Transforming Quality Monitoring to Focus on Coaching and Development

Meeting the needs of your customers, exceeding their expectations and developing/empowering your staff all begins with a solid monitoring program that is based on quality not quantity.

Your mission should be:

• Customer Experience as your primary goal
  
• Service as a product
  
• Employees as your greatest asset
  
• Quality as everyone’s responsibility

Gone are the days of “big brother” watching.  Employees want to know . . .

• How am I doing?
  
• How do I sound on the phone?
  
• What could I have done better on that interaction?
  
• What are my callers saying about me?

Coaching will  . . .

• Increase productivity
  
• Decrease employee turnover
  
• Allow your staff to become more engaged
  
• Improve communications skills
  
• Improve procedures
  
• Correct undesirable behavior

Whether you side-by-side, silent, real-time, record or screen-capture monitor, how you approach the results with your staff is critical.  Always discuss ways to improve by not focusing on what was wrong.

How about trying these coaching improvement techniques:

• Have the agent and analyst/supervisor listen/view together and score independently
  
• Consider “on-the-spot” coaching and guidance when walking the workfloor
  
• Develop an agent improvement plan with realistic time frames
  
• Implement continuous training courses
  
• Reinforce listening skills
  
• Ask the employee what they could have done better
  
• Advise that they know your procedures; however, try saying this next time
  
• How would you feel if your order was received damaged
  
• What if you were on hold for 3 minutes and the agent never came back to let you know that they were still working on getting the answer
  
• Look for ways to empower your staff by asking them

When coaching, you should reinforce to your staff that they should “think like a customer”.  What would they as a customer expect from the agent they are speaking with

Would love to hear from you on additional coaching improvement techniques – [email protected].

More Resources

• Webinar: The 4 Game Changers of Customer Service
  
• Whitepaper: Overcoming Productivity & Efficiency Challenges in the Multichannel Contact Center
  
• Research: The Multichannel Agent: A 2014 Contact Center Roadmap Research Report and Best Practices Guide
  
• Training: ICMI OnDemand All-Access Training Pass