Drive agent impact with employee performance management

Twenty-six percent of customers have lost their temper during a customer service interaction. The right tools will give you the flexibility needed for the performance management to help eliminate these uncomfortable situations.

These include call interaction recording, quality monitoring, gamification and coaching. As you put your process in place, employees must be clear on what you’re measuring and why, and be confident they have the tools to succeed. Set out clear expectations with metrics, cultivate their successes with praise and recognition — and hold them accountable through proactive engagement.

Have frequent, regularly scheduled team meetings and one-on-one meetings. Setting a regular time and sticking to it shows you value your human resources and your mutual engagement. The most effective one-on-one meetings are geared to help the person develop and improve.

Use the time to share goals, details on what you want them to achieve and deadlines for meeting these goals. It’s a good time to see what the employee is interested in, such as taking on more responsibility in a particular area, so that you’re aware and can follow up with any appropriate opportunities. Perhaps most importantly, building trust requires sincerity, commitment and a genuine interest in the welfare of your employees. Model openness and transparency and you’ll get the same in return.

Start with fair pay at current market rates. As the labor market has tightened, call center agents have more employment options, often with higher pay. Fair pay not only motivates, it reduces attrition.

On a personal level, take time to acknowledge the job they do and how they contribute to your success. Do this publicly in team meetings and privately, especially during performance reviews. And don’t forget the “fun factor.” Build gamification into your processes and get their input on what they like about it. When you listen to their input — about customers and their job preferences — it’s a sign of respect. They’ll know they’re being heard and appreciated.

By facilitating ongoing and open communication, performance management plays a major role in employee development. When you identify goals and set achievable expectations, your team members can respond — and stay aligned with key business objectives. But those goals should also include a longer-term path for their development. Once an employee achieves a goal, they need to understand they’re now ready to move on to the next level, and what that requires.

Using performance management tools equips them to continue their development by taking the best next steps. And because managers also nurture development through a mix of coaching, guidance and counseling, effective performance management tools are essential for complete transparency. Finally, be sure you’re measuring outcomes in a way that maps to employee development. They need to know processes and goals but also specific areas for improvement as milestones for development.

Take the time needed to get to know employees and stay engaged with them. Employees want to be successful, so be sure to provide recognition when they do succeed and assist them in reaching their short- and long-term goals. This can be done via ongoing coaching by the manager or other successful team members.

For example, if an employee misses average handle time (AHT) goals, arrange for them to shadow the agent who has the best call control or AHT on the team. As much as possible, make feedback timely and focus on how the feedback serves overall goals rather than one bad day of non-adherence. After all, some goals are meant to be measured over a longer period of time; one day shouldn’t be the focus of performance improvement.