Recipe for Coaching Agents in 30 Minutes Per Day
The key ingredient to a top-performing team of agents is an all-star coach. They’re the coaches who know that actionable and relevant feedback have a profound impact on their team, so they make it their priority. Yep, even above all 37 other priorities. Plus, all-stars know that companies who invest in employee experience are four times more profitable than those who don’t. Boosting company profits probably tacks a few bonus points on to an already-all-star coaching score. So, naturally, all-star coaches fit coaching into their daily routine. They’re the people who empower their agents and invest in their success, so their company can thrive, too.
For the bogged-down manager rushing from meeting to meeting, you may brush off the thought of coaching daily. But we’ve come up with a recipe for daily coaching that even the busiest of bees can squeeze into their daily routine. Here’s how you can coach agents in 30 minutes per day:
Recipe for coaching agents in 30 minutes per day
Yield: one team full of successful agents
Time: 30 minutes
What you need
Ingredients
1 all-star coach
5 call transcriptions
2-5 micro-learning lessons (to taste)
5 agent scorecards
Defined metrics
Equipment
Agent-first contact center tools
Internal knowledge base
Omni-channel contact center software
Automation and bots
Insights and data
Instructions
1. Block out 30 minutes on your calendar.
Schedule a short block of time when you have gaps in your schedule to take care of your most important task: coaching agents.
2. Review a handful of call transcriptions.
Dedicate 15 minutes to monitoring calls, recordings, and other agent-customer interactions. Use the 15 minutes to switch between a few different interactions, so you can give multiple agents the feedback they need to succeed. Then rinse and repeat with a new set of agents the next day.
Reviewing call transcriptions and customer interactions lets you see where you need to bulk-up your coaching. You can see if agents are struggling with bits and pieces of their phone scripts, or if they don’t quite know how to handle customer rejections. You’ll know where your agents’ (and your customers’) pain points are, so you can focus your coaching to improve future interactions. Coaching can easily live within your daily workflow when you use contact center software that supports your coaching goals, too. Agent-first contact center tools make coaching easy, so you can prioritize your agents’ needs and give feedback more frequently.
3. Leave in-line feedback for your agents.
Write in-line feedback as you listen to call transcriptions and look at interactions. Leave notes for agents in the transcriptions when they need a few suggestions about HOW to get better, and give praise when agents positively impact customers
Plus, your agent can see the exact points in a call, email, video, or SMS where they need to work on their technique or replicate a moment of customer happiness. In-line feedback is more impactful and actionable for your agents and less time consuming for you, so you can fit feedback into the same 15-minute-window you use to review interactions.
4. Use bots to automate coaching moments and send lessons to agents.
Put bots in your workflow to take time-sucking tasks off your plate. Bots can help you monitor interactions, send you notifications when queues have long wait times or KPIs, like CSAT, aren’t where they should be. And, they can identify specific moments where agents need you to put your stellar coaching to work. Bots can even send you specific agent interactions for review, then send those agents pre-crafted micro-learning lessons that will help them fix those interactions in the future. Enlist bots to keep your contact center running smoothly, agents empowered, and metrics on track.
5. Update agent scorecards after you review interactions.
Take five minutes to fill out agent scorecards after you review your handful of interactions. You can build agent scorecards in advance, so you don’t have to think of specific questions or boxes to check off while you’re in your 30-minute, heads-down coaching mode. Instead, you can fill out a quick scorecard to grade your agent’s interactions. They can see at a glance how they did, like if they forgot to summarize the resolution for the customer. Then, agents can dig into the scorecards on their own time to see what needs improvement. Here’s an example agent scorecard.
See, you can fill a few of these out in five minutes, without breaking a sweat!
6. Respond to agents’ feedback about their interactions and coaching.
Reserve another five minutes to respond to agents’ questions and comments about your feedback. With in-line training in place, agents can respond to specific comments and ask for clarification or explanation. Coaching needs to be conversational and present opportunities for agents to engage with you about their interactions. Coaching is done the right way when your specific moments of feedback open the door to larger, more frequent conversations with each of your agents.
7. Review metrics, and share those metrics with your agents.
Use the last five minutes of your time block to review metrics and KPIs, then share the most important insights with your team. Agents need a full picture of how they’re doing as individuals, and how they’re working with their team to meet monthly and quarterly goals. Distilled insights and easy-to-read data and dashboards help you easily track KPIs and check-in on key stats regularly. Plus, they allow you to regularly share pertinent graphs and information with your team.
Helpful Tip: Keep tabs on your agent experience. As you review interactions and transcriptions, stay focused on what these interactions mean for your agents. Was Kayla’s scorecard sitting at a 60 percent when she’s normally at 95 percent? Or, was Jim’s call volume low? Look for signs about your agents’ experience, and check in with those agents to see how you can help.
Daily coaching is necessary when you’re running a contact center with an agent-first mentality. And even though coaching every day may seem out of reach, training your agents is worth it. And, it certainly IS possible.
Get more tips about quick ways to coach at our blog post, here!
