Factors for Effective Quality Monitoring

Listening is nice, however your agents will figure it out quickly if they know that you are merely listening and not doing anything with the information; they will use the Hawthorne Effect to their advantage! As a remedy, the agents must be provided with a strongly supported feedback mechanism that they can easily understand. There are four factors that you must understand in making any program successful: 

~  Your program should be clear and to the point. The agents have limited time and bandwidth to absorb any feedback…they are busy! 

~  Your program should integrate the supervisors or managers of the agents. They usually take all their direction from their direct     supervisor…they know who their boss is! 

~  Your program should have a clear definition of what you want the agents to do. They want to know what they did right and wrong…they truly want to perform well! 

~  Your program must be consistent, fair, objective and accurate in your feedback…if it isn’t the supervisors and agents will discount the findings! 

Quality Coaching

I am a runner, I love to run. Recently, I set one of my best times as a 40 year old for a 3 mile run, averaging about 7.5 minutes per mile. I felt great about this result. The very next day, my 9 year old daughter runs into my office, with a grin ear to ear and proceeds to inform me that she set the school record for the mile, running it in just shy of 6 minutes flat. All of a sudden, I wasn’t that great anymore, and I didn’t realize it until someone told me. Aside from being much older, I had no idea why I couldn’t beat a 9 year old. I needed a coach to get me there. Your call center agent is much the same. They carry on their daily activities to the best of their knowledge or ability, each with their own mind about how well they are doing. Whether this meets the expectations set by the overall company isn’t known, that is until someone tells them. Sure, you can send the agents reports, numbers, scores, and customer satisfaction numbers all day…just like my comparison to my daughters running time. This only gives them half of the picture…it tells them the result of what they are doing. While they may perform well or poorly, they simply do not know the reasons why. Someone must be their coach. 

-Craig Antonucci, Director of Client Strategies @ BPA, MBA and Professor of Decision Sciences

If you'd like to read more, please contact Karyn Dupree at 516.300.1236 or karyn.dupree@bpacalls.com