Many people who work in a call center have to learn on the job. After all, no one goes to school for “call centering,” and so what they didn’t learn from professors they now have to learn from you. Certain tools such as call recording, call monitoring, and speech analytics can help you and your employees, but they can only take you so far. You, as the coach, will have to use the right techniques and instructions in order to teach your employees effectively.
Set aside a specific time to monitor calls
In order to properly coach your staff, you have to monitor their phone calls so that you can understand how they’re performing. However, life as a manager can get hectic, and while you may sit down with the intention of monitoring some phone calls, it won’t take much for you to be diverted from that task. Instead, carve out time in your schedule dedicated to monitoring phone calls. Even if you can’t fit in as many as you wanted, you’ve at least monitored some, and that’s certainly better than none.
Review a mix of long and short calls
You don’t always have to monitor calls in real time. You can also listen to recordings in order to get a sense of what your employees are doing on the phone. But which phone calls should you listen to? It may seem easy to listen to a few short ones or just one long one, but you’re often not getting the full picture by doing this. Try to have a balance, with one or two long ones and one or two short ones, to get a better sense of how your employees are performing.
Get to know your employees first
If you’re planning on hiring and training someone, then you should be invested in their success not only as an employee but as a person, too. In other words, you should get to know them as a person first and an employee second. This will not only break down some initial barriers, but it will also help your new employee take any criticisms you have better. They’ll also learn better knowing that you have their best interest at heart, not your own.
Don’t pile on the criticism
When your employees first start, there will be a lot that needs to be fixed. While it’s tempting to lay out all of their problems, this isn’t the best strategy. Listing out everything they did wrong will just make them feel defeated and destroy their self-confidence. Instead, find a few of the biggest problems first and focus on that. Then, gradually tackle the other problem areas.
Point out what they did right
If you only focus on the bad, then naturally your employees will think that they did a bad job. For some this might motivate them to work harder, but for most it will just hurt their self-esteem and make them unmotivated early on in the job. While you want to provide constructive criticism, you should also provide positive feedback so that employees don’t end up too dejected. Try to keep a good balance of criticizing areas that need improvement while applauding what they did right. At Vaspian, our call recording and monitoring services can help you better coach your call center staff. Give us a call today at 1-855-827-7426 to learn more.
