best practices in managing the agent lifecycle
TRANSCRIPT
Best Practices in Managing the Agent Lifecycle
Keith Dawson, Principal Analyst
Contact CentersContact Centers
December 15, 2010
Frost & Sullivan’s Growth Consulting can assist with your growth strategies
Today’s Presenter
Keith Dawson, Principal Analyst
Frost & Sullivan
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Focus Points
• Agent population is not homogenous
• Managing the different stages are critical to
coping with turnover
• Combination of technology and operations
practices come to play at each stage
• What are the best practices in each stage,
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• What are the best practices in each stage,
and overall
The Care and Feeding of Agents
Proper agent management means:
• Making sure you have the right number of them
• That they have the right skills for the job
• That they have the proper tools to do their work
• That what you spend on them does not balloon out of control
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• That what you spend on them does not balloon out of control
• That they perform at a consistent level
• That you properly measure that performance and relate it to other
goals of the company
What is the Agent Lifecycle
Before the First Call
Up, Out or Beyond the
Contact Center
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Tenure on the Job
What is the Agent Lifecycle
Recruitment
Pre-Hire Assessment
Career Paths
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Training / Incubation
Quality Assurance
WFM / Performance Management
Motivation & Incentives
Before the First Call
• Larger and more qualified talent pools
• Regional or skills-based pipeline management
Recruitment
• Personality testing for better “fit”
• Improves morale, leads to longer Pre-Hire
Assessment
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• Improves morale, leads to longer tenuresAssessment
• Linking hiring tools with coaching
• Better metrics, scorecards and dashboards for agents
Integrated Training
Tenure on the Job
• Moving beyond traditional KPIs
• Linking hiring tools with coachingWFO Tools
• Internal communications skills
• Collaborative skills
Continuous Training
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• Collaborative skillsTraining
• Streamlining desktop processes
• Better metrics, scorecards and dashboards for agents
Workflow Optimization
Up, Out or Beyond
• Clarity on agents’ positions in the hierarchy
• Clarity on potential options inside and outside the center
Career Pathing
• Measure criteria that go beyond performance on call handling
• Provide info on the contextual
Motivations & Options
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• Provide info on the contextual role of CSRs
& Options
• Systems for sharing of shortcuts
• Capturing hidden agent knowledge
DataCapture
Best Practices
• Inventory job specs and skills
• Audit success and failure
factors
• Leverage turnover costs in
business case
• Bring in other relevant
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• Bring in other relevant
professionals
• Benchmark assessments
against predicted performance
More Best Practices
• Spell out the advancement
options
• Constant skills/refresher
training for reps at all levels
• Experienced agents =
training & knowledge
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training & knowledge
resource
• Instill more than call
handling, instill contextual
understanding
Next Steps
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For Additional Information
Jake Wengroff
Corporate Communications
Information & Communication Technologies
(210) 247-3806
Ashswin Iyer
Research Manager
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