Note from Editor - Due to the length of this informative article, it will be presented as a three part series
To read Part 1 of this series, CLICK HERE
Enable Real-Time Performance Management
When agents work from home, performance management is all about communication and transparency. Agents still need someone to report to, provide feedback on how they are performing, and suggest ways to improve their performance. They want to know how they are doing today (particularly over the last 50 calls). And they still need encouragement, answers to questions, someone to monitor their daily activities – virtually and in real time – and continuous incentives to perform their best.
LiveOps recommends using the following best practices that enable effective, real-time performance management in a virtual contact center.
Best Practice #1: Enable virtual, 24x7 supervision so that agents know someone is watching and listening all the time.
In a virtual environment, it’s critical that agents understand that someone is constantly watching and listening to. This visibility is a requirement for success – and it sets up unique needs from a technology perspective. As a best practice, ensure that your contact center platform allows you to:
• Record every call so agents know that someone might be listening at any time
• Support supervisor-to-agent chat sessions in real-time to coach and assist agents, when needed
• Allow anyone who is a stakeholder to listen to a call (because in the virtual world, auditing isn’t just for auditors)
• Regularly audit a representative number of calls to assess agent performance
• Quickly access performance information on each agent – in real time – so you can take action swiftly
In addition, you need a way for callers to give feedback on agent performance (for example, via customer feedback surveys) and escalate issues quickly,if required.
Best Practice #2: Manage by performance and route calls to the best agents.
In a virtual agent community, the only way to manage agents effectively is to measure their performance in real time, reward those agents who meet performance goals, and take action with those who don’t. This requires that you have an automated way to capture and report on all relevant agent and campaign performance metrics, such as:
• Queue length
• Call hold times
• Handle times
• Sales numbers
• Media effectiveness
• Offer effectiveness
• Script effectiveness
In addition, as a best practice, leverage these metrics to determine the best agents to route calls to. For example, with the LiveOps contact center, you can use performance-based routing to ensure that new calls are always routed to the highest performing agents (based on metrics you determine). This ensures that customers have the best experience possible and agents are incented to perform their best on every call. The business benefits can be significant. For example, one of LiveOps customers used performance-based routing and increased their conversion rate from 29% to 52%. They simultaneously boosted agent productivity (revenue per agent minute) by 13% from $4.13 to $4.67.
Best Practice #3: Put the "performance" monkey on the back of the agent – rather than supervisor.
As a general rule, the more you can measure and communicate, the more you can rely on agents to self manage. As a best practice, when you have a contact center platform that gathers performance metrics in real time, you can create a culture around self-improvement. Communicate to agents that they are ultimately responsible for their training, professional development, and overall performance. Emphasize that they have the power to improve themselves and seek out the training, coaching, and other supports needed to achieve their goals. When you combine this cultural shift with access to real-time performance metrics that enable agents to see how they are performing, you’re in a position to realize the best performance from each agent.
Remember: it’s still a rarity to work from home, so set high standards, and you’ll see that agents will be motivated to improve their performance because they don’t want to lose the flexibility and quality of life afforded by home-based work.
Best Practice #4: Establish multiple, virtual modes of communication.
As stated previously, when agents work from home, performance management is all about communication and transparency – because you can’t look over someone’s shoulder, walk around the floor, or chat at the water cooler. As a best practice, re-create communication channels via technologies such as real-time chat so that agents can talk to supervisors and other agents. You’ll find that with the right combination of virtual communications, supervisors actually have a broader reach and faster response times; there’s no need for agents to raise a hand and wait for someone to come to their cubicle to answer a question. At the same time, chat gives your management team a real-time view into what’s happening within your organization, as well as an easy way to broadcast messages instantly to all agents.
You can also set up message boards, forums, and online polls to support virtual communications. These technologies support real-time performance management by enabling you to gauge the pulse of your agent community, identify issues that are hindering performance, and fix them quickly. When agents know that you listen and take action on the issues that are most important to them, it gives them a feeling of involvement, which ultimately leads to improved performance.
Best Practice #5: Keep virtual feedback and coaching focused on an agent’s most recent performance.
When working with remote agents, it’s important to focus on very recent performance; you get the best outcomes when you deal with the immediate. Yesterday’s performance metrics are the latest you want to look at. This means you need a contact center platform that allows you to:
• Generate up-to-date reports
• Find and listen to recent call recordings by any agent
• Report on outliers and exceptions (for example, calls that take too long, calls where sales values are low, or calls that didn’t result in sales)
As a general rule, don’t be punitive with feedback. Audit for what’s most important – not for everything – so that auditing is a tool for helping people, not punishing people. If an agent isn’t doing well, have them work with their team leader to listen to their own calls, compare them to model calls illustrating best practices, and identify helpful training resources. In addition, enable agents to flag calls that were problematic, and make it safe for them to ask, "How can I have performed better?"
Optimize Training withDistanced Learning (or e-Learning)
As you send agents home to work, consider using distanced learning, or e-learning technologies, to train and certify them on new campaigns, products and services, applications, and more. With distanced learning, you can overcome some of thecommon challenges associated with traditional classroom training, such as poorly designed content, overemphasis on lecturing, failure to address multiple learning styles (auditory,visual, read/write, and kinesthetic), and limited interactivity. Lack of interactivity can be a serious problem; research shows that when adult learners don’t do something new to do every seven minutes, they disengage.
In contrast, when you use well-designed, self-paced e-learning, it drives agent performance because it rewards participation, motivation, and independence. Agents can choose which learning sessions to participate in and learn at their own pace. This model can also dramatically increase comprehension and retention of material because it’s easier to make learning interactive (for example, every few screens, you can built in practice time or a quiz to test agent understanding). In addition, because the investment you make in good instructional design is reused across all agents, you know that every agent receives a higher quality, more consistent learning experience.
From a financial perspective, e-learning offers other benefits as well. LiveOps has found that its customers can compress training time by 30% simply by moving from a traditional classroom model to e-learning, as they no longer need to waste time with administration, bathroom breaks, and lunch breaks. In addition, e-learning makes organizations more agile and scalable, as you can quickly train additional agents on new or modified campaigns to meet changing business requirements.
LiveOps recommends that you apply the following distanced learning best practices to ensure a successful launch of e-learning for home-based agents.
Best Practice #1: Implement a learning management system.
Implement a learning management system that acts as a bridge between the content and learner. The system should provide the tools and capabilities needed to manage learning remotely, such as test scoring for each learner, support for interactive learning methods (such as gaming courses), and reporting and tracking of training modules as they are completed by agents. It should also deliver e-learning in a way that’s logical and enables you to monitor agent experiences in real time (for example, so you know how long it took agents to complete modules).
Best Practice #2: Implement an effective learning methodology.
When creating content to populate the learning management system, use a closed-loop learning methodology to ensure development of high-quality content that accomplishes your objectives. For example, LiveOps uses a five-step ADDIE model for creating materials: analysis, design, develop, implement, and evaluate.
The goal of analysis is to make sure that the learning is linked to actual agent performance. The best way to do this is to design training around performance-based learning objectives that are aligned with strategic goals and related metrics. The end result is training that drives agent performance because it’s engaging and changes agent behavior in ways that improve outcomes.
When developing content, build in an interactive experience every three pages. For example, you can have agents go through a real-life simulation or perform a skills practice exercise, communicate with fellow agents to hear their questions and experiences, and engage with them in virtual role playing. In addition, use a blended learning approach so that you engage all adult learning styles (auditory, visual, read/write, kinesthetic). For instance, you can include self-paced modules, study guides, learning games, practical application, quizzes, and interactive video demonstrations.
Delivering and implementing content can happen in virtual classrooms – not just traditional classrooms. You can make learning opportunities available on demand or at a specified time when everyone "shows up" online, which can help you foster a vibrant learning community for agents.
When evaluating program effectiveness, don’t just settle for assessing each agent’s reaction to a course. Instead, analyze and report on training at multiple levels, including changes in agent behavior, the degree to which you achieved predefined business impacts (such as reduced handle time), and the true ROI of your training for the business (for example, can your agents close more business faster?)
- End of Part 2
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Training & HR
