Carl Nancollas, channel manager, Storacall Voice Systems; carln@storacall.co.uk
Show your staff that you’re willing to listen
THE ability to play back a telephone conversation instantly to an agent is an invaluable training tool, enabling supervisors to provide intensive one-to-one training “on the fly”.
And using voice recording for training isn’t just for large call centres; small operations can benefit too. A basic voice recorder, used with a fully integrated quality-monitoring tool, will allow a supervisor to access a random sample of recordings that can be used for individual coaching purposes.
Most voice recording solutions have a “tag” feature which supports a basic search facility based on a number of definable fields such as policy number, incident reference or postcode. This can be extremely useful to trainers wanting to select specific sessions or for demonstrating the progress of an incident over time using a log of calls.
In addition to calls being identified according to standard criteria, field names can be modified to assist trainers and supervisors further. A good example is to define a search tag as either a “sale” or “no sale”, to quickly and easily help identify and analyse the calls that get results (and those that don’t).
The coaching tools available to trainers and supervisors have grown in number and sophistication, with many of these tools offering advanced features based on recording systems that support free seating. This is especially useful for larger call centres as it allows for immediate playback to a specific agent regardless of his or her location or the extension being used.
Along with call recording, many call centres have an agent evaluation form which allows them to score the agent’s performance. They cover all aspects of the call, including call-handling skills, product knowledge and sales performance such as cross selling and closing.
Imagine the benefits to your organisation of allowing agents to perform self-assessment or even giving them the ability to critique the team leader’s calls! It sends out the right message to your staff, it shows that you are willing to listen and that you are allowing them to participate in their future training, thus showing trust and, more importantly, commitment.