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Five Steps to Building a High Performance Organization (Part 3)      In order to have a high performance organization, it takes effort and discipline to ensure that the right processes are in place. A high performance organization involves all people in its organization providing excellent quality in both, products and services. Exceptional customer services and continuous improvement programs are also vital. The third step to be a high performance organization is to show them how to do it through training and coaching. In this month’s newsletter we will cover the third step of a five step series to building a high performance organization.      If your call center is a high performance car and your people are the engine, showing them how to perform their tasks effectively and efficiently are the keys to maximum performance. It is your responsibility to show them how to perform the specifics of the job they are being asked to do. Many companies make training a priority, but not all train in a manner that show people how to excel at the level that is expected of them.      Ensuring that the training you provide is targeted toward your agents’, job performance goals are the most important way to show them how to excel and what a successful career entails. There are many questions you must be able to answer for your agents. For instance how will this help me meet and excel at my job expectations? Get ahead? Help the company? The steps to answering these questions and ensuring success are as follows: Keep it simple: Research shows that a very high percentage of information that is delivered in training is forgotten shortly after training ends. For maximum retention, focusing on a few critical things such as "how do I get raises?" and "what must I not do to keep my job?", instead of a mass of information, will yield better results. Also, focusing on critical skills such as call handling skills like call control, customer service, sales, and difficult situations will improve the chances of success for your agents. Teach the basics: There are many things that can be shown through training, but the essentials for success usually include these key components. Individual goals and expectations - Detailed information about the goals and how the agents are directly related to the success of the department and how training will be focused to improve their skills based on the goals and needs of the company. Key policies and procedures - Company policies must be accessible to agents as required so they can be kept up-to-date on critical information relating to company needs. Product knowledge - Information about the products they are working with is critical. Agents should have at least the basic information and know where to find more information about the product quickly. Call handling - These are the skills that usually cannot be mastered through training, but good skill development in key areas will help them through difficult situations. Some examples of call handling skills include call control, defusing anger, customer service, and sales strategies. Information and tutorials should be accessible to agents as required through company resources. System utilization: New agents will need tutorials and walk-throughs in order to help them become familiar with the requirements of necessary resources. Training the agents to navigate the various systems required to successfully do their jobs. Creating a graphic flowchart that illustrates the steps to completing the process will be one of the most important components to agents having a successful career with your organization. Keep it short: Training is a process not an event and as such the sooner you get your agents on the phones the sooner they will start developing. Training will never end, but there are procedures to ensure that the basics are there such as: Weekly quizzes - These are valuable to ensure that agents have picked up the essentials that are necessary from the training that week. Regular coaching sessions - Short, sweet and to the point to go over agents’ strengths and weaknesses and how to improve the process of continuous learning and retain interest. Mystery calls - A quick and effective way to develop skills in problem areas for agents. Team meetings - Develops team building, keep them short and useful to give new information or update the entire team, also use them to celebrate team success. Updates training - When updates are more complex or a completely new product is involved, more detailed training may be necessary. Keep it simple and as brief as possible. Give the agents the critical components such as why it is important and how it affects their job performance. Further to this, ensure that they know where to find more detailed information, if required. Idle-time training - On a slow call-volume day short training sessions that are tailored to each agent should be used to inject training events. These mini-training sessions can be in the form of video, webinars, or audio learning. Idle time is the time where your cost is very low and the training is tailored to your agents’ specific needs and as such is very effective.      Training and learning are continuous no matter what the job or position is. With call center agents, give them enough training to make sure that they are not dangerous to themselves or to your customers and then test them to ensure that they have got what they need. Once this is done, getting them out into the field is the best process. You can give your agents a great start with new-hire training, but the process of learning about the job will never end. Steps four and five will be revealed in following newsletters to help you take your organization even closer to excellence. The next steps include "Give them feedback on how they are doing", and "Make supporting them your number one mission". Upon completing the five steps, your organization should see improvements in quality of service, employee morale, customer satisfaction and ultimately, your bottom line. << PreviousNext >>

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