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Using a Post-Call Customer Survey for Agent Coaching to Improve Customer Service

May 30, 2022 | 2 min read

Post Call Customer Surveys

Post-Call Customer Survey

Using post-call customer survey data and feedback is a best practice for coaching agents to improve or provide great customer service. Furthermore, post-call surveys allow you to measure, benchmark and improve agent First Call Resolution (FCR), Csat, and call resolution performance. The majority of world-class FCR (e.g., VoC FCR rate is great than 80%) performing call centers use post-call customer survey data and feedback for agent coaching and accountability. Post-call surveys allow the FCR outcome to be determined by the customer.

Targeted Coaching

Targeted Coaching Using Non-FCR Calls

Given that the average agent receives only 6 to 12 hours a year in coaching, it is essential to make the best use of those coaching hours. Therefore, it is a best practice to target agent coaching using non-FCR calls. SQM recommends 10 surveys per agent, per month, representing 120 surveys annually. Again, SQM research shows that for the average call center, FCR is 70%, call resolution is 87%, and agent source of error (SoE) is 40% for non-FCR calls. Therefore, for an agent who receives 120 completed customer surveys a year, only 5 of those surveys would be agent SoE (i.e., 120 surveys x 13% unresolved calls x 40% agent SoE = 6). Thus, there are limited coaching opportunities to improve agent call resolution based on unresolved calls attributed to an agent SoE.

Using non-FCR calls allows more opportunities to target agent coaching compared to when using only unresolved calls. In addition, considering it takes 2.5 calls to resolve a repeat call, there are many more agent coaching opportunities than just focusing on unresolved calls. For instance, using non-FCR data and completing 120 customer surveys annually results in 36 repeat call surveys (i.e., 120 surveys x 30% non-FCR calls x 2.5 calls to resolve x 40% agent SoE = 36). Using survey data where the agent was the SoE provides targeted coaching opportunities for improving the agent voice of the customer (VoC) performance.

Agent Coaching

VoC Agent Coaching

Many call center managers struggle with the frequency with which they should deliver customer survey results and reports to their agents. Great survey and unresolved call survey results should be shared with agents within one business day of the survey being completed. Agent trending reports for Csat and call resolution performance should be shared weekly. Agent coaching reports on what they are doing well and what they should improve should be shared every month. In world class FCR call centers, supervisors commit 30 to 90 minutes per agent, per month to deliver the VoC reports. As a result, agents can maintain or exceed world class FCR targets.