call coaching quality assurance team leaders Nov 23, 2023
One of the team leader’s primary responsibilities is to provide call coaching to help agents improve the quality of their calls. This is particularly the case in small call centres where there is usually no quality assurance analyst position. And in medium sized centres where there may be one QA officer, that person’s focus is usually on coaching calibration and training the team leaders to coach effectively, rather than providing coaching to all agents personally.
Call Coaching regularly is vital as it reinforces effective performance and provides clarity for the agent – reminding them how they should be interacting with customers. If coaching is only done sporadically, then in the coaching session the team leader is primarily problem solving and correcting the agent to bring them back to the using the standardised call flow. In turn the agent is more likely to feel judged and receive negative feedback which increases the agent’s fear of and resistance to call coaching.
In such cases the team leader may come to associates call coaching with too much work and emotional drama making it even less likely that they will coach regularly. A downward spiral emerges where the agents are not receiving adequate help and support to improve the quality of their calls. Coaching is important as it helps agents to do their job better, and in trying to be better agents become more competent and therefore more confident in handling customer interactions.
Non-existent, sporadic or poor quality coaching is notice by agents. Agents want to know their team leader’s opinion of their work. “How well am I doing? Do I have a future here?”
Also sometimes an agent may believe they are doing the right thing even though they are not following the standardised call flow and/ or dealing with customers in a courteous and empathetic manner. This may be because they have overheard other agents behaving like this. It’s up to the team leader or quality officer to steer them back on course and educate them as to why using certain phrases, the call flow, and a courteous manner are important.
Call coaching also helps you identify if there are gaps in an agent’s knowledge and if an agent needs further assistance and training. It also allows you to identify whether the training for all agents needs to be revised and made more comprehensive.
Coach agents to bridge skill gaps. Coach agents about how they are to make changes, and how these changes benefit them and the customer.
Call coaching can be used to redirect effort to revised priorities such as when the call flow is updated to include a refined sales approach or new process.
It’s also a good idea to schedule your call coaching sessions so that you are monitoring calls and providing coaching at regular stages throughout the month. If you add these sessions to your calendar and workforce planning system (where applicable) they are more likely to get done. What you don’t want to do is conduct all your call coaching on the last days of the month to reach your own KPI to conduct a certain number of call coaching sessions per agent. This does not give the agent an adequate amount of regular coaching or give them the opportunity to take on feedback and try to improve during the month.
Monitoring the calls of your best performers allows you to understand what they are doing differently. Perhaps these elements need to be added to the standardised call flow for all staff. Or perhaps these elements are in the standardised call flow but only the top performers are doing it and the others need to.
While you shouldn’t wait for a problem to arise to conduct call coaching, agents that are struggling to reach targets clearly need help and call coaching is the best way to assess where they need correcting. For example, monitoring the calls of an agent with excessive call length should indicate whether they are over servicing customers, having problems with the use of databases, having difficulties questioning the customer to gain the information they need, or whether they are offering stellar service and their longer Average Handle Time (AHT) is irrelevant.
When an agent is expressing dissatisfaction with the job or is complaining about customers too regularly, it is a good idea to provide them with extra coaching to see what may be causing their frustrations and attempt to help them overcome this.
In some call centres, agents are allowed to self-assess one or more pre-recorded calls in their call coaching sessions and then the team leader adds their feedback. This is practice is done to lower the agent’s fear of being assessed.
In an article titled “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments”[1] Cornell University researchers Justin Kruger and David Dunning report that very poor performers, those that are incompetent, are also incapable of assessing the difference between a good and bad performance. Therefore self-assessments are probably not best for new staff and those failing to regularly meet their KPIs.
Every job has challenges. The ability of an employee to meet those challenges can lead to an overall sense of frustration or achievement at work. Call coaching improves the agent’s ability to respond to challenges by enhancing and improving performance through accelerated learning of desired procedures and best practices. The benefits of call coaching can be immediate and affect the daily experience and motivation of agents.
Future articles will expand on the benefits of call coaching and how to lower the fear that some agents have of being assessed and call coached.
[1] Justin Kruger and David Dunning, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognisizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77, no. 6 (1999).