I ran a medium sized call center...

This post was submitted by Cecile Peterkin, a Career and Life Coach. More info about Cecile is also available on her LinkedIn profile.

"I ran a medium size call center for a Mutual Fund company in Canada. Not all calls were monitored, however, I did random taping of all our agents on a weekly basis. The information was used for testing agents product knowledge, speed, accuracy, and professionalism. The information was also for training and performance appraisals

We wanted our agents to move away from "Call Center Agents" to "Client Relationship Specialists". Develop a relationship with the callers (Investment Advisers) to reassure all their needs are met.

I found the best way to improve agents phone skills was to have their calls analyze by their peers. There was a noticeable improvement in the handling of calls when the feedback was peer based.

Agents that were performing well on the phones were trained to do the monitoring and training/coaching. The agent in question would be asked to critique his/her call - what would they do differently. Together, the agent and the trainer would work on areas to be improved and assigned things to focus on for the following week."

- Cecile