Tips and Guide for Training Remote Call Center Agents

Training Call Center Agents

Faced with the pandemic, many contact centers have been forced to close their offices, raising fears of a slowdown or even closure. The question of the moment is how to ensure business continuity? And above all, how can remote agents for new agents be successful?

Technology is a Key Component to Successful Training for Call Center Agents

1. Cloud Solution

Cloud solutions today enable organizations to be agile and flexible, and to be able to respond quickly to extraordinary situations. Telephony, which is a hot channel for customer experience, should not be left aside. Today, IP telephony makes it possible to provide the mobility needed by all the company’s employees, including your agents’ training programs.

Working remotely is not a source of great change for your processes as long as you are equipped with the right work tools. By having a 100% cloud-based call management solution like Omni+ from NobelBiz integrated with your business tools, you can be fully operational in just a few minutes.

2. E-Learning Base

On the other hand, Remote learning must be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Your new agents should always have access to the support and resources they need online. By giving your agents self-study, you are empowering them to take charge of their own development and evolution.

A learning management system can help your agents learn anytime, anywhere. The key is to offer a range of online learning options and content, from video lessons to online tests, downloadable documents, software technical modules, and more.

3. One-on-One Meetings

It’s not easy to train new agents in an isolated environment if you don’t make communication a priority. And face-to-face video calls play a key role in this regard. Videoconferencing is an effective way to improve the connectivity of remote team members. Better yet, during a video session, you can record the call so the new agent can review it later for clarity or additional coaching.

A Strong Positive Culture is a Must

1. Motivate your agents

Your agents should always be motivated to do their job, otherwise, customers will notice the lack of enthusiasm in their voices. When an agent doesn’t sound enthusiastic about the product he or she is selling, customers won’t be either. Agents who are trained and motivated to do their job are more likely to convince their customers. Customer service agents don’t just sell a product or service, they also market with their personality and create a positive image of the company.

2. Have them answer calls during their training

While it can be intimidating for new agents to handle calls when they feel they have not been adequately trained, it is crucial to the learning process. When they practice handling real calls, they know what to expect. Although you can role-play and recreate a fake call, it will never have the same impact as handling a real call. But customers tend to ask a variety of unexpected questions.

3. Congratulation are in order

A good way to motivate your new agents is to congratulate them in front of their colleagues. To do so, you can write their name on a whiteboard or come and congratulate them directly in front of everyone. The other agents in the call center will also try to get the same treatment.

A little competition in the office can be a fun and challenging way to ensure that every call is handled properly and that customer service is beyond reproach.

What about Remote Management of New Agents?

Monitoring is essential to the successful training of your contact center agents. Even during this pandemic, communication remains imperative between your supervisors and your teams. This implies that your new agents are well informed about processes, offers, and customer satisfaction requirements. Moreover, it is important to know how customers perceive your service.

Here are some tips for effective monitoring of your new agents’ quality during the pandemic:

1. Call Recording

One of the cornerstones of contact center quality is call recording. This feature not only allows you to control the attention your agents pay to customers but also other problems ( such as interferences, voice quality, etc). This is why your supervisors need to be more than proactive about this aspect and implement positive changes when necessary. Don’t forget also to make sure you have the technology that allows you to navigate through the communication channels and ensure the performance of your call center even during remote work.

2. Call Frame Quality

The next step is to monitor the quality of call frames. This means detecting any failures committed by new agents that may hinder customer satisfaction. Good remote management implies warning the agents of the errors committed, showing the corrections, and doing a rigorous follow-up after the briefing. This will be possible thanks to cloud scheduling control tools, interaction reports, and geolocation.

3. Know your mistakes

Finally, a good tip for monitoring is to always be aware of the mistakes you make, and what you can improve. For this, it is very useful to use the statistics function. This will allow you to evaluate all missed calls, average waiting times, and abandoned calls by your new agents.

Metrics that help monitor your new agents

Here are some essential metrics you can use to monitor your newsagents:

  • FCR or first call resolution. This indicator is the one most related to customer satisfaction. A higher percentage of first call resolution will have a very positive impact on customer satisfaction.
  • TMO is the ideal average time that a brand considers for an agent call. On the other hand, you also have the TMC, the agent’s average actual conversation time.
  • Another measure is the service level. To calculate the call center service level, the ratio of calls received before X seconds is performed on the total of calls received. And it can be expressed as the % of calls that agents answer before X seconds.
  • Response time. This indicator refers to the time the customer waits before being answered. An indicator closely related to the previous one is the abandonment rate or the percentage of unanswered calls.

These indicators are essential for monitoring call center quality. Knowing the data concerning your call center and being able to intervene is essential to obtaining the quality you hope for your new agents.

The crisis is having an impact on organizations by highlighting new concerns. For your call center, it is a question of ensuring business continuity by facilitating exchanges with your customers. To operate in the face of this sudden change, it is essential to provide intuitive and effective digital technologies for old and new employees in your contact center.

Abdelmounim Benharouga has always had a strong passion for writing and digital marketing.  He started as a Digital Content Writer part of marketing department then moved to being Customer Success Manager for the African Region within the Nobelbiz team.

Share This Post

More To Explore

What is a call center dashboard and what does it do?

Call center dashboards play a vital role in contact centers. Call center dashboards provide the kinds of insights and metrics that contribute to having improved agent performance and more successful campaigns. These digital command centers offer a comprehensive overview of operations, enabling supervisors to make informed decisions in real-time. Let’s delve deeper and explore the dashboard functionalities, key metrics, best practices, and their pivotal role in enhancing customer satisfaction.

Read More »

Free 30-day Proof of Concept

Unlock Your FREE Month of licensing and take your contact center to the next level.

Fill in this form and save big on your tech stack with NobelBiz OMNI+ cloud contact center software!

"*" indicates required fields

Hidden

Expert Form Tip: Sign Up with Google ReCAPTCHA

To use the CAPTCHA field on this form to protect your website from spam and bot abuse you will need to sign up with Google ReCAPTCHA. For more information on this, check out the Docs.

Important: Delete this tip before you publish the form.

Name*
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Warmth Beyond Winter

We're adopting a family for one year.
Let's make an impact together.

NEW WEBINAR ON-DEMAND:

From Leads to Profits: Mastering Outbound Lead Generation and Sales

New LIVE Webinar

Mastering Workforce Management

NEW ON-DEMAND FIRESIDE CHAT!

2023 Contact Center Industry Recap & Future Projections