ICMI's Customer Management Insight - September 2007 - (Page 54) EXPERT’S ANGLE simulations help agents build critical skills and confidence so they are equipped to expertly handle even the most challenging customer situations before they get on the phones. E-training can be customized to the call center’s specific needs and used for ongoing training and development, both to enhance agents’ performance and to move them through increasingly higher levels of skill complexity and proficiency. E-learning can also be used to focus on and resolve specific problem areas. Supervisors can monitor agents’ progress, provide feedback, coaching on areas that require further improvement and give praise and recognition when employees overcome performance problems and advance to higher levels of acuity. E-training includes live instruction over the Web where representatives sign on from a remote location, listening in via phone or voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), view presentations online, and interact through an electronic Q-and-A feature, a shared whiteboard or a polling feature. Benefits of e-learning are that training can be delivered whenever it is needed and agents can use downtime to go through their modules. Content can be maintained in an easily accessible archive and updated as necessary. Not only can supervisors monitor employees’ progress, but the agents can track their own performance, giving them more control over their development and advancement. The best blended training programs for agents also include such tools as job-shadowing, transition training (where new-hires handle relatively simple calls in a highly supervised “nesting” environment,) icmi’s insight and peer support and coaching. Using a mentor or “buddy system” can be the most effective way to orient new agents to the work environment, foster comfort, impart skills and quickly get them up to full productive capacity. To use mentoring to maximum advantage, managers need to identify those seasoned call center employees who have not only strong technical and customer service skills but are friendly, great communicators and, above all, patient. Managers then need to train veterans in supervisory skills before they pair them with novices, and work with the mentors to develop performance plans for the new agents. CREATE DEVELOPMENT PLANS THAT TAKE THEM HIGHER A report by benchmarking consultancy group Best Practices in Chapel Hill, N.C., directly links the importance of engaging employees in their jobs and companies as a way to promote excellent customer service. This report also uncovers the best practice for engaging employees: an effective performance management system that includes goal-setting and reward, recognition and incentive programs. The call centers with the highest levels of employee engagement, lowest turnover and most satisfied customers know that a one-size-fitsall mentality does not work for performance management any more than it does for training. Gone are the days when performance management consisted of little more than an annual appraisal. Today, the best call centers take a close look at individual employee competencies, learning needs and personal goals and then create a specific develop- ment plan for each employee, mapping out exactly what the agent needs to do in order to achieve specific performance targets and position levels. For example, many call centers establish career paths with tiered positions that include opportunities for promotion into team leader, supervisory and management jobs. The most effective development plans give employees a direct line of sight for how their performance fits into the overall company business strategy — which, of course, includes building customer satisfaction and loyalty. Then call centers build all learning and growth opportunities in a way that supports those business goals. Optimum development plans also provide opportunities for agents to go above and beyond their daily customer service jobs — giving them ample opportunities to work on special projects or in team environments that most interest them. As part of effective performance management for agents, feedback needs to come from not only supervisors but from peers, employees from other departments who interact with agents and, most important, from the customers themselves. This “360-degree feedback” provides agents with a clearer, more reliable and comprehensive perspective on their performance. And employee surveys indicate that agents like this approach and feel it is generally a fairer form of assessment than simply getting feedback from one person — their boss. GETTING THE GREATEST BENEFIT FROM TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT PLANS The best-designed agent training and development plans will not yield the greatest benefits if they | SEPTEMBER 2007 www.icmi.com 54 http://www.icmi.com
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