Call Center Performance Management

Three foundational building blocks must be optimized to consistently deliver engaging member experiences over the phone: people, processes and leadership. Our journey of nine articles will cover each in detail. After hiring the right people for your call center, you need to train and coach them to perform at a top level.

If you want to most effectively manage employee performance, setting clear expectations is critical, starting with the interview process, on through your onboarding program, and reinforcing the expectations as the employees begin to take calls.

The challenge comes when agents either don’t have clear objectives or when expectations are equated with sales goals. For example, Sam has to sell x checking accounts within the next 90 days. While the expectation is there, the process to reach that expectation is unclear. Therefore, simply having a sales goal as a performance metric for a call center agent is not a sustainable approach. What if Sam met his quota, but provided only average service to several members along the way because he wanted only to speak with members who did not already have a checking account?

That’s why it’s imperative to coach your employees on the fundamentals of excellent customer service, and not just on the outcomes. Duke head coach Mike Kryzyzewski's book “Leading With the Heart" makes clear that he never sets a goal to achieve a specific number of wins in a given year. Instead, he believes that if you teach and coach the right fundamentals, the desired outcomes will follow. This strategy has helped him become one of the most winning coaches in college history.

Similar approaches are taken within the call centers of some of the most highly regarded service-oriented companies, such as Zappos and American Express. While these organizations do indeed generate a great deal of sales, they coach fundamentals and do not have sales goals within their inbound call centers.

The first step in setting clear expectations is defining, in detail, what makes a great and engaging call. While expectations can be unique to every credit union, here are three example characteristics that can make for consistently high quality phone interactions:

• Call Opening. Consider thanking the caller for contacting the credit union with a genuine offer of assistance. Mention your name. Smile in your voice. Upbeat tone/good pace. Add personal flair or creativity as appropriate.
• The Connection. Make an attempt to engage the member. Use two-way conversation to build a family and friends connection. For example, while you are conducting a transaction, attempt to make a connection with the member to engage in conversation and prevent “dead air.” Talk about the product or service they have, how the weather is, etc. No more than 30 seconds of cumulative dead air allowed.
• Provide Accurate Information. Provide correct information that is member relatable, clear and digestible. The goal is to avoid the need for the member to ask any clarifying questions.

Once you define a great call, you need to find time to coach. Great supervisors find time to coach by making it a priority. At a minimum, you should meet with agents weekly and listen to a few of their calls together. Then, have a discussion and document results and action items (when applicable).

Following this process has many benefits. For starters, the frequent coaching interactions will help expedite the time it takes to achieve desired results. In addition, agents will know exactly where they stand, from a performance perspective, on a weekly basis. As a result, the sessions help make performance review conversations much easier.

Once you have clear expectations and are coaching on these fundamentals, you can use a simple performance management grid, like the one developed by Michael Neil & Associates.

In simplest terms, you need to identify if an employee is “unwilling” or “willing” to deliver on expectations, and then understand why. Then, determine if the employee is “able” or “unable” to deliver before you take action. A good way to diagnose this is to simply ask the employee if they’ve ever done what you’ve asked of them.

The grid states that if an employee is “willing and able," you should delegate more work and recognize them for their achievements. If the employee is “willing but unable,” then typically they just need some more training. For employees who are “unwilling and able” you need to further coach them. And finally, for employees “unwilling and unable,” you need to fire them.

We all know that firing an employee is a lot easier to say than do. However, by setting clear expectations and documenting coaching sessions, you are far more likely to get crystal clear on who is a good fit for your organization and who is not, while expediting the process of firing and promoting.

Enjoy your coaching sessions, and stayed tuned for next month's article on processes, specifically how to quickly socially and culturally integrate new hires through your onboarding process. 

Prior to starting his new company, Bill Stavros spent over 13 years of his professional career in the credit union industry, most recently as VP/marketing & member experience at $513 million Proponent Federal Credit Union, Nutley, N.J. While at Proponent, Stavros was responsible for conceptualizing, architecting, developing and deploying a new vision for delivering customer service for Proponent FCU’s inbound call center, based on his learnings from highly regarded service oriented companies such as Zappos, Ritz-Carlton, Disney & REI. Now with Blueprint Interactions, his goal is to help other credit unions achieve similar results. He can be reached at bill@bpinteractions.com, by calling 888.757.8338 or www.bpinteractions.com.