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7 Pillars For Creating Amazing Team Leaders

Team Leaders are the backbone of any call center!

Yet typically what happens is one of the better operators is made a Team Leader and thrown into the deep end with little or no understanding of their role, much less comprehensive training or on-going support.

As a result, all too often, we turn a terrific team member into a stressed and under achieving Team Leader and get frustrated with the results.

Then after a few months, or even weeks, we end up replacing them and usually lose a really good telemarketer in the process too!

The best way to overcome the frustration and stress of getting caught in this revolving door of constantly replacing Team Leaders is to follow the 7 Pillars for creating amazing Team Leaders who coach, nurture and lead winning teams that continuously meet (or even exceed) their monthly targets and KPIs.

Having owned a call center myself and working all over the world for 35 years running marketing departments and call centers, consulting with businesses mentoring their call center managers and team leaders…

I’m well aware of the difficulties of developing amazing team leaders who coach, nurture and lead winning teams.

After doing this over the years, I’ve learnt that to create truly amazing Team Leaders you need to develop an effective training process incorporating these 7 Pillars, so they clearly understand their role, and acquire the practical skills needed to lead their teams to consistently achieve their targets and KPIs.

The 1st Pillar is Getting The Right Person

All Team Leaders ARE NOT the same and there are common traits, characteristics and practices that set successful Team Leaders apart.

The key to selecting the right Team Leader is understanding these traits, characteristics and practices, so you can look for them in prospective candidates when recruiting from outside or promoting from within.

Obviously, you want the right person from the start; even if you need to help them learn some of the skills they'll need to be successful … because it’s always easier and quicker coaching someone who has the right basic traits and characteristics to begin with.

The 2nd Pillar is Effective Time Management

The number one reason most Team Leaders give for not providing their team members with on-the-job training or coaching is that they just don’t have the time with all the different administration and human resources tasks they have to do every day.

And, to be fair, some have a point, when you look at all the things they do each day and week. If this is the case in your center, you should have a look at which tasks can be handled by an administrator or someone in HR, rather than your Team Leader.

After all, a Team Leader's number one priority should be reaching their team’s goals each week. So, you need to make sure they have the time and energy to provide really effective leadership and coaching.

 If Team Leaders aren’t overburdened with too many tasks then you’re really dealing with an excuse, and that’s an easy fix.

To make sure they’re using their time effectively, have them complete a weekly schedule for the coming week, give you a copy and pin it at their work space.

Review their schedule to make sure they’re focused on the coaching tasks you want, and make any necessary amendments if needed.

You also want to keep them accountable so, check in throughout the week to make sure they’re doing their coaching tasks when scheduled.

Bringing these essential elements together, Team Leaders will have the time to help their team members perform better because team members are finally getting the coaching they need!

Pillar 3 is having a Coachable Call Structure

Team members need an easy to understand Call Structure that sets out the key steps, in the proper sequence, they need follow to achieve positive outcomes whether handling customer service calls, booking appointments or making sales.

An effective Call Structure crystallizes the steps when handling or making a call; and when done correctly is easy to learn and really easy to coach!

Just imagine how more quickly you’d improve the overall performance of your Call Center team if you had a call structure for your team to follow that Team Leaders could use to coach team members to follow.

The 4th Pillar is Call Monitoring and Calibrated Scoring

To be effective coaches, Team Leaders need to have a clear understanding of the challenges team members are facing when making or handling calls.

The best way to understand where coaching is needed is to listen to team members' calls and score each area of the call structure in those calls.

It is imperative that Scoring Guidelines are created and calibrated with all Team Leaders to ensure consistent call scoring across the call center.

The best way to ensure Scoring Guidelines are calibrated correctly is to get all your team leaders into a room, listen to a few recorded calls together and have each of them independently score each call.

Then compare and discuss their scores to ensure everyone understands the appropriate scoring levels for each call component, to make sure they aren't too strict or forgiving in the scores they give.

This way team members will generally have the same scores for the different parts of your call structure and you’ll find this really helpful if you move them from team to team to ensure they get consistency on the scoring of their calls.

Pillar 5 is Corrective and Nurturing Feedback

Providing positive and corrective call performance feedback is critical when coaching team members to ensure they are protecting your brand, and well trained to be friendly, helpful, giving accurate information and following call handling processes effectively.

Team Leaders need to be trained in providing nurturing and corrective feedback on calls they've scored to make sure team members really understand where they need to improve and are open to being coached.

Aside from providing corrective feedback, Team Leaders should also be coached to identify what was also great about the call they scored. That way when providing corrective feedback, along with call deficiencies, they can highlight positive aspects of a call to reinforce those actions with team members, so they will occur again.

Providing feedback in this way will be seen by team members as an instructive and motivational experience they can look forward to.

The 6th Pillar is Team Member Skills Audits

Team Leaders need to conduct a Skills Audit of each of their team members every quarter to have a timely and clear understanding of the coaching and training needs for each of their team members.

These audits can be done more frequently, particularly if there are chronic under performers or when new team members join their team.

Skills Audits cover all sections of a Call Structure and other areas such as: Product Knowledge, Systems Knowledge and Administration.

Team Leaders should also add notes to each area to remind them of the coaching and training requirements to help them when they develop Coaching Plans for team members.

After they’ve completed an audit, discuss the areas team members need coaching or training and decide with your Team Leaders how best to deliver any required training or coaching.

If many team members need help in any specific area it may be better to have a group training session, that’s where keeping notes on each audit section can come in handy.

Pillar 7 is Team Coaching Plans

Coaching Plans keep Team Leaders focused on covering the areas each of their team members need improvement.

It’s just a simple plan that outlines which areas need work, what coaching is required, when it will be delivered and who delivers it.

This pulls everything into a road map Team Leaders can follow that focuses on the specific areas of coaching needed for each team member.

Of course, some team members are really, really good operators who won’t need a lot of coaching, but they can still improve in some areas.

And, you’d be amazed at how many really good operators want their Team Leader to listen to their calls and work with them because they’re feeling they may be falling off a little.

Want to learn more?

Want to learn more on how to develop a proven, practical and easy-to-implement training program to create amazing Team Leaders with a clear understanding of their role, and the practical skills needed…

to turn underperformers into high achievers, who regularly reach (or even exceed) their monthly targets and KPIs?

Simply enroll in my free online course - 7 Pillars For Creating Amazing Team Leaders using this link (https://7pillarsmembers.marccarriere.net/.

You get instant access to this free course PLUS 15 Bonus Micro Training Videos AND free download of the 7 Pillars For Creating Amazing Team Leaders Guide.

After this Free Training you’ll understand all the vital elements you need to develop your own structured Team Leader training program and deliver it.

Just imagine how confident you’ll be training your Team Leaders with all the skills they need to turn low performing teams into high achievers that hit (or even exceed) their targets and KPIs every month!