Coaching in the call center is one of the highest-impact -- as well as one of the most often underused -- means to achieve company goals, concludes a new research study.

The white paper, "Why Aren't They Coaching in the Call Center?," summarizes the results of the study and explores the primary inhibitors to successful call center coaching, recommended best practices, and the Value-Driven Coaching Model that can be used to implement them.

"What we found through our research is that although many leading centers recognize the value coaching brings, and while some are attempting to develop initiatives and tools to drive coaching, they are still struggling first and foremost with how to actually deliver coaching, and second, making that coaching more effective," said Knowlagent's Debbie Qaqish, leader of the coaching study.

"Coaching is a process of two parts: evaluating employee performance and taking action to reinforce or change behaviors," says Jonathan Heckel. "For better or worse, coaching for the purpose of call center improvement can impact representatives like nothing else. How a coaching session is handled can either motivate and energize or frustrate and anger those being coached."

The primary factor prohibiting effective coaching is that companies tend to address this complex, multi-dimensional issue with a simple, one-dimensional solution, similar to the experiences of Customer Relationship Management in its beginning.

Mary Beth Ingram, founder of Phone Pro, cautions that the call center industrys making a mistake using the terms "coaching" and "monitoring" interchangeably. You know who you are out there, were not going to mention names but we want you to cut it out. Now.

They are, as Ingram says, "two separate and distinct activities that should be clearly set apart from each other." Whats the difference? Try this. Ask management, "Do you coach?" Youll hear a big, fat "yes." Now ask the frontline are you coached? "No, were monitored."

The study found several other recurring themes reminiscent of what successful adopters of CRM encountered that became the basis for the report's 18 key findings.

The study conducted a series of focus groups with 53 supervisor and management level participants in seven large call centers with agent populations ranging from 450 to 12,000. Based on the similarities between CRM and the current state of coaching, the study catalogued the findings and recommendations in each of four areas: Time, Information, Process and People.

A telling finding from the study is that while many call centers talk about the value of coaching, the study did not observe any metrics around coaching. In an industry driven by metrics, this may explain, in part, why coaching is often at the bottom of the "to do" list for supervisors.

Monitoring is historical, forensic, its long-range quality checking, Ingram explains. It leads to tweaks and overhauls based on examining the past. Coaching is developing an employee now, its improving his or her monitored performance. Its a series of many interactions with the goal of improving immediate performance, whereas monitoring is reporting on how performance has been improved over a given time.

Other findings and recommendations can be found in the "Why Aren't They Coaching?" white paper, which can be downloaded at www.knowlagent.com.

The bottom line is that the study suggests that success can be reached if multiple dimensions are addressed, aligned, and carefully monitored to create and sustain a comprehensive, value-driven coaching dimension in the call center.

David Sims is contributing editor for TMCnet. For more articles by David Sims, please visit: