In the world of sports, an athlete’s performance is only as good as his or her coach’s ability to train. It’s the coach’s job to recognize strengths, keep weakness in check, and urge the athlete to push harder and go farther.
Over the years, I’ve learned that it’s not any different in the customer care call center industry. If you want to nurture call center agents and transition them from being mere workers to absolute winners, it’s up to management to ensure that all aspects of their agents’ growth and development are taken care of.
So what exactly does it mean to coach your agents? Here are the 4 best practices that your call center needs to incorporate if you want your agents to bring their game faces on.
Learn from your customer
No matter how experienced your team leads are, your agents can learn a thing or two by tuning into what customers have to say about their service. As much as you would like to shield them, you need to give your agents the opportunity to dive into customer feedback every once in a while. This way, they will have a better understanding of what is expected from them. More often than not, it’s the customers that have a huge impact on agent development so don’t underestimate the power of customer feedback.
Tap into your available resources
Many agents have developed a strong dislike for coaching because they feel it’s just an avenue for the higher ups to focus on what they did wrong. With no constructive feedback, agents see coaching as a hindrance to their growth, and not as an opportunity to improve their performance. A great way to offer constructive feedback to agents is to tap into the available resources like call recordings, chat transcripts, and even emails that demonstrate positive agent-customer interaction. This will help your agents emulate the desired behaviour without management forcing them into it.
Allow agents to evaluate their performance
Agents are naturally critical of themselves, especially when it comes to their own performance so instead of you starting the evaluation, why not give them the chance to self evaluate? If used properly, this technique can help your agents take responsibility over their performance, and at the same time, give them a boost of self esteem. Self evaluations are not designed for agents to incriminate themselves; rather, it’s a great way for them to understand where their true strengths lie.
Develop action plans with your agents
Last but not the least, make sure that you develop a doable action plan with your agents that will utilize their strengths and play down their weaknesses. The best coaches don’t just dictate what needs to be done, they see coaching as two way collaboration. Even though management always has the last say on which direction to take, the agent needs to be involved in creating the action plan that will take them from point A to point B. By empowering your agents, they’re more likely to improve on their own.
An effective coach plays an important role in ensuring that agents become valuable members of the team, and not just early turnover statistics. Make your coaching sessions count.