Coaching Insights - How to Retain Your Best Agents and Customers

Early this year, I went behind enemy lines. Actually, I was on vacation with a client in Manila and took up her invitation to visit their manager Betty who manages several help desk centers for large global organizations. I spent a few hours inside the contact center and Betty noticed that I wanted to listen to calls the moment I walked into this high tech facility. I sat next to Dave who spoke very good English and listened in on a few calls as part of my research. He seemed eager to speak with me on what he does on inbound and outbound calls. It was refreshing to see data and information providing analytics with real-time performance information displayed on monitors above the clocks with the times of all the locations that they serve. Surprisingly what was missing were the "coaching moments" which one would assume happens frequently in the course of a day in the role of a Supervisor at a contact center. Unfortunately, that did not happen much to my surprise as I wanted to be able to observe and give feedback to the Supervisor. In the vast real-estate that I covered there, less than 10% were allocated for specific coaching and training of the agent. Did someone miss the memo here during the design stage? Was this intentional or was there lack of rooms for coaching and ad-hoc meeting rooms?

For most people, a job in a contact center is a foot in the door, a starting position in an extremely competitive market for talent. Some of the work can be repetitive and boring like the one I observed. Hence it is no surprise that attrition in some cases can be as high as 50% for agents in the contact center. It is probably the same for Supervisors however there is a correlation to this phenomenon. The churn rates and the lack of a coaching environment in which these young men and women work in could be root causes to these symptom. I know it can be relentless and unforgiving in the best of times. Aside from the compensation, most agents like Dave agree that they would like to spend more time honing their skills and move up in the organization but Supervisors have no time in their day to coach, develop and build trust with their people. They are so busy putting out fires and managing the low performers that the mid and high level performers are often ignored.

What is this relationship between a Supervisor and an Agent? It is not about buying pizzas or sharing personal stories after work (although that is important too). It is about building confidence and trust in these fragile relationships at the workplace. These elements starts the relationship, sustains it through coaching interactions and becomes the foundations of success in a contact center. It is a proven fact that teams that take coaching seriously have better results in attrition and career development of their agents. Employee and Customer surveys increase and most of all, customers stay loyal through the good and bad times, just like our agent Dave or Betty. I know I stuck around long enough with Heather (my first Supervisor, God Bless Her) in my early years because of her commitment to my personal and professional development while under her supervision. Coaching takes less effort once it is done effectively, with the right tools and the right supervisor. It is one of the key enablers in the knowledge economy where time is money and money is created by agents who are engaged, motivated and well coached. Enhancing their confidence by focusing on skill development in the contact center with meaningful metrics designed to build customer (and agent loyalty) should be a key priority especially in these tough times.