Capitalize on Contact Center Coaching in 2007: Three Strategies to Consider Now
By Dina Vance and Jay Williams; Ulysses Learning

As contact center consultants, we spend a fair amount of our time working with senior contact center managers, as well as front-line staff, to help maximize benefits gained through their day-to-day coaching interactions. As we work with executives to help develop their performance improvement plans for 2007, here are three coaching strategies topping their priority lists.

One: Get contact center executives more engaged in coaching. What happens in many organizations is that coaching gets pushed down the ranks, becoming a task for team leaders and supervisors and less so for middle- and upper-level managers. But a trend for the New Year is that senior executives will engage in more coaching interactions but not necessarily in “typical” coaching interactions.

In a typical coaching interaction, what usually occurs is that the coach will observe agent performance and then reinforce, redirect or refine behaviors. Most senior executives may feel uncomfortable giving this type of feedback, especially since they aren’t frequently engaged in this type of activity and, quite frankly, most agents would be a bit intimidated receiving such coaching feedback from a “higher up”.

A best practice that we advocate is simply making sure the senior-most call center executive is visible and reinforces behaviors worth replicating. This can be as simple as having a senior executive observe an agent’s performance and then giving that individual a “thumbs up”, a pat on the back with a simple “Great Job!” or a small tangible reward (e.g. a piece of candy or an inexpensive “prize”). This simple action will go a long way and you better believe that the agent will remember the manager’s acknowledgement and what they were doing to receive the reinforcement for many months after the coaching interaction.

And you get a double bonus with this simple act of recognition in that other agents will take notice. They will want to know what behavior was being reinforced and many will be compelled to get recognition themselves for the same behavior.

Point to remember. All managers need to be engaged in some type of agent coaching activity....even if it means going out on the floor only one day a month. A top executive’s influence can have a long and lasting effect on agent performance, especially when coaching is done in a positive and genuine fashion.

Two: Remove coaching roadblocks by “daring” to be different. For as long as we all can remember most “excuses” for not coaching agents with the necessary regularity and consistency fall into one of four categories: “There’s no time for coaching”; “We’re short handed”; “I’m uncomfortable giving the feedback”; and “I’m getting mixed messages from the top”. (This last category describes roadblocks that arise when coaches are told that coaching is important but they’re continually asked by senior managers to take on different roles and responsibilities that make it difficult to focus on coaching.)

When faced with one or more of these coaching roadblocks, we advise our clients to think creatively, dare to be different and take bold actions to remove these roadblocks once and for all.

We love what one of our clients did. When he was “coaching his coaches” he heard time and time again that coaching was falling down the priority list because of all the meetings his folks had to attend. So he took a simple but bold action. For 60 days he took all the meetings off his coaches’ calendars from 8:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. so they could focus on coaching. What he learned was that even without the meetings all the work that needed to be done was done with no added steps or worries. Problem solved; roadblock removed.

Another creative but simple way to remove coaching roadblocks is to do something counterintuitive but productive. Here’s a good example. Usually when call volumes are high and people are stressed out, call center executives expect coaches to get on the phones to help put out the fires. We counsel our clients to do the exact opposite.

Rather than putting coaches on the phones, we encourage coaches to do even more coaching because when call volumes are high, that’s exactly when coaching pays off the most. If you’re coaching more, you’ll find that you’ll actually decrease agent stress, increase call effectiveness, shorten talk times and decrease the number of calls waiting in your queues!

Point to remember. Rarely will elaborate schemes to remove roadblocks work. Think in terms of focusing on the most prevalent coaching roadblock in your center and simplify a related process to remove the roadblock. And don’t be afraid to try counterintuitive methods. If you dare to be different you’ll be delighted by the results!

Three: Hire more coaches for offshore contact centers. Many of our clients have recently launched offshore contact center operations and have gone through some painful transitions. To keep customer satisfaction high, we’ve worked with these executives to implement coaching practices which include investing in more coaches (a typical ratio of coaches to agents we recommend is 5:1) and training these coaches to help manage and improve agent performance on the job.

You might be asking, “Why the need for more coaches?” Here’s why: because the offshore coach has more responsibilities on his/her plate. In addition to typical coaching responsibilities, the offshore coach helps agents remove language barriers, close cultural gaps and better understand the American customer – all very important activities to ensure an exceptional customer experience.

Point to remember. If you’re offshoring any or all of your contact center operation, challenge your vendors to put in place or team up with an expert resource to install a top-notch coaching process. Our best clients tell us time and time again that getting coaching “right” is one of the least expensive ways to improve performance because, one, the actual labor expense of the offshore coach is less expensive and, two, you get a quicker return on investment because with the right coaching process you can be very prescriptive in changing agent performance.

To speak with a Ulysses Learning consultant, contact the company at 800.662.4066 or via e-Mail at pholmberg@ulysseslearning.com. You can also visit Ulysses on the web at www.ulysseslearning.com.