Home > Columns > CRM Columns

Meeting the New Challenges of Employee Training, Coaching and Engagement

Since the contact center agent is the face and voice that often defines a company in the eyes of existing and potential customers, workforce recruiting must focus on identifying vital traits, skills, and abilities in individuals. But even when those who meet the highest qualifications are put in place, they must be trained, continuously coached, and kept actively engaged to be successful.

It’s a proven fact that companies which can recruit and retain qualified and motivated front-line personnel are positioned to operate more efficiently while building customer loyalty. According to a McKinsey report, “Failure to keep talented employees can have significant repercussions... attrition can erode customer satisfaction while increasing operating costs. Each new agent hire is estimated to cost the contact center $10,000 to $20,000 in training, direct recruiting costs, and lost productivity during ramp up.”

Taking every step to keep top performers onboard is now more critical than ever. Although many consumers have become comfortable with online self-service tools, once they decide to call into the contact center the issues are almost always more complicated to resolve. Since people are already frustrated at being unable to find answers on other channels, they are on edge from the moment when an agent picks up the call.

This dilemma has only grown more acute during a crisis in which many customers are already panicked. Adding more fuel to the fire is that customers are often faced with longer wait times as companies adapt to a new wave of work-at-home agents. Nearly 40% who were put on hold with a company after calling about crisis-related issues stated that they were annoyed or frustrated.

Further McKinsey research suggests a need for companies to take a proactive stance when interacting with their contact-center employees by focusing on engagement and finding ways to increase their comfort and happiness wherever they are working. They found a startling difference in outcomes. Engaged and satisfied call-center employees are: 

• 8.5x more likely to stay than leave within a year
• 4x more likely to stay than dissatisfied colleagues
• 16x more likely to refer friends to their company
• 3.3x more likely to feel extremely empowered to resolve customer issues 

So how does a company ensure that these valuable assets are happier and more productive? Actions in three areas can have a major impact-- targeted coaching, employment of updated training techniques and applying proven strategies to enhance employee engagement —and they are available for all contact centers to take.

A focused educational alternative now makes it possible for a business’s entire workforce planning team to benefit from the latest innovative thinking without ever having to take so much as a step away from their home offices.

CrmXchange is presenting a premier online virtual conference:  Techniques for Training, Coaching and Employee Engagement (http://www/ecrmevents.com) with the Quality Assurance and Training Connection, (QATC), a membership association created specifically for quality assurance and training professionals in the contact center environment.

The curriculum is structured to benefit contact center leaders at all levels - supervisors, managers, directors, and VPS. The fully interactive event enables attendees to meet with industry experts and colleagues who will answer questions in real time while providing updated strategies and techniques. The schedule is designed to provide direction to meet the changing needs of businesses transitioning to a greater percentage of work-at-home agents but will also provide guidance for companies still maintaining on-premise employees.

Among the topics to be covered in-depth are: 

• Learning how to work in a remote world
• Best methods for coaching and training remote and on-premise agents
• How to optimize agent performance in the new reality
• Developing an effective instructor competency program 

The event will kick off on Monday, June 7 with a focused keynote address entitled “Measuring and Managing Employee Frustration.” It will be presented by John Goodman, Vice Chairman, Customer Care and Consulting.  In this keynote A metric similar to customer effort, employee effort, will be suggested along with a simple method for obtaining a baseline and tracking.

Other areas to be explored in this targeted, complimentary virtual conference include:   

• Improving Your Customer Operations with the Right Metrics and Analytics
• Cultural Roadblocks: 3 Simple Steps to Avoid Misunderstanding and Conflict
• Techniques for Driving Employee Engagement
• Best Practices and Technologies to Coach, Train and Engage Your Agent Community
• The Human Side of AI: Coaching and Empowering Agents for CX Success
• Coaching and Training Tips for the Remote Workforce
• Detours: Five Contact Center Success Stories on the Unexpected Route (Thanks 2020)
• Better Customer Outcomes: How Focusing on These Things will Lead to Better Agents, and Happier Customers  

In addition to the educational sessions, attendees can visit the booths of leading suppliers in the online exhibit hall. They can then download white papers, videos, product data sheets and other vital content from leading solution providers and organizations such as CallMiner, NICE inContact, Verint, NICE, Playvox, EvaluAgent and Sharpen.

Register now at no cost for the complete five-day event: there is no limit on how many people a company can sign up. For those who cannot attend the live presentations or have the time to visit the exhibits during the event, links to all sessions and the exhibit hall will remain open for one full week after the event is completed.