ICMI Elevate: The Contact Center Supervisor Training Series

Day One: Supporting Operational Excellence

1. The Dynamic Contact Center Profession

• What makes the contact center environment unique
• How contact centers add value to the organization
• Viewing the contact center role a profession

2. The Planning and Management Process

• Defining real-time management
• Three key principles of real-time management
• How to monitor real-time information
• Developing plans to react in advance
• Communicating the right message
• Common Root Cause Suspects
• Real-time alternatives

3. Effective Real-Time Management and Recovery

• Defining real-time management
• Three key principles of real-time management
• How to monitor real-time information
• Developing plans to react in advance
• Communicating the right message
• Common Root Cause Suspects
• Real-time alternatives

4. Improving Quality and Productivity

• The relationship between quality and customer expectations
• Key customer expectations
• The relationship between service level and quality
• Key individual performance objectives

5. Summary and Next Steps

• Characteristics of leading centers
• Every person matters
• Managing your own professional development

Day Two: Building an Engaged Workforce

1. Interviewing & Onboarding

• Causes of new hire failure
• The Interviewer’s job
• Interviewing best practices
• Onboarding best practices
• New hire training best practices
• Best practices for transitioning to production

2. Motivation & Retention

• Why engagement is important
• Engagement continuum
• Keeping employees engaged
• Engaging Remote Employees
• The importance of trust and how to build it with direct reports, including remote employees
• A multi-layered approach to retaining employees
• Conducting stay interviews

3. Communication

• The distracted boss
• RASA model for listening
• How to speak so that people want to listen
• Creating clear communication guidelines, including remote employees
• Emotional intelligence
• Meetings
• Generations and words that resonant with each
• Email guidelines

4. Managing Teams

• Definition of a team and the four stages of team formation
• Team building tips
• Managing remote teams
• Types of supervisory conversations
• Conducting disciplinary conversations
• 5-step process for managing conflict

5. Time Management

• Benefits of time management
• Control continuum and attitude
• Analyzing how you spend your time
• Prioritizing
• Time management strategies
• How to say “no”
• Managing interruptions
• Conquering procrastination
• Delegating guidelines

6. Stress & Change Management

• Defining stress and its benefits
• Debunking 6 myths about stress
• Top workplace stressors
• How leaders escalate stress
• The roles of perception and resilience
• Managing team stress
• Managing individual stress
• Phases of change and how to manage in each phase

Day Three: Metrics and Data for Supervisors

1. How to Measure What Matters

• Why do you need metrics?
• Metrics that reflect your strategy
• Assuring metrics are valid measurements
• Problem with reports and benchmarking studies
• The interrelationship of metrics
• Metrics drive behavior – you get what you measure

2. The Five Categories of Metrics

• What should you measure?
• Accessibility metrics
• Quality metrics
• Efficiency metrics
• Cost performance metrics
• Strategic impact metrics

3. Providing Clarify and Defining Success

• Dashboards and Scorecards
• Using metrics to improve performance
• Interrelated Performance Drivers
• Potential Conflicting Objectives

Day Four: Contact Center Coaching for Supervisors

1. The Case for Coaching

• Coaching defined
• Where does coaching apply?
• What are the purposes of your coaching program?
• What coaching can do

2. Your Role as a Coach

• Looking at coaching as a relationship
• Identifying what to coach on
• The role of a coach
• Common coaching challenges
• Finding time to coach

3. The Fundamentals—Praise & Correction

• The impact on agents when they get no feedback
• What praise is and its impact on the contact center
• What corrective feedback is and how to deliver it effectively
• Examples and practice identifying a coaching approach

4. Coaching Tools and Techniques

• The coaching process
• The benefits of using a coaching model and the S.A.F.E. coaching model with step-by-step tips.
• How the agent and the coach should prepare for coaching
• Strategies for addressing difficult coaching situations 
• Coaching remote teams

5. A Holistic Approach to Coaching

• Symptoms of the following issues with the coaching cure and case study for each
  • Culture issues
  • Attendance and adherence issues
  • Poor agent buy-in issues
  • Metrics issues
  • Stress issues
  • Career pathing issues
• Diagnosing and addressing other issues
• Core coaching skills

• Front-line supervisors, both newly promoted or experienced

• Understand key contact center management principles and practices
• Recognize terms, definitions, and requirements of successful contact center management
• Formulate a plan using the content and tools provided to make positive improvements in your workplace
• What coaching is and the benefits it delivers
• The role of the coach
• How to praise and why it is so important to do so
• How to deliver corrective feedback effectively
• The benefits of using a coaching model and how to use the S.A.F.E. coaching model
• Strategies for addressing difficult coaching situations
• Techniques for holistically approaching contact center issues through coaching
• Developing skills for choosing the right people and getting them on the team quickly
• Engaging, motivating, and retaining agents, so you have the tools to maximize productivity and control attrition
• Choosing the most effective ways to communicate one-on-one and with the team, whether face-to-face, during meetings or via email
• Recognizing how a team forms and how to manage a team’s work and productivity style
• Having time to do the things that count the most and knowing how and when to delegate
• Controlling stress for yourself and the team
• Understanding metrics and how they can be used in the contact center
• The role of metrics in process improvement and performance management
• Most common contact center metrics, what they mean, and recommendations on how to best use them

List Price: Varies

Course Duration: 4 Days

This is a 4 day instructor-led course delivered by ICMI Certified Associates. If you have questions about which course is right for you, an ICMI Account Manager is available to help. Complete the Request Information form to speak with your Account Manager.