Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
Advanced Performance Management Technology Improves Employee Engagement
In the ongoing effort to build better contact center agents who have more skills (both soft skills and hard skills), experience and enthusiasm for their work, regular one-on-one coaching is critical. Classroom training is important for new agents, but it’s generic and can only go so far. Most companies that pursue a policy of employee engagement today recognize that more frequent performance feedback and coaching can boost the agents’ morale and personal goal-setting.
In the absence of a good performance management tool, live coaching of agents can happen only while supervisors sit with agents while they work on live calls. While it’s certainly better than nothing, it has a variety of drawbacks, according to a recent blog post by Monet Software (News - Alert) CEO Chuck Ciarlo. Either the supervisor sits next to the agent, or he or she monitors remotely using a technology called “call whispering.” While it can help an agent get through a particularly difficult call, it’s not ideal for regular coaching sessions.
“Call whispering puts the agent in the unfortunate position of listening to a customer and his supervisor at the same time,” wrote Ciarlo. “Even experienced agents may find this difficult. For new agents, it is next to impossible, and often leads to distracted agents and frustrated customers.”
The agent can hardly stop the call to listen to his or her supervisor without affecting the quality of the call. How many of us have been frustrated by contact center calls in which we’re put on hold multiple times while the agent “checks with a supervisor”? It adds greatly to call handle time, reduces first-call resolution and lowers customer satisfaction rates.
“Call whispering also makes it impossible for agents to communicate with a supervisor during a coaching session,” wrote Ciarlo. “During these one-sided conversations, an agent may wish to ask a question or seek clarification on a point raised by the supervisor, but there is no way to do so without putting the customer on hold. Such feedback must be saved until after the call— and by then it might be too late to deliver the type of service that customer deserved.”
Live monitoring is also self-limiting by its very nature. Most supervisors have many agents to oversee, and what are the chances that manager can be everywhere for each agent during difficult calls?
The alternative is good workforce optimization solution that records calls and allows agents and supervisors or managers to go over calls together. Call scoring and other technologies help make it easier to provide agents with useful and fair feedback.
“An advanced workforce optimization solution provides greater visibility and insight into agent performance, and records calls that can be reviewed later during more substantive coaching sessions,” wrote Ciarlo. “It can also provide a means for two-way communication between agent and supervisor in a way that is not as distracting, so the agent can stay focused on the customer.”
Agents can even review the coaching sessions later if they need reminders, or go over previous sessions during “down time” in the contact center. It’s simply a way to build better employee engagement during the ideal times in agents’ learning processes, or when he or she is gaining advanced skills.
Edited by Alicia Young