Call center agents play an extremely important role within any organization. After all, they are the ones interacting with current and potential clients and customers on a daily basis. If the client or customer has a good experience while speaking with the agent, it can result in them viewing the company or brand favorably. If the experience isn’t great, it will have the opposite effect. That’s why it’s in the best interest of every company employing call center agents to invest in their training, career advancement, and overall satisfaction. After all, a happy agent often translates into happy customers and clients who interact with them.
Here are 3 steps companies can take to improve call center agent performance and satisfaction:
Capture insights
In a large call center environment, there’s no way to monitor individual agent performance without call center monitoring technology. Call center recording software has become standard; however by today’s standards it’s no longer adequate. Traditional call recording software records all calls, but the only way to gain insights from those calls is to manually listen to the entire call. Because it’s so time-consuming, managers typically only listen in on a handful of calls here and there, which doesn’t provide an accurate picture. That’s why advanced call center software, including speech analytics, is necessary. It mines hours of call content quickly searching for pre-determined keywords and keyword phrases. For example, in highly regulated industries agents must adhere to script compliance. Speech analytics software can mine the call content searching for necessary phrases, eliminating the need for managers to listen for these phrases manually.
Deliver feedback
If you want to keep call center agents engaged in their positions, it’s necessary to provide them with feedback on a regular basis. They should be told what their strengths are and what areas of improvement may be. A speech analytics solution allows managers to back up their critiques with data and provide specific examples. A conversation about performance tells an agent that you are vested in their career and encourages them to continue to improve in order to meet and exceed performance goals. There’s no sense in running reports and analyzing data if you’re not communicating your findings with the people who are involved.
Optimize process
Using speech analytics and other call center tools, management may find that existing call center processes may need to be updated in order to meet the ever changing needs of agents and customers and clients. When an organization is willing to evolve to allow agents to perform at a high level, it goes a long way in establishing trust and job satisfaction among agents.
