Winning Management & Coaching

The answer to this question is what we do at Call Center Training Solutions. We help our leaders find the time in their day to coach. We also provide the world class coaching skills that leaders need to drive agent skills and performance to new levels. If you want a great coaching solution, contact us about our Winning Management & Coaching program.

Here are some other ways to increase the amount of coaching that takes place in your center.

Actually Schedule time for coaching: This is one of the greatest contributors to increasing the amount of coaching your leaders achieve each day. With our clients, we call it the Power Hour, an hour of dedicated, uninterruptible coaching time for each leader, every day (or four days a week if your Mondays are crazy). When we schedule the time, most leaders will take advantage of that time, do their call observations and then provide coaching to agents.

Start Utilizing “Quick Burst Coaching”: Quick burst coaching takes 1-2 minutes to complete. During the Power Hours, provide these fast-moving coaching sessions instead of trying to coach to an entire call. Focus on one strength (positive feedback) and one area of improvement (critical feedback). This type of coaching is highly effective over time. In our Power Hours, we can often get to every agent either every day or every other day. Highly effective coaching packaged into small time investments. Agents appreciate the opportunity to get some feedback and coaching and get right back on calls.

To make coaching conversations in a call center more productive and useful, a call center leader can employ several strategies.

Set clear expectations: Clearly define the objectives and expectations for coaching conversations. Ensure that both parties understand the purpose of the conversation and what specific areas need improvement.

Prepare in advance: Before the coaching conversation, review relevant data and information about the employee’s performance. Identify specific examples of both strengths and areas for improvement to discuss during the session.

Create a supportive environment: Foster an open and non-judgmental atmosphere where employees feel comfortable sharing their challenges, concerns, and ideas. Coaching focuses on behaviors and skills, not on personalities, so it should never feel oppressive. Listen actively, demonstrate empathy, and show genuine interest in their growth and development.

Listen to what the agent is really telling you: Pay attention to what the employee is saying and ask clarifying questions to ensure you fully understand their perspective. Active listening helps build trust and rapport, and it allows the leader to provide more relevant and targeted feedback.

Focus on strengths and development areas: Acknowledge the employee’s strengths and successes to build confidence. Identify specific areas for improvement and discuss strategies for immediate improvement. Offer constructive feedback and suggestions for overcoming challenges and even mindset issues.

Set SMART goals: Collaboratively establish specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals with the employee. This helps create a roadmap for improvement and provides a basis for future discussions and assessments.

Provide actionable feedback: Offer specific and actionable feedback that employees can implement immediately. We call these repeatable behaviors, techniques that agents can use on the very next call. Highlight both positive behaviors to reinforce and areas where improvement is needed. Break down complex tasks into smaller, manageable steps to facilitate progress.

Encourage self-reflection and self-assessment: If you want to develop a sense of accountability in your agents, this is a big one. Encourage employees to reflect on their own performance, identify areas for improvement, and develop their own action plans. This helps foster ownership and accountability for personal growth. This takes extra time, but it may be the very best way to coach, at least some of the time.

Follow up and monitor progress: We ideally want the agent to implement the coaching suggestions immediately, especially considering that we are focused on only one improvement when using quick burst coaching. We can also schedule follow-up time to review the agent’s progress, but we should see improvements right away.

Remember, coaching conversations should be a continuous and iterative process focused on fostering growth and improvement. By implementing these strategies, a call center leader can make coaching conversations more productive, meaningful, and valuable for both the employee and the organization.

To make your agents more accountable for the changes you coach them on, consider the following approaches.

Set very specific expectations: Clearly communicate your expectations for their performance and behavior. Ensure that agents understand what changes are required – how to implement the requested change – and why they are important for their own development and the success of the team or organization. Accountability starts with buy-in. The agents must buy into the ideas. They must believe in it, rather than merely doing it because they are being told to do it.

Collaborative goal setting: Involve agents in the goal-setting process. This really helps with buy-in. Encourage them to participate in defining their own goals and action plans, as specific as possible, ensuring they have a sense of ownership and commitment. Over time, this will increase accountability more quickly than many other approaches.

Regular progress check-ins: Checking in with agents about their performance on a regular cadence tells the agent that you are not going to forget about it. Over time, agents realize it makes more sense to take ownership than to try avoiding the changes. Once they have success, then tend to buy into the new ideas. All of this increases ownership and accountability for agents.

Celebrate successes: When agents successfully implement the changes you coach them on, celebrate their achievements. Publicly acknowledge their progress and the positive impact they have made. This recognition boosts morale and encourages a culture of accountability and continuous improvement. This also shows that you are proud of them. Often, agents want that approval more than anything else.

Create a supportive environment: Foster a supportive and collaborative work environment where agents feel comfortable seeking help, sharing their challenges, and discussing their progress. Encourage open communication and provide resources, training, or coaching support to assist them in implementing the changes effectively.

Lead by example: Model the behaviors and changes you expect from your agents. Demonstrate a commitment to accountability and continuous improvement in your own actions and interactions. When agents see their leader embodying the desired changes, they are more likely to follow suit.

Foster peer support and accountability: Often, an agent’s peers can be the most influential in developing more accountability. Encourage agents to support and hold each other accountable for their developmental goals. Implement peer coaching or mentoring programs where agents can share their experiences, exchange feedback, and provide mutual support.

Performance consequences: While it’s essential to focus on positive reinforcement and encouragement, there should also be consequences for failing to meet expectations consistently. Make agents aware of the potential consequences of not implementing the changes discussed during coaching conversations. This helps reinforce the importance of doing the job right, which will increase accountability. Do you keep underperforming agents on the payroll far too long? This will send the wrong message. It says that anything goes, that agents really don’t have to perform well since there are no consequences for underperforming. In centers where this is common, it can often take many months or even a year to turn it around, and it often takes replacing the weaker leaders that allowed the issue in the first place.

Remember, accountability is a shared responsibility between leaders and agents. By providing guidance, support, and recognition, and by fostering a culture of accountability, you can increase the likelihood that agents will take ownership of the changes you coach them on.

We recommend using a skill we train in Winning Management & Coaching called Formative Feedback. With our skill, take the following steps to make the agent aware that immediate changes are required. We also get them involved so they determine their own plan for the elimination of the issue, which usually makes them take more ownership. Here are the steps for our Formative Feedback model.

1. Get their attention: Remember that this should always be done privately, not around other agents. Tell them what you want to talk about up front. A great way to state this is, “I’d like to talk with you about a trend I’ve noticed, which I would like to see you eliminate.” If it is only once incident, “I’d like to talk with you about what happened earlier in the meeting today.”
2. Share Specific Observations: In this step, we clearly state the observation, the incident. “Earlier in the meeting today, you said, “Same sh_t, different day. I hate this place! This company doesn’t care about us at all!” While stating your observations, avoid saying things like, “I want to talk about your bad attitude.” This will cause defensiveness and difficulty to accomplish anything. Don’t focus on the person, just the behavior, the observation. After that, share your Agreed-to Expectations. We start with the words, “You know…” “You know that we are all expected to maintain a positive approach and constructive responses during meetings.”

   If you are coaching an employee that never has these incidents, we suggest asking, “What happened?” In other words, “What was that?” These reps who normally perform well in all areas will usually be mortified and remorseful about their issue. They will likely apologize and agree to eliminate the issue for good. End of the issue. For other employees who have more of these negative tendencies, asking “What happened?” will encourage them to make excuses and avoid accountability.

   Stating the Agreed-to Expectations, including, “You know,” will place accountability for the situation squarely on the employee. At this point, most will start to feel that there is no chance to make excuses. A rare few may decide to become completely irrational, but this rarely happens when the leader delivers Step Two well.

3. Require a Plan for Immediate Change: In this step, after a brief lecture about why this behavior is unacceptable and why it needs to end now, it is now time to ask the most important question, “What are you going to do to eliminate this behavior?” This question places the responsibility directly on the employee. Notice that none of this is leadership being too tough or abusive on the employee. We deliver these steps in a very matter of fact way. We don’t need to show anger or disappointment. We need to get back to enjoying the work and the business, so this needs to go away.

   In Step Three, we also never say, “What can we do to eliminate this?” This is the employee’s responsibility, not the leader’s. Too many leaders want to own this, but the leader did not do anything to cause it, so we must give this one to the employee.

4. Confirm Agreement: Finally, the leader summarizes the commitment made by the employee. “So from what you’re saying, you’re going to… and this will be the last time we see this. Is that right?” At this point, all employees will be agreeable to the commitment they made. Still, it may be smart at the very end to introduce consequences. One of the most common ways to say this is, “I do need to let you know that, if this does happen again, there could be consequences, up to and including termination.” Although we used to prefer that leaders give a specific consequence, we have come to understand the value of this statement. This allows the leader to choose any consequence. It does not limit them to what they told the employee earlier.

   The Formative Feedback process is extremely useful for bringing employees back in line without excessive threatening or bullying. This process works as effectively as anything we have seen. It is a powerful, proven tool when the situation calls for it.