While it's difficult to expect customer service representatives not to make mistakes during their calls, agent errors can be minimized with the right coaching techniques by their team leaders. This is why effective coaching is vital in every call center Philippines, ensuring that agents are well-equipped with the right information and customer handling procedures.
In our previous post, we talked about the importance of coaching[M1] . Indeed, it's an essential part of every call center that can help translate every caller into loyal customer. Today, we list down a few tips to help you effectively coach your agents:
1. Use post-call surveys
Playing back recorded calls and reviewing emails from customers is a great way to start your coaching sessions. This helps you and your agents analyze if there are any recurring problems or difficulties that need to be discussed and resolved. It can help you determine what issues you need to highlight during the entire coaching session.
Use these pieces of information to address issues that hurt their performance. Explain to them that your comments are purely objective and you need to discuss them so they won't continue committing the same mistakes.
2. Allow self-assessment
Self-evaluation allows agents to listen to recordings of their own previous calls and recheck past emails. This gives them an opportunity to assess themselves and identify what they need to improve on. Giving them the chance to be their own critiques and realize their own errors can make it easier for them to welcome your opinions.
Let your agents conduct a comprehensive evaluation of themselves. Afterwards, wrap up by reinforcing the right behavior and focusing on how your agents can progress. By motivating your team to bounce back from their lapses, you give them a reason to strive harder in their work.
3. Listen to your agents
Assuring your agents that you keep your communication lines open can improve work relationships. One way of doing this is to actively listening to them and refraining from interrupting them as they speak. This prevents any unnecessary arguments that can spark from trying to overpower one another.
Letting your agents speak freely shows that you're willing to listen to what they have to say because you respect them, a practice that will prompt them to pay attention to you when it's your turn to speak. Make sure to repeat the significant point of the coaching session to show your agents that you took note of their concerns. Also, show your support by encouraging them to approach you if any need arises.
4. Provide constructive feedback
Basing your comments on facts is a good way to make your agents understand how they are evaluated. Here, the agents can see how their performance has waned, and will also help them understand that you're trying to help them improve and not just criticizing the effort that they put into their work.
Since some of agents can be sensitive to criticisms, providing constructive feedback can be tricky so how you talk to them plays an important role. It's always best to start with positive comments and give them your feedback in a calm, non-accusatory tone. These may help to let them know that you're objectively pointing out their mistakes so they can learn from them.
Coaching is tough and time-consuming, but it can definitely help the entire business develop a team of efficient agents. So if you aspire to have a long-term success, monitoring your agents' performance and coaching them definitely make for a good start.