Today's Call Center Quick Tip comes from Kim Goff, quality manager for Consumer Services at Nike:

Tool Time

Keeping our team up to speed on all of our products and procedures, means making sure they are familiar with the tools that hold all of the information to keep them educated. Every so often we will send out a question through eLearning that takes them to their tools to find the answer. The first to respond knows they are the winner of a fun prize when they hear the remote control Hummer coming down the hall with the prize in the back. It’s simple, easy, and fun!

What are you doing to keep your team engaged in training for products and procedures?

Post tags: Kim Goff, call center motivation, QA, call center coaching, call center, contact center

flickr photo courtesy of Capt Kodak.

I received another interesting question the other day from one of our customers about the flow of the evaluation form. Here is the question:

I have my coaching and evaluation template broken down by categories. I had a question from one of the staff who asked if the categories could be split. Basically, under the call handling category, I have 5 skills/questions that are part of the beginning of the call and the end of the call.  Because the wrap up and the closing occur at the end of the call, she feels it may be easier for the reviewer to complete the evaluation form in the order of how the assessment flows. She is looking at it from the perspective of a reviewer and that is the way I originally thought too, but the opening and closing are all part of call handling. I would like your opinion on the industry best practice.  She suggested that I split the call handling up into two categories – Category One (call handling at the beginning of the assessment) and Category Two (call handling at the end of the assessment).

The new school of thought and best practice is that it is more important to put skills in the correct "buckets" or "categories" so that you can run category reports and trend to see skill gaps and strengths in "like" areas. 

I understand the resistence to moving to categories on the evaluation forms but with automation, it is simple to pop back up to the top of the form to fill in the closing. Simple that is, if you have a manageable number of skills. Give it a try for a while, and I bet before too long, it won’t even be an issue.

How do you have your evaluation forms set-up? How many skills and categories are you tracking?

Related articles:

• Calibration: Removing Variation in Interpretation
• Changing Behavior
• Foundation vs. Finesse Grading

Post tags: contact center best practices, agent evaluation, contact center, call center, CSR skills

The other day, I received the following question, and I thought that this community would be intersted in the conversation:

How do you know if an associate cannot do something, will not do something, or they do not know how to do something? I have gone as far as to ask them what we can do and ask for ideas on a situation. Some came up with ideas that cannot happen and I was honest with them. Some came up with ideas that we implemented and while it is helping, it is not taking care of the full issue. I am thinking because of the feedback, most of my associates do not know how to make it happen, but how do I know?

Here was my response: I think the best way to figure out whether an associate can’t, won’t or doesn’t know how is to hit it straight on with an honest approach. Whatever the skill gap the first thing you need to do is to communicate the gap to the associate and come to a mutual agreement that there is indeed a need for improvement. The next step is to ask the associate if they think the skill or task is important and why or why not. What you are looking for here is if they are "bought in" to the importance or need for the skill. If they don’t believe in it, there is a good chance they won’t work to demonstrate it. If they do understand and believe in the reason behind the skill, then it’s time to figure out if additional training is the answer and hopefully you are in a don’t know how situation. In many cases you will take this route and you will have one of two outcomes. If training fills the skill gap then you are good to go but if it doesn’t you have a can’t situation where the associate physically or mentally cannot perform the skill or task. When in doubt, always try the training route before resolving to a can’t. You’ve already invested time in the associate and it’s worth another training session to see if you can turn the situation around.

What do you think? How can you tell if an associate can't, won't, or doesn't know how to implement a skill?

Learn more about coaching to agent classifications and other ways to be a call center manager:

• Resolve to be a Better Call Center Manager
• Focus on What is Important
• Mentoring Works!

Post tags: contact center agent, call coach, coaching, call center best practices, contact center, QA, quality assessment

Frequent feedback

Our large sample size (15 evaluations per month) enables frequent feedback. It is important to emphasize the human element by meeting with each representative at least once a week. This is in addition to side-by-side coaching conducted multiple times each month. Scored evaluations are sent to representatives prior to coaching to avoid "sticker shock" and to facilitate a constructive coaching session. We think it is important to go over every evaluated call, highlighting a representative’s successes as well as areas where improvement may be required.

Hear more from Brian Freer on his archived Web event, "Employee/Customer Asset Value Chain: How satisfying your employees can optimize customer satisfaction and drive business growth."

Post tags: Capital District Physicians' Health Plan, Brian Freer, contact center, agent evaluation, contact center coaching, call center, contact centre

• High maintenance
• Low mantenance
• Attention driven
• Authority pleasing
• Aloof
• Unhappy
• Paranoid
• Consistent performing
• Job performance in jeopardy
• "Why did we hire this person?"
• Authority challenging
• Super-achiever
• Energizer

You can view descriptions of each of these classifications and how to coach to these profiles by downloading the presentation slides. The complete event archive is also available online.

One of the other topics that we also covered during the event is the employee/customer value asset chain. One of the tenets of this theory is that satisfying your employees will help reduce costs. Jana asked about how costs are reduced, and I believe that they are reduced in several ways, including:

• Satisfied employees are less likely to leave their positions, which reduces training and recruiting costs. The cost of recruitment and new hire training can be prohibitive, as compared to the cost of motivating and retaining existing employees.
• The level of customer service provided by new hires tends to be lower, which can affect customer satisfaction and retention rates.

During the presentation, Doug inquired about motivating and coaching home-based agents. This is a great question, as it can be challenging to coach remote representatives and one great tool is Envision's eLearning clips. Using eLearning clips to disseminate information to your agents is quick and cost-effective, and can help you easily communicate important information and coaching sessions. I've also written a few blog entries on the topic of home-based agents that you might be interested in:

• Supporting Home-Based Agents
• Envision Exchange: Home-Based Agents
• Home-Based Agents

To those who were able to join me on the Webinar, thank you for your participation. I look forward to hearing your feedback and discussion points. As I mentioned above, the presentation slides are available online, and an archive of the event is now available for you to download.

Post tags: Dan Coen, Building Call Center Culture, eLearning, contact center trends, contact center Web event, contact center, call center, contact centre

2. How about those senior agents where there isn’t a lot of side-by-side coaching opportunities to be had? Try turning the tables having them provide side-by-sides to their peers or have a trainer or a lead sit with them so they can show best practices they incorporate that can be emulated by others. 

So, what are you doing to spice up your coaching sessions? Here's another tip on side-by-side coaching from Joan Brennan of Weyerhaueser.

Post tags: contact center agent, contact center effectiveness, call center, contact center

Today's Call Center Quick Tip comes from Brian Freer, manager of provider services at Capital District Physicians' Health Plan:

Have fun

My grandmother used to say: "Smile, for when you smile, your smile goes miles and miles." By its very nature, a call center is a stressful place. Try to have some fun. Allow your representatives to have a bright, cheerful work environment. It is important for management to walk the floor and feel comfortable laughing and joking with the staff (within reason). Let your positive attitude be contagious and let your staff have some fun, as long as it's not disruptive. Their smiles will carry through the phone to your customers.

Hear more from Brian Freer on his archived Web event, "Employee/Customer Asset Value Chain: How satisfying your employees can optimize customer satisfaction and drive business growth."

Post tags: Capital District Physicians' Health Plan, Brian Freer, contact center, employee attrition, contact center coaching, call center, contact centre

Today's Call Center Quick Tip comes from Greg Gamble, a training and communications supervisor at Weyerhaeuser: