Call Center Performance Management Begins with the Basics

In the contact center, performance management is a critical function since it plays a large role in the company’s success or failure. It’s the job of call center management to build performance management into a company culture that produces real results for the organization.

The good news is that performance management is easier to achieve today thanks to new solutions and new tools that help track and analyze performance metric and give managers real-time feedback about how queues, teams and even individual agents are faring. Technology can help you measure how well you’ve performed, and it can (sometimes) help you perform better, but there are still things managers need to do at a basic level before they can expect great performance.

Eliminate agent distractions. While everyone likes to work in a fun environment, keep the circus in the break room and not at the elbow of agents trying to understand customer concerns. Ensure they’ve got noise-canceling headsets and partitions (if possible) to allow them to stay focused.

Reduce the need to multitask. While multitasking can come in handy for some jobs, it’s a distraction when it comes to delivering a great customer experience. Ensure that agents aren’t expected to do anything else (like handle customer emails or texts!) while on the phone with customers. Martin Hill-Wilson, Founder of Brainfood Extra, told callcentrehelper.com that given what we now about multitasking reducing productivity in the long run, that it’s “not dissimilar to over-revving an engine. Our instinct is to multitask, but the evidence is that it is not the smartest thing to do.”

Declutter the desktop. The average call center agent today is toggling back and forth between as many as nine applications on the desktop. No wonder they’re easily distracted! Take a good look at the solutions you’re using and see if they can’t be consolidated into just a few screens. It will make onboarding new agents easier, calls shorter and reduce distractions and after-call wrap-up time.

Reward good performances. Just as musicians get a round of applause, contact center agents who consistently hit their performance targets should be recognized. Implement a system in which quality measures such as high customer satisfaction ratings, first-call resolution, good employee engagement and high call quality scoring lead to recognition and reward for the top performers.

Automate as much as possible. If you haven’t updated your dialer or your customer self-service in a long time, evaluate how you can save both customers and agents time by adding some automation. Are agents dialing manually? Are they using auto-dialers from 1997? Are customers still encountering cumbersome, inflexible interactive voice response systems at the front end and zeroing out for an agent in response? A few well-chosen technology partners may be able to save agents many hours of unnecessary work.

Edited by Maurice Nagle