Any opportunity to improve call center operations is worth taking. Call monitoring and scorecards top the list. Call monitoring is a feature that allows you to listen in to a live call and track what matters most to the call center. The scorecard is a call scoring evaluation form that keeps track of agent’s performance.
The data you gather using these two tools will help you optimize your call center operations. However, you need to use them effectively lest they mislead your strategy. Agents are the contact persons, and therefore, when they improve their performance, call center excels.
Let us get into the details of the influence of call monitoring and scorecards have in the call center.
A better understanding of agents’ performance
For research or a study to be credible, you need to carry out both qualitative and quantitative analysis. Call monitoring gives you the qualitative data while scorecards give you the quantitative data.
When you monitor agent’s live calls, you will gather instant information about what they do well and what needs improvement. That is a qualitative study. When you record their performance in the scorecard, you can know quantitatively how the agent is performing.
In the end, you will know the areas the agent struggles with and thus focus on how to improve them as well as commend them for areas they are excelling.
Highlighting training needs
As you monitor agent’s calls and record the findings, you will notice areas that need training. The purpose of listening live to the agents is not to catch them doing something wrong, but to highlight weakness areas that require training and development.
The data you collect will help the agents understand the matter better, and the best ways of handling the issue. In addition to highlighting the skills gap among your agents, call monitoring and scoring are part of your best training tools.
Tracking Progress
After training your agents, you need a medium of tracking their progress. You need to know whether the training was beneficial or not. The scorecards will keep a record of your agents’ performance, and thereby give you an indication of the quality standards.
Use calibration sessions to help you customer service representatives understand their progress at work. A successful session will guide your team to areas that are on track as per the set standards and those that are lagging behind.
Knowing where you stand and where you want to be will you the motivation to focus on the right things.
Improved coaching sessions
Part of a manager’s role is to coach the employees. When you sit down with an agent and review one of their interactions with a customer, they will get a better understanding of how they are performing. It will also make your work easier as you try to highlight what they are doing wrong.
The coaching sessions are great for the employee to look within for answers under your guidance. When they come up with a solution, they will implement it better as compared to when you impose one on them.
The coaching session will be successful for you and the agent.
Improved customer satisfaction
Agents’ performance affects customer satisfaction levels. All the above points lead to an extremely skilled agent, happy and satisfied with their jobs. When a happy employee serves a customer, he or she receives excellent support leading to high satisfaction levels. To repeat this cycle, you need to carry out call monitoring and keeping scorecards on a regular basis.
Carrying out call monitoring and scoring will benefit the call center in several ways, a better understanding of your agent’s performance, highlighting training needs, tracking progress, improved coaching sessions, and improved customer satisfaction.
To continually offer quality services and maintain an efficient quality assurance program, you should keep these two tools at the core of your analysis. You will create a ripple effect where every stakeholder remains satisfied.
For more advice on creating a world class quality program that drives customer experience or if you would like to learn more about Etech Global Services, feel free to contact me.
This blog was first published on LinkedIN