If you want to facilitate an environment for your contact centre agents to succeed, you need to start coaching. Coaching is a great way to encourage, enable, and empower your agents to not only want to be better at their jobs but perform better. Coaching is also a great opportunity for your agents to learn new skills, get feedback on the work they are doing, and resolve the problems they might be having with calls.
Coach contact centre agents through role-play
Role-play is an especially effective tool for coaching your agents on company policies for answering the phones. Through role-play, you can establish certain situations and gauge how they respond to different obstacles with the customers. To mix things up, have them switch roles with you to play the role of the customer. Once they see how you manage the call, they will have a better idea of what’s expected. For more seasoned agents, this is a great opportunity to play back some of their calls to find what worked and what didn’t.
Make feedback palatable
Coaching works best when it comes from a place of respect. A good coach will couple the good news with the bad, making sure to highlight areas where the agent is succeeding. After the positive feedback is given, discuss the interaction or performance that went poorly. Give solid examples of what happened and what went wrong, and why it matters. Follow this with an offer to help make their job easier or provide more understanding. Let them know that you appreciate all of their hard work and make yourself available if they should need anything. Feedback can be a tricky subject, so it’s crucial to come from a place of patience and respect for the agent.
Use self-assessment to coach contact centre agents
Self-reflection can be a powerful tool, so take the opportunity to allow your employee to review their performance. More often than not, they have an accurate perspective on their performance. If they don’t, provide the metrics that reveal where they need improvement. Establish a safe space where your agents can trust that you are there to help them.
How Call Design Can Help You
Call Design is an international workforce optimisation company focused on providing best-practice consulting, training and software solutions to contact centres around the world. We work closely with you to ensure you get the most from your investment and implement solutions and training that meet your needs. Contact Call Design today to learn how we can help you!