Developing call center employees who succeed

Working in the call center industry can be challenging. Supporting your staff and developing them to be successful while managing the needs of your customers on a daily basis is a delicate balancing act. In my ten years as a call center training and coaching consultant developing and managing training and coaching processes, I saw employers who were very successful at developing their best assets – their call centre agents. I also saw organizations that struggled with this and had no clear vision on how to develop their staff to succeed. A number of years ago I spoke at a BC Contact Centre Association (BCCCA) conference on how to develop call center employees to succeed. One of the conference handouts that I came across recently is still relevant today and worth sharing as food for thought.

Setting Up for Success

 What’s in Place?

• What results are critical to meeting business objectives?
• How actively will management support new training initiatives?
• Has an operations review evaluated current job performance?
• What is the gap between actual and desired business objectives?

 What skills are required?

• What are the key job competencies?
• How do key competencies support desired performance objectives?
• Where have your top performing employees come from and what key skills and aptitudes do they have in common?
• Do you recruit people specifically suited to your environment?

Training for Success

 What are your training needs?

• What training is currently in place?
• What is the gap between actual and desired performance objectives?
• What is needed to bridge the gap?

 How do you meet your training needs?

• Does training incorporate sound adult learning principles and strategies?
• Are measurable learning outcomes in place?
• What training option(s) bests meets time, budget, and resource requirements?

Sustaining Success

 How can you measure success?

• What evaluation is in place after training to measure job skill transfer?
• Are call standards in place to ensure call monitoring is consistent and fair for all employees?
• Did job performance change or improve as a result of training?
• What has been the return on investment?

 How do you reinforce success?

• Do you have a coaching program that encourages ongoing performance improvement?
• What operational changes are necessary to implement a formal coaching program?
• How well does your incentive program reward employees while supporting sales and marketing initiatives?
• What changes can be made to support high performance?

 As you can see, many of these questions can be used in any organization, whether they have a call center or not. If you want to pursue the answers to some or all of the questions above, talk to your HR or training manager. If you don’t have internal resources available, contact us. We’d be happy to help you answer the questions and provide a plan for success.