Anthony Bloom of Hot Springs Village
Call-center director wants to lift Malvern high
Anthony Bloom prowled the halls of the Sykes call center in Malvern like a man on a mission — which, in a sense, he is. He is also enthusiastic, energetic, and personable. He chose not to describe himself as aggressive. “Passionate,” he said. “I would say that I am pretty passionate.”
Bloom’s passion for customer service and his employees is evident in the way he talks about the call center, which serves as a customer-service point for a major phone-service provider, and points out the various bulletin boards that display all the benefits and incentive programs available to his agents.
“I don’t build anything, I don’t make anything, but I do know how to treat people, and this is a people business,” Bloom said. “It isn’t like running a grocery store, where you can take a box of cereal down from the shelf and read the ingredients and know what you’ve got. I’ve got to have people answering the phones. That’s our business.”
Bloom has served as the site director of Sykes since
“
I want my workers to be able to go out and have fun with their families, because that gives them more reason
to come to work.”
ANTHONY BLOOM
Site director, Sykes call center
August, but he’s already put his stamp on the center, which has been operating in Malvern for three years. He puts a lot of emphasis on his employees, and not just on their training, efficiency, communication skills and punctuality — all of which are important — but their happiness as well.
As he spoke of the benefits available to employees through Sykes, Bloom constantly interacted with workers. He personally approved of a cake for graduates of one of the company’s ongoing training programs and visited the break room for a game of foosball — all in a day’s work for Bloom, a Los Angeles na-
tive who transferred to Sykes from Indianapolis.
When he was a child, work brought his parents, Eloi and Linda, to Albuquerque, N.M., where Bloom and his brother Christopher grew up.
“I enjoyed it,” Bloom said of life in Albuquerque. “We lived on the outskirts, and it was a simple life. The days were very adventurous. My grandfather taught me to hunt and fish, and my family and I were active in sports and in our church.”
Bloom said he learned many of his grandfather’s values.
“He was influential in teaching me the importance of being who you say you are. You’ve got to do what you say you’re going to do. All you’ve got to do is blow it once, and no one will believe you again.”
Bloom said his mother retired from a J.C. Penney Co. call center, and his father worked for Sandobal County, N.M.
“They were simple, hardworking people,” Bloom said. “I remember that when we moved to New Mexico, we had no money, and you paid your gas and electric separate. We couldn’t pay the gas, so mother cooked for us on an iron. That taught me the value of work and made me appreciative of what we had.”
Bloom said that as a child, he wanted to grow up to become president.
“Ronald Reagan was my hero. I wrote a paper on him in high school. I loved his leadership style,” Bloom said.
Bloom graduated from Bernalillo Baptist Academy in 1988 and from there went to Pensacola Christian College and, later, the University of Alabama. He learned while in Pensacola that he was “comfortable in the business mode.
“I like watching people succeed,” he said of his decision to earn a business degree. “I like reaching a lot of people and helping them reach their dreams.”
Bloom said he has spent most of his working life at call centers.
“I like the environment,” he said. “I’ve worked in outbound call centers before, but I have less of an appetite for that. It is high-stress. I’m more into customer service.”
As site manager of Sykes, Bloom said he is responsible for the entire operation, but he tries to make the work less stressful for his employees.
“This job is all about high tolerance and multitasking,” he said.
“My biggest strength is getting people to all move in the right direction. I also want to teach the people around me how to run the operation. I train my staff to do what I do to run the site.
“A lack of patience is probably my biggest weakness. I like to see things done with a sense of urgency. But my tolerance level is high — I understand what people need and try and help them satisfy those needs.”
Bloom said he tries to learn from his mistakes on the job.
“I take bits and pieces of all my experiences and make them work. I guess those are called life lessons. Those experiences help me,” he said.
He said he thinks people like to feel valued, which is the reason he has implemented so many programs to reward his agents. He described the culture of Sykes as “supportive and respectful,” and said each employee has to have a good reason to come to work every day.
“They have to feel like they’re getting their needs met,” he said.
“I’m all about helping them meet their dreams, no matter what that dream or goal is. Maybe it’s just to go to the zoo, or put money down toward a house, or they want to put money back for their kids’ college.”
Bloom described himself as an engaged, hands-on administrator.
“I have to do budgets and run reports and all of that, but I am also out there with the agents every day,” he said. “I am a proactive leader. And it’s exhausting! It’s easier to run the numbers. This takes a lot of dedication.
“I would say I spend about 80 percent of my typical day with the employees, and 20 percent doing the administrative stuff. My weekends get taken up with managerial stuff.”
He said his agents need good communication skills.
“The way you communicate is everything. This is customer service over the phone. Everything today is either done over the phone or online. We support both,” he said.
He said his most enjoyable work experience was running a contact center for the game World of Warcraft.
“If you had a problem with the game, you’d call and talk to a representative called a gate master. That was an amazing call center — we had low turnover, and all you did was play the game all day and night,” he said.
He said one of the most important things he does is make sure the environment at Sykes is as relaxing for his 513 agents as possible.
“The job is the job — it is what it is,” Bloom said, “but you can make the environment fun. Make no mistake — we run this center, and we hit our goals. You can’t be late from your break. This is business, not personal.”
He said the key to Sykes’ success is becoming “entrenched in the community. We are in every part of Malvern. We want the community to meet the highest standards. I want it to provide a strong workforce.”
He said he’s interested in such issues as housing and better transportation systems because those things affect workers.
“If gas goes up 14 cents in a day, that’s got to come from somewhere,” he said. “It’s not like I’m going to give a 14cent raise, so transportation is a huge issue.”
Quality of life is also important.
“I want my workers to be able to go out and have fun with their families, because that gives them more reason to come to work,” he said.
“I would like to see a community center here. I’m a big dreamer — I’m looking to lift Malvern very high.”