Wax On, Wax Off: Coaching Agents for Maximum Productivity

How to bring out your inner sensei in the contact centre.

Your agents are the heart and soul of the contact centre. When it comes to providing outstanding customer service, agents must be willing and able to consistently deliver their best performance.

But coaching agents can be a delicate process that requires managers to be sensitive, diligent and professional, as well as excellent performers themselves. Instead of floundering when you try giving your agents some pointers, use these helpful tips to bring out your inner sensei, effectively coaching agents for greater productivity and optimal customer service.

Understand

This is perhaps one of the most overlooked fundamentals in coaching agents. Managers all too often can’t understand why agents might be less than motivated to give their best performance. To really understand what makes agents tick, contact centre managers can use these simple steps:

Get to know your agents. Remember to ditch the ‘manager hat’ every once in a while and participate in frequent and genuine rapport with agents.
Learn their backgrounds. If you can understand your agents’ previous accomplishments and personal interests, you may be in a better position to bring out their individual strengths.
Ask. If agents are consistently performing below their capabilities, don’t ignore it. Ask why they chose their profession. You may find that an agent genuinely enjoys customer service, but is frustrated by the limitations of their role, or that an agent may shine in a different team or with alternate hours.

Prepare

Not everyone is a natural sensei master. Do your homework before a coaching session with agents. To make sure you have enough material to generate a solid coaching framework, follow these tips:

Track performance trends. This means analyzing agent performance based on patterns, such as outbound versus inbound calls, inquiry type and various communication channels.
Observe first-hand. Listen in on live calls without the agent or caller knowing and observe agents at their desk to gain an idea of general work habits.
Offer constructive criticism. According to a Global Workforce Study by Towers Watson, 43 percent of engaged employees receive feedback once a week or more, as opposed to only 18 percent of unengaged employees. While no one thrives on criticism alone, only providing positive feedback can encourage agents to stagnate. Be specific in your criticism, using data from your observations if available, and tie your critiques into a clear action plan, ensuring that agents understand how they can resolve any issues. Be sure to start and finish with something positive so that agents leave feeling motivated to improve rather than discouraged.

Empower

Empowered agents are effective workers. Empowering your agents in the contact centre can act as its own form of coaching by fostering a deeper sense of individual responsibility for their work performance. Empowered employees take more ownership for their work and feel more loyalty towards their company or team. Managers can empower their agents with the following actions:

Communicate that you respect and appreciate agents’ work.
Allow agents the autonomy to make their own on-the-spot decisions.
Ask agents how they would resolve a problem or conduct a project rather than instructing.
Include agents in the corporate decision-making process to cultivate a deeper sense of involvement in the business.
Maintain a positive workspace so that agents remain receptive to coaching.

Follow Up

Last but not least, follow up with agents about their progress. If you’ve met with particular agents concerning specific performance issues, set a future date when you will meet with them again to discuss whether the issue has been resolved. Ask agents why or why not their performance has improved and if necessary, set another date to meet again. Demonstrate to your agents that you intend to follow through with concerns rather than dropping the issue after first mention. This not only increases your integrity as a manager, but also ensures that agents are held accountable for their growth. Be sure to praise good performance, helping to foster intrinsic motivation in the contact centre.

Coaching agents effectively to maximize excellent performance and outstanding service involves a delicate blend of art and science. By remaining sensitive to agent needs and making efforts to build individual rapport, you can make agents feel more comfortable at work and present yourself as someone they can talk to. Preparing diligently for coaching sessions and following up helps agents to understand what specific improvements are expected of them. For more information on how to bring out your inner sensei in the contact centre, download our free white paper.