Scaling Call Center Coaching

Scaling any business, but especially call centers, can be challenging because you are relying on the people you hire to act like owners by giving them more responsibility and trust than most companies.

One of the most important factors that we see missing from companies looking to scale their teams or businesses is coaching. Up until now, it was something that was difficult to scale. And you would see the drop

off from the Founder/Owner to the newest hires.

We’re going to show you how to use science and data to help scale your call center. But first, we need to understand why call center coaching is misrepresented and most of the time underutilized.

Call Center Coaching & Why It’s Important

Call coaching is defined as the quality management activity to provide your team with feedback, examples, agent performance assessments, and best practices to help improve the skill set needed for their role.

Most of the time call coaching is done via one-on-one meetings. Which is great…. besides when you are trying to scale your business.

Here is why it’s often overlooked:

• Not enough time in the day for managers
• Reps/Agents get coached on the same thing over and over again
• It becomes more around micromanagement instead of learning opportunities

Here is why we believe call coaching (especially real-time coaching) can be a game-changer:

• Reps/Agents receive live feedback on the call, so they can immediately see where they need to improve or get help if they are stuck
• Data can help build a predictive model for your team on what works/doesn’t work
• Your front-line employees on the phone should be able to talk about the company the way the CEO does

Why Coaching Is More Science Than Art

When you use data to help scale your coaching abilities, you can now provide these things.

1) Proactive service

Call centers can utilize the data they receive to understand their customers better which can in turn help their teams perform better.

Higher numbers of agent performance assessments will lead to lower turnover and higher employee satisfaction.

Let’s provide an example:

You’ve received 100 calls today. Utilizing a call analytics tool, you should be able to easily identify the reason for each of those calls then you can group them.

Now do this over a 10-day window and see why most customers are calling. This will let you tighten up your script and responses to give your team the opportunity to crush a majority of the calls.

2) Identify strengths & weaknesses

Call coaching can reveal a lot of things your team is doing, but if you’re not looking at it from a bigger view you could end up coaching the same thing over and over again. This is what happens in most call centers, unfortunately.

If call coaching happens during a one-on-one, your team isn’t able to learn from each other.

Use the data to formulate a training plan.

Here is how we do it:

We have a training session every Wednesday. During those sessions, whoever is performing the best at the top at hand – let’s say overcoming price objections – teaches that topic.

We have our team teach each other with leadership chiming in when needed.

This builds confidence and competence which in turn allows us to scale our company.

3) Create a culture that scales

If you build processes and empower your people, they will most likely follow those processes or even better suggest opportunities for improvement as they see fit.

Call center coaching can be difficult and for some companies, it can even be stressful.

But when you create an environment for your employees to take ownership and learn from their mistakes, it then emanates to anyone who joins the company.

If you have a bad apple that doesn’t fit culturally into that model, they will stick out and most likely self-select to find a new job.

It’s just the reality.

We like to build processes first, then people come second.

If you try to build a process around each person, there will be no symmetry and it will be impossible to scale.

4) Track the right metrics

Some of you might think this is obvious, but we need to point it out when it comes to call center coaching because there is so much variation in how it’s done.

KPIs that your team can learn and improve upon themselves are:

• Average speed to answer/respond
• First call resolution time
• Customer satisfaction score

These should be automated scores that they can pull anytime after any call. These will also be the focus of their agent performance assessments.

How can real-time call center coaching software help

In conclusion, there are four main points that you need to consider when looking to scale your team or business.

1. Proactive service
2. Identify strengths and weaknesses
3. Create a culture that scales
4. Track the right metrics

Once you have these down, your coaching can scale with your business ensuring your frontline can tell the same story as the Founder/Owner.

Now the difference maker between good and great when it comes to coaching is REAL-TIME.

That’s where we come in.

Real-time call center coaching software gives your team live on the call coaching without managers having to be there. Scaling in a nutshell.

You can identify best practices, your best performers, and even create a predictable model for your team. This gives them the power to coach themselves and each other, building a culture needed to scale.

Check out real-time call center coaching software when evaluating your tech stack as it’s essential for businesses of all sizes.