Agents are assets to a call center. Their performance decides the company’s growth. Coaching and training the agents is like adding salt to the call center success recipe. It is imperative for organizations to set up proper inductions and regular call center training sessions. The coaching should have elements which can turn your agents into top performers.
Here are the key essential aspects that should be included in call center agent training program:
Thorough product information:
Your agents need to have comprehensive knowledge of your products and services. With this exhaustive understanding, your agents will be efficient in interacting with your customers and they will be better in providing product information to them. Moreover, an agent having adequate knowledge can save them from the situation of routing the call to a supervisor.
Software and technical training:
Call center agents should be acquainted with call center software and technologies. Providing customer support is their prime focus. Software and tools like- help desk solutions, ticketing system, call disposition codes, ACD, dialers and different channel of communication helps in improving call center agent’s performance resulting in more customer satisfaction.
Explain the impact of schedule adherence in call center:
New appointees are unaware of the importance of schedule adherence in call centers. It creates an impact on agent’s key performance indicators. The reps should also know that sticking to their schedule is important for creating smooth transitions between shifts. It is necessary to train your agents to take necessary measures to improve schedule adherence in the call center.
KPIs assessment:
It is very imperative for your agents to know which KPIs the manager will assess. Give guidelines and an overview of how they can accomplish their KPIs benchmark. This will help your agents to set a standard for their growth level and eventually they will apply best ways to provide exceptional service to the customers.
Train them with videos:
Videos are a great source to raise your agent engagement during the training. Give them an access to resource library where they could view webinars, collateral, and materials, for their reference.
On the job training:
Agents often learn best by practicing their work. Team up your agents and create scenarios where they can have a role play with your product. For eg. An agent pretending to call a customer and giving them the details about the product. Here, you can see whether your agent has adequate knowledge about the product and how well they are attending the customers. Provide your agents on-the-job training to learn your call center software. These on-the-job training experiences will help the agents to propagate capable workforce.
Explain to your agents the importance of customer building rapport:
“The well-satisfied customer will bring the repeat sale that counts,” said James Cash Penney. A key essential aspect in agent’s training is customer building rapport. Educate the agents on the pros of building rapport and cons of bad interaction. Provide them with the knowledge as why customers are so important to the company and how much impact customer conversation creates on customer retention and customer loyalty. Once your customers understand the importance of customer rapport they will be enthusiastic to provide top-notch service to the customers. This way, they can be better with first call resolutions and improve average call handling time.
Train your agents about call handling best practices:
Coach your agents how they should begin their interaction with customers, how they should carry the conversation and how they will end the conversation. Give them examples of appropriate greetings. Tell them the importance of listening. Provide them with best recordings and a script which they can refer. Make them practice before they speak to a real customer.
Subsequent key essentials in call center agents’ training can really polish their skills and increase their competency and turn them into top performers.
