Agent attrition is arguably the biggest problem companies are facing in their call centers. Industry estimates even put it as high as 50% or more per year. There has never been a more critical time for companies to improve the jobs at the front line of their call center–and the most measurable way a manager can increase overall agent retention is through effective coaching and development of their team.
My company works with customer-focused businesses, and we have found some staggering statistics as we work and talk with companies. We’ve found that, more often than not, various manual reporting and administrative tasks keep managers spending less than 20% of their time coaching their staff. This is way off the mark. The goal of a manager is to spend closer to 60% of the day training their agents. With the job reality so disconnected from the goals, it’s no wonder agents are getting frustrated with their positions, and their managers, and call centers are hemorrhaging staff.
While a real solution is never a quick fix, there are immediate steps that companies can take to ensure they are not just addressing their agent losses but also improving the overall performance of their call centers. It’s two sides of the same coin, and it starts with making sure that your employee performance goals are clearly defined—and aligned with—your bottom line business goals. Agents need to be clear on how they stack up against their peers, where they need improvement and, just as importantly, where they are doing well. Supervisors need these measurements so they can tailor their coaching to the right folks and create better customer service. The organization can then use these measurements to help agents better understand, improve and love their jobs.
Ron,
The issues you raise about call center agents applies to most sales organizations. I have worked in several very high pressure sales organization where the top sales people made a lot of money and the bottom third were constantly under so much stress that they couldn’t learn on their own. Most were fired and left with a great deal of company, industry and product knowledge.
The VP of Sales who exerted the pressure were also under tremendous pressure from the CEO to constantly meet or exceed quarterly earnings. VP’s of Sales typically don’t hold on to their jobs very long either.
Let’s me add one more indicator that that sales organization need to re-think their model. Companies would like customers to be long-term and loyal yet these same customers are forced to deal strangers on a regular basis.
John I. Todor, Ph.D.
Author of Addicted Customers: How to Get Them Hooked on Your Company.
A good manager never sees his work done. He should always train his employees and make them better at their job. The last manager we had at my working place wasn’t initiated in this theory and he expected us to know what to do since day one of the job. After a while I needed some guidance and went to him to ask for help. He looked at me and told me to go figure it out myself. This isn’t such a bad idea but still, it was his job to train me.
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Mary-Anne, link building division.