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Faced with the pandemic, many contact centers have been forced to close their offices, raising fears of a slowdown or even closure. The question of the moment is how to ensure business continuity? And above all, how can remote agents for new agents be successful?
Technology is a Key Component to Successful Training for Call Center Agents
1. Cloud Solution
Cloud solutions today enable organizations to be agile and flexible, and to be able to respond quickly to extraordinary situations. Telephony, which is a hot channel for customer experience, should not be left aside. Today, IP telephony makes it possible to provide the mobility needed by all the company’s employees, including your agents’ training programs.
Working remotely is not a source of great change for your processes as long as you are equipped with the right work tools. By having a 100% cloud-based call management solution like Omni+ from NobelBiz integrated with your business tools, you can be fully operational in just a few minutes.
2. E-Learning Base
On the other hand, Remote learning must be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Your new agents should always have access to the support and resources they need online. By giving your agents self-study, you are empowering them to take charge of their own development and evolution.
A learning management system can help your agents learn anytime, anywhere. The key is to offer a range of online learning options and content, from video lessons to online tests, downloadable documents, software technical modules, and more.
3. One-on-One Meetings
It’s not easy to train new agents in an isolated environment if you don’t make communication a priority. And face-to-face video calls play a key role in this regard. Videoconferencing is an effective way to improve the connectivity of remote team members. Better yet, during a video session, you can record the call so the new agent can review it later for clarity or additional coaching.
A Strong Positive Culture is a Must
1. Motivate your agents
Your agents should always be motivated to do their job, otherwise, customers will notice the lack of enthusiasm in their voices. When an agent doesn’t sound enthusiastic about the product he or she is selling, customers won’t be either. Agents who are trained and motivated to do their job are more likely to convince their customers. Customer service agents don’t just sell a product or service, they also market with their personality and create a positive image of the company.
2. Have them answer calls during their training
While it can be intimidating for new agents to handle calls when they feel they have not been adequately trained, it is crucial to the learning process. When they practice handling real calls, they know what to expect. Although you can role-play and recreate a fake call, it will never have the same impact as handling a real call. But customers tend to ask a variety of unexpected questions.
3. Congratulation are in order
A good way to motivate your new agents is to congratulate them in front of their colleagues. To do so, you can write their name on a whiteboard or come and congratulate them directly in front of everyone. The other agents in the call center will also try to get the same treatment.
A little competition in the office can be a fun and challenging way to ensure that every call is handled properly and that customer service is beyond reproach.
What about Remote Management of New Agents?
Monitoring is essential to the successful training of your contact center agents. Even during this pandemic, communication remains imperative between your supervisors and your teams. This implies that your new agents are well informed about processes, offers, and customer satisfaction requirements. Moreover, it is important to know how customers perceive your service.
Here are some tips for effective monitoring of your new agents’ quality during the pandemic:
1. Call Recording
One of the cornerstones of contact center quality is call recording. This feature not only allows you to control the attention your agents pay to customers but also other problems ( such as interferences, voice quality, etc). This is why your supervisors need to be more than proactive about this aspect and implement positive changes when necessary. Don’t forget also to make sure you have the technology that allows you to navigate through the communication channels and ensure the performance of your call center even during remote work.
2. Call Frame Quality
The next step is to monitor the quality of call frames. This means detecting any failures committed by new agents that may hinder customer satisfaction. Good remote management implies warning the agents of the errors committed, showing the corrections, and doing a rigorous follow-up after the briefing. This will be possible thanks to cloud scheduling control tools, interaction reports, and geolocation.
3. Know your mistakes
Finally, a good tip for monitoring is to always be aware of the mistakes you make, and what you can improve. For this, it is very useful to use the statistics function. This will allow you to evaluate all missed calls, average waiting times, and abandoned calls by your new agents.
Metrics that help monitor your new agents
Here are some essential metrics you can use to monitor your newsagents:
- FCR or first call resolution. This indicator is the one most related to customer satisfaction. A higher percentage of first call resolution will have a very positive impact on customer satisfaction.
- TMO is the ideal average time that a brand considers for an agent call. On the other hand, you also have the TMC, the agent’s average actual conversation time.
- Another measure is the service level. To calculate the call center service level, the ratio of calls received before X seconds is performed on the total of calls received. And it can be expressed as the % of calls that agents answer before X seconds.
- Response time. This indicator refers to the time the customer waits before being answered. An indicator closely related to the previous one is the abandonment rate or the percentage of unanswered calls.
These indicators are essential for monitoring call center quality. Knowing the data concerning your call center and being able to intervene is essential to obtaining the quality you hope for your new agents.
The crisis is having an impact on organizations by highlighting new concerns. For your call center, it is a question of ensuring business continuity by facilitating exchanges with your customers. To operate in the face of this sudden change, it is essential to provide intuitive and effective digital technologies for old and new employees in your contact center.
