Ready to level up your call center team this year?
Improving agent performance can seem overwhelming at first, and you may find yourself wondering, “Where to start?” Don’t fret — these eight simple methods are all you need. With some hard work and a little luck, your team will be reaching new heights of operational efficiency!
Set your KPIs
You can’t change what you don’t measure. Decide on 5-7 KPIs and set goals to measure your agents’ performances. This will allow you to establish a performance baseline and track their improvement.
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Common KPIs for contact center agents can include Average Handle Time (AHT), First Call Resolution (FCR), and Customer Satisfaction score (CSat). Check out this article for more info.
Establish your KPI tracking method(s)
If you don’t already have a system to track agent performance, it’s time to make the upgrade. Your current contact center platform may have analytics features to track agent activity, but it’s not the only method available. Surveying your agents and gaining qualitative feedback can help you identify gaps in your operational processes, especially when compared with quantitative data.
Offer coaching sessions
Think training is a one-time requirement for your agents? Think again — the best contact center teams know that learning should be ongoing. Consider offering coaching sessions for your agents, whether they’re new or a seasoned professional, so they can keep their skills sharp and stay up to date with new processes and trends.
Create leadership opportunities
Your agents are on the front lines every day, making connections with your clients and customers. For this reason, they have a wellspring of knowledge, which could very well benefit fellow team members. Encourage them to do so by creating opportunities for them to share their insights. Better yet, formalize the process by creating a mentorship program. This will help your agents find fulfillment in their role outside of answering customer queries.
Showcase their impact
One of the biggest demotivators for contact center agents is putting in long, hard hours and feeling like they accomplished nothing. Of course, this is untrue, but If they can’t see their impact, they can’t feel satisfied with their work. Establish ways to regularly share and highlight how they positively impacted the business to boost their motivation and help them take pride in their work!
Give constructive feedback
An agent’s performance can’t improve if they don’t know where to focus their efforts. That’s why constructive feedback is critical to your team’s development. Balancing positive and constructive feedback is key — you can find more tips on this here.
Stop exclusively focusing on numbers
It can be easy to get caught up in the analytics and metrics of performance. But the reality is, agents are not bots, and a considerable part of their value comes from their ability to connect with your customers and solve their issues. When analyzing their performance, consider this human aspect — regularly reviewing customer calls is a great way to do this!
Mitigate burnout risk
It’s no secret that agent attrition is on the rise, the main drivers being stress and burnout. By identifying key stressors and challenges your agents face regularly, you can adopt the tools needed to set them up for success. For example, high call volumes and agent overwhelm can be solved with a call-back solution!
