The employees of a business oftentimes represent the business as they interface and interact with customers.
These moments of interactions can be defining for both the customer and the business. For this reason, employees must be properly trained on how to relate with customers. This is of great importance for a call center where employees have to interact with different customers often.
When we therefore talk about call center coaching, we are referring to the process that helps take care of this. It is necessary for building an effective sales team.
It is a way of helping sales agents learn something new and improve their skill level as well as their performance. It is also a way of giving them feedback on their job and getting feedback on any issues they may be experiencing.
Call center coaching is an interactive process and not a one-sided communication. The coach and the agent exchange dialogues and information while striving to build excellence. Effective coaching will bring about improvement, strong relationships and a better sales experience.
Tools for Call Center Coaching
Recruiting the right employees is one thing but providing the necessary training and continuous engagement are also important. Below are some of the tools that can be effective in helping to coach your staff.
-
One-to-One
One-to-one coaching with a trainer is an effective method. In this method, the trainer is actively involved with the agent.
They participate in training and offer guidance and advice. It is most effective when the agents use the support as an opportunity to develop themselves personally.
-
Buddying
There are various people within the call center with varying levels of skill, knowledge and experience. Buddying provides a good way to access this wealth of resources by pairing new or inexperienced staff with more experienced counterparts. This helps to encourage growth as well as a transfer of knowledge through listening and observation.
Buddying is cost-effective. While it helps the new staff to feel relaxed and ask questions, it helps experienced ones to know that they are valued. You can learn more on this here.
-
Monitoring
There will always be one of two members of staff who may not learn or adapt to the training. You can utilize monitoring so that you identify such members of staff. You may also use a quality analysis tool to track individual performance and then coach based on this.
Identifying staff who are not meeting expectations and helping them improve ultimately helps the call center to operate maximally. After you have done this and the staff still repeatedly falls short, you may apply already defined consequences.
-
Interactive Games
Games can sometimes be utilized as a tool for call center coaching. Different interactive games are effective for training and development. Asides from its training purposes, the advantage to this is that it helps in team bonding and for lifting moods.
-
Utilizing Software
These days, there are software programs for virtually everything that you need to do. You can use call center software to collect data which can then be analyzed and used for meaningful training.
Using software will help you monitor interactions with customers and identify the center’s weaknesses and strengths. You can also use it to monitor employee performance and review metrics for productivity.
-
Presentations
Presentation is a common training method. You can have presentation sessions to train your staff on soft skills including handling challenging situations and customers. A presentation allows team members to get off work and renew their knowledge while giving them time for a breather.
Presentations may sometimes be seen as downtime but the knowledge gained and exchanged can be invaluable. You will find tips on putting together a plan for coaching here: https://bizfluent.com/how-5776057-create-employee-coaching-plans.html.
other valuable tips from our business blog (new win):
Conclusion
A call center is an important aspect for a lot of companies as it is used in handling customer interactions. Your customers are an important part of your business as they are the one that keep it afloat. Therefore, they must be properly served and be satisfied.
Equally important in their own right are your employees. They are the ones that have to relate with the customer. It is therefore imperative that they are properly trained to do so. This will make a lot of difference to the success of your business.
There are a variety of tools as well as software that you can use to achieve good coaching as can be seen above. You may choose an approach or combine several to do this.
Image Credit: useful tools for call center coaching by envato.com
end of post … please share it!
end of post idea for home improvement
view and analyze home improvement ideas at our LetsRenovate center
Helpful article? Leave us a quick comment below.
And please give this article a rating and/or share it within your social networks.
