If you’re running a call center – whether inbound or outbound – call center training and coaching should never be an afterthought. While that might seem as easy as simply telling your call center agents what to do (and what NOT to do) when interacting with customers or prospects, it certainly involves much more than that. But the outcome is worth the investment. According to stats from SurveyMonkey, 59% of employees say workplace training improves their overall job performance, while 51% believe training gives them more confidence.
In this article, we’ll outline 7 call center coaching tools that call center supervisors and managers can leverage to improve the performance, efficiency, and productivity of their team members.
Why is Call Center Coaching and Training Essential?
When call center agents are well-trained, well-skilled, and highly knowledgeable – the entire call center thrives. Customer-facing agents are more likely to deliver high-quality support to your customers, which translates to increased first call resolution rates (FCR), reduced average handle times (AHT), improved customer satisfaction scores (CSAT), and better customer loyalty. Sales-oriented agents are more likely to generate leads and convert customers more effectively, growing your sales and profits.
The key is to ensure your agent training and call center coaching initiatives are regular, consistent, and efficient. Luckily, the right call center coaching tools can help you improve your coaching efficiency and enhance your call center team’s performance. Let’s explore them in more detail below.
7 Call Center Coaching Tools to Enhance Your Training and Improve Agent Performance
Call recording and playback
Call recording and playback are some of the most efficient center coaching tools you can use in your call center. The good news is that the absolute majority of call center software providers offer the call recording feature as part of their basic plans. It allows you to record customer calls automatically, store call recordings for a certain period or for as long as you need, and play them back later on. Thus, you can play recordings of the calls where your top-performing agents demonstrate excellent call-handling examples in your training sessions – and your lower-performing agents can learn from them. Here are some examples of calls you can use:
- Calls where your reps demonstrate delivering outstanding customer service;
- Calls where agents deal with frustrated customers and use de-escalation techniques;
- Calls where agents resolve complicated issues in a single interaction;
- Calls where agents efficiently help a customer troubleshoot a technical issue;
- Calls where agents demonstrate adherence to compliance requirements;
- Calls where agents successfully upsell or cross-sell your products or services, etc.
On the other side, poorly performing reps might not always realize what they are doing wrong. By having them listen to their own conversations, you can highlight where they are repeatedly making mistakes so they know what they need to be working on.
Real-time call monitoring
With real-time call monitoring, managers and supervisors can listen in on active calls to hear first-hand how their team members interact with customers or prospects. That gives them much deeper insights into agent performance than just simply reviewing performance metrics and KPIs through dashboards and reporting tools. The best part about real-time call monitoring is that agents aren’t aware of the fact that you have entered the call. That means you get an opportunity to observe their natural call-handling skills and spot knowledge or skill gaps. That information can help you enhance your training by offering highly targeted coaching that addresses specific skills agents need to improve.
Whisper coaching
Whisper coaching, otherwise known as call whispering, is a highly effective call center coaching tool, particularly helpful during the onboarding stage. Many call center software vendors like VoiceSpin include this advanced version of real-time call monitoring in their offerings. The difference between whispering and real-time monitoring is that the agent actually knows you are listening and can participate.
Through call whispering, managers or supervisors can join in on active conversations and secretly provide on-call guidance to agents on calls without the customer or prospect on the other side being aware of their presence and hearing anything. That can help newly hired reps build confidence and call-handling skills faster before taking complicated calls solo.
Self-training presentations
Along with guided training and coaching sessions, self-training is also an effective coaching strategy in call centers and contact centers. Having a collection of ready-made self-training presentations can help you speed up and enhance the onboarding process for your new hires. These could include anything from how to use your call center software effectively, compliance requirements your agents must follow, guides and tips on how to handle different types of scenarios, how to deal with challenging customers, how to handle escalations, and so much more. The best part is that it allows your reps to learn at their own pace.
Interactive games
Interactive games are a great call center coaching tool to include in your arsenal. Adding gamification to your training and coaching practices can make the whole process more fun for your reps while also boosting their morale and motivation. Based on a survey conducted by TalentLMS, 83% of those employees who receive gamified training in the workplace feel motivated, and 61% of those who receive non-gamified training claim to feel bored and unproductive. And since call center jobs often involve lots of repetitive and monotonous tasks, making call center training a game is also an excellent way to increase engagement and job satisfaction.
Speech analytics tools
Speech analytics tools are advanced AI-powered solutions you can take advantage of to enhance your call center training and coaching. These solutions allow you to automate your entire call center quality assurance monitoring and easily identify top-performing and low-performing agents and improvement opportunities. They can also help you track specific keywords and phrases used in conversations, customer sentiment, trends, and common issues customers face. Based on these insights, you can improve your training and coaching program and make it more targeted and efficient.
AI call summary
Call summary is an advanced AI-powered feature offered by many call center software providers that can be used to enhance your call center coaching. Call summaries are AI-generated brief recaps of every call that contain important insights extracted from customer conversations. Managers and supervisors can use call summaries to assess agent performance without having to listen to the entire recording of every call – and that can save them a great deal of time and effort. Along with reviewing performance metrics, call summaries empower you to identify improvement opportunities and refine your training and coaching efforts.
Best Practices for Efficient Call Center Agent Coaching
Start with thorough preparation
While it might be too obvious to mention, call center agent coaching should always start with thorough preparation. In fact, according to stats from SQM's research, 47% of the supervisor coaching time is for prepping to coach agents, and only 23% of the time is for coaching an agent.
Create a positive learning environment
It’s incredibly important for supervisors and managers to create a positive and supportive environment for agents during the coaching sessions, whether it’s one-on-one or group coaching. When reps feel comfortable and supported, they are definitely more likely to accept constructive feedback and learn from it.
Conduct regular 1:1 coaching sessions
Conducting one-on-one coaching sessions is one of the best ways to improve agent performance and efficiency. Why? Because they provide a safe and comfortable space for your reps to discuss challenges, weaknesses, and concerns with their coach without fear of judgment from other team members. However, you need to make sure your 1:1 coaching sessions are regular and consistent.
Practice role-playing coaching
It can be particularly effective during the onboarding stage. Role-playing coaching allows agents to practice different call-handling techniques for specific scenarios in a safe, low-pressure learning environment, making it much easier to put new skills and knowledge into practice before doing it with real customers.
Use customer feedback from post-call surveys
Your customers are a valuable source of feedback that you can leverage in your agent coaching practices. In addition to analyzing call recordings, call summaries, and performance metrics and KPIs, use data from post-call surveys to share customer feedback with your agents so they can learn about their weaknesses and skill or knowledge gaps directly from the customer’s perspective.
Employ a positive-negative-positive feedback approach
Also known as the ‘sandwich’ technique, this approach is an effective way to ensure agents are emotionally ready to receive the negative feedback as you basically deliver a piece of negative feedback ‘sandwiched’ between two positive ones. Starting the coaching session with positive feedback can help you put the agent at ease to receive negative feedback. And when you close with positive feedback, that helps you keep the agent motivated.
Wrapping up
Regular and consistent call center agent coaching helps your reps develop their call-handling skills, improve knowledge, boost confidence, and increase overall performance and efficiency. Use the call center coaching tools and best practices mentioned above to ensure your agent coaching is efficient and delivers positive outcomes for your team, your customers, and the entire call center.
