let's do some analysis
so that you can learn from them
because you really can learn a lot.
I would even add to that take notes
because I tell, my kids and my family,
the biggest lie that human beings tell
themselves is, Oh, I'll remember that.
Klaus Bang: Yeah.
Yeah.
Exactly.
every day I take notes on what happens
today and what was interesting.
So you can use that when
they're predicting the future.
Dave Hoekstra: That's wonderful.
Klaus, it has been an absolute awesome
privilege to spend some time with you.
The WFM Ninja from Denmark.
very, exciting.
we're really glad you were able to come
join us and I just want to say thank you.
Klaus Bang: Thank you for letting me come.
Dave Hoekstra: Yeah, absolutely.
All right, everybody.
This has been a fantastic episode.
I'm very happy to have Klaus
from the AB group in Denmark.
And, we're always looking for new
guests and new stories to tell.
So if there's something you want
to talk about, or, or you'd like
to be a guest on the collaborative
podcast, Please let me know.
I'm happy to, to, put that
into the, into the hopper.
So thank you again to Klaus, our guest.
thank you listener for spending
some time with us here.
We at Collabrio are always, just so
privileged to have such great customers,
such great partners, such great team
out there doing the things that we do.
And our goal is to make everybody
better at their jobs and to
really, turn around that.
That discussion from turning customer
service from a chore into a privilege.
So thank you guys so much for
spending some time with us.
And we will talk to you again on the next
episode of working smarter from Calabria.
Thanks everybody.
Have a great rest of your day.
And thank you to Klaus.