Call center coaching: Techniques and tools to improve agent performance
With the rise of AI chatbots and other digital self-service channels, it’s more important than ever for call centers to invest in coaching their employees.
Self-service channels are deflecting the most straightforward customer queries, but customers still prefer talking to a live agent when dealing with more complex issues. As a result, the role of the call center agent is evolving: agents must be adept problem-solvers, empathetic listeners, and strategic advisors. To be successful in this increasingly complex role, they need data-driven coaching.
Call center coaching is the practice of giving agents feedback and guidance to improve their call handling. Managers typically hold weekly or monthly coaching sessions to monitor their agents’ performance, check progress toward their goals, and work with them on areas in which they might be struggling.
Many call centers use quality assurance (QA) monitoring to inform coaching sessions. This involves managers listening to (or using technology to analyze) call recordings and scoring consistent agent performance criteria. QA monitoring helps managers identify what their agents are doing well and what they need to work on. It also helps them benchmark performance so they can set goals and track their agents’ improvement over time.
A good call center coaching program positively impacts both the agent and customer experience. By giving agents constructive feedback and helping them work toward goals, call center managers help agents develop new skills and feel more confident on the phone. This enables agents to resolve issues more efficiently and increase customer satisfaction.
While call center coaching has a lot of benefits, there are also obstacles. Coaching sessions—and the prep work—are time-consuming. The more time agents and managers spend on coaching, the less time they spend assisting customers or doing strategic work. The cost of taking managers and agents away from core responsibilities adds up, with the average 500-person call center spending about $2 million of staff time on coaching every year.
In many call centers, managers receive minimal training on how to lead effective coaching sessions. They may focus on basic policy adherence and reactive feedback (e.g., coaching on a mistake an agent made on one call) rather than coaching agents on the skills and behaviors that will positively impact the customer experience. Not only is this frustrating for call center agents, but it also hinders the agents’ ability to improve.
Coaching sessions may also suffer from vague or unactionable feedback. Call centers with manual QA programs are typically able to assess less than 5% of their total conversations, which means each agent is coached on a small handful of calls every week or month. This makes it easy for managers to miss big-picture performance trends—and for agents to dismiss feedback as being based on “one bad call.” Coaching sessions that aren’t grounded in data are often ineffective and fail to motivate agents to make changes.
Call center managers can lead productive coaching sessions—and motivate their team members—by focusing on the following approaches:
It’s tough for agents to improve if their coaching feedback consists of advice like “Be friendlier when greeting the customer” or “Deliver the upsell offer with more confidence.” Managers should keep the SMART framework in mind when goal-setting: goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Here are some examples:
Managers need access to conversation data and analytics to set relevant, impactful goals for their agents. While randomly sampling and manually reviewing calls does provide some data, call centers get a more holistic, objective view of agent performance by using QA automation software. This allows them to analyze objective criteria across 100% of their interactions, helping them spot trends and areas of opportunity to coach their agents on.
Post-call coaching sessions are a great way to help agents improve specific skills and behaviors over time, but agents also benefit from real-time feedback during customer conversations. Relevant real-time feedback helps agents course-correct and potentially avoid negative outcomes, such as a compliance violation or failure to resolve a customer issue. Call centers can deliver real-time feedback by having managers listen to live calls and “whisper” guidance to agents via their phone system or by using automated coaching prompts via agent guidance software.
Managers should keep agents engaged during coaching sessions by allowing them to share feedback and discuss skills or types of calls they’re having trouble with. Agents can also participate in goal-setting to help them feel more engaged and invested in their professional growth.
The GROW model is a great framework for keeping agents invested in their professional development. Call center managers should ask agents open-ended questions and work with them to define:
Behavior-based coaching stems from using conversation intelligence to identify agent behaviors that positively or negatively affect call outcomes. For example, a call center might find advocacy language (e.g., “I’ll take care of that,” “Let me look into that for you”) correlates with a high rate of customer satisfaction, but some agents rarely incorporate the language in their calls. Managers could set goals with those agents to use more advocacy language and improve their CSAT ratings.
Rather than just coaching agents on the areas in which they’re struggling, managers should also call out and celebrate the things their agents do well. Managers can acknowledge their agents’ wins in coaching sessions and shout them out in team or call center-wide communications. Many call centers also have incentive programs that reward agents with bonuses or other perks (e.g., additional vacation days) for achieving certain goals.
Mentorship programs allow newer agents to learn from more experienced peers by listening to their calls and modeling techniques. Peer learning groups bring together groups of agents to discuss their approaches to call handling, coach one another on behaviors or strategies that work well, and practice these techniques through role-playing. Both approaches help agents learn from the experiences of their peers and develop valuable soft skills.
Call centers with real-time agent assist software can use automated coaching prompts to serve agents contextually relevant guidance during customer interactions. This is especially helpful for newer agents, with real-time coaching giving them access to data-backed best practices at exactly the right time.
Call center coaching software comes in a few different categories:
Features to look for in coaching software include:
Great agent coaching has a big impact on the call center’s overall performance. Metrics to track may include:
Call centers can’t overlook the importance of agent coaching. Most customers still opt to talk to live agents when they have a complex issue to solve, and live phone calls still make up about 65% of all inbound call center interactions. As frontline representatives, agents must be prepared to navigate complicated, potentially emotional conversations.
The right combination of coaching techniques and technology helps managers and agents use data to make measurable improvements. And when agents see themselves improving, they’re more likely to enjoy their work and feel invested in delivering a great customer experience.