Coaching and Training: Keys to Performance Improvement in an Omnichannel Environment

Customers believe that the way they are treated by customer service representatives equates to how they are valued by that company. This is why a high-performing contact center team is critically important. When it comes to managing performance and improvement, coaching and training are inextricably connected. 

Training

Regular and consistent training is required to ensure team member skills are kept up to date and calibrated, particularly with increasing and changing customer expectations. One of the biggest challenges that contact center leaders face when operating in an omnichannel environment is eliminating the need for customers to repeat themselves when switching from one channel to the next. Customers have stated that they want a seamless and frictionless experience. In fact, our research has found that if a customer is required to repeat information, the customer satisfaction (CSAT) index is reduced by 85 points¹. To eradicate this issue, customer service agents should be given visibility into a customer’s entire service history, and certainly the most recent interactions, through a unified omnichannel platform. Agents then need to be fully trained on how to access the customer information they need and identify the next best step to resolve the problem in a proactive and personalized way.

Training should also provide agents with a clear understanding of which channel is the most efficient by contact type or customer journey and what customers expect from each channel. Equipped with this information, agents can appropriately remove pain points, guide customers to the most effective channel, and resolve issues timely and seamlessly.

Additionally, ongoing, modular training should be flexible enough to address specific gaps identified through a timely quality assurance process. With individuals learning at a different rate and some requiring more training than others, it is important to ensure that each agent receives training to close gaps in their specific areas of opportunity. Even the best agents benefit from refresher training. Ongoing training also has the additional benefit of improving employee engagement which fosters a positive learning environment and supports the overall department’s efficiency.  

Coaching

Training is the starting point for a high-performing operation, but coaching reinforces and fine-tunes it. Coaching is arguably the most important task for front-line leaders, and it is not scalable. Coaching should be timely, specific, and focused. It should motivate and inspire team members to achieve department objectives, improve KPIs, and ultimately deliver excellent customer service.  In fact, 50% of J.D. Power certified customer service organizations² allocate between 2-4 hours of monthly coaching per front-line agent. Certified organizations with the highest scores actually allocate even more time than that.  

Like contact center agents, front-line leaders also need consistent and ongoing training because they are responsible for elevating and optimizing both the customer and agent experience. This is particularly important because many front-line leaders were exceptional customer service agents that were promoted into leadership roles and may lack the skillset to thoroughly coach others. For this reason, coaching is often confused with simply providing feedback.

Training to develop coaching skills is an often-overlooked critical developmental opportunity for front-line leaders which is, in part, why digital tools that complement the coaching process are on the rise. Companies that are more customer-centric understand the importance of building upon one-on-one coaching and are advancing their capabilities to add that next level of support.    

Summary

Investing in coaching and training is critical to cultivating a high-performing omnichannel contact center. When done well, they can transform an average contact center into a well-oiled, high-performing machine.   


¹On a 1,000-point scale
²To achieve customer service certification, an Organization's service channel must perform within the top 20 percent of customer service scores, which are based on benchmarks established in J.D. Power's cross-industry customer satisfaction research. The evaluation criteria include the customer service representative's courtesy, knowledge and concern for the customer; promptness in speaking to a person; and timely resolution of the problem or request. Additionally, the experience with the automated phone system is evaluated based on the clarity of the information provided, the ease of navigating the phone menu prompts and the ease of understanding the phone menu instructions.  In addition to meeting the service benchmark, the organization must pass an operational evaluation based on leading best-practices from cross-industry top performers.  

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