12/19 2011

Posted in:  Call center management, Coaching

I was reminded again today in a conversation about ensuring that we are coaching to behaviors instead of coaching to the numbers or stats that we receive.  Here’s what happens as front line leaders:

You get A TON of reports with all kinds of data about your employees.  You know about their attendance, the number of calls they handle, average quality scores, the number of complaints that they receive from customers, their average handle time, the amount of call outs that they took last month, blah, blah, blah!  You know all kinds of NUMBERS about your employees. As a front line leader, your responsibility is to take those numbers and convert them into behaviors.  I can coach to behaviors, I should not coach to numbers.

Why should you not coach to numbers?  Here is a prime example of why you should not coach to numbers.  Example: Sally handled 42 calls yesterday.  Most of your other employees handled more than 60 calls yesterday.  You approach Sally and tell her that she needs to handle more calls today than yesterday.  You show her the numbers and you tell her that she needs to handle at least 50 calls today.

So now Sally gets back on the phone with that directive floating in her mind, “I have to handle more calls today than yesterday.” So now Sally is asking herself the key question, “HOW?” So now Sally starts changing her behaviors in order to meet your directive.  So in order to handle more calls today than yesterday, Sally starts talking faster, cutting out the summary of the calls, and not offering as many alternative options. 

So the next day, you get the reports and you see that Sally handled 65 calls!  And your response to Sally, “Great job! Keep up the good work!”

But now customers are calling back because they didn’t get all the information they needed, they complained and they yelled at the next Representative they talked to because they were so upset.  Your complaint numbers went up, your first call resolution rates went down and your employee morale went down.

This all happened because you coached to the numbers, instead of digging into the numbers and finding out the behaviors that the employees were doing that created those numbers.  If we don’t understand the behaviors that are creating our numbers, we could be telling people, “Good job!” when they are not really doing a good job at all.  

Moral of the story: Manage to the metrics and mentor to the behaviors.  This is how you will ultimately create WOW experiences for your customers and your employees. 

MOMENT OF REFLECTION
What metrics should you dig into more so that you can more effectively coach your employees? 

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