Use Performance Management to Praise, Not Punish

There is a strong belief in many contact centers that performance management technology is for the purpose of monitoring and adjusting individual agent performance and behavior. And while it’s certainly the most reliable solution to keep track of how agents are doing, and whether they deserve a raise or a promotion, performance management is also a powerful tool to track how well the entire contact center is doing, and adjusting manpower or processes accordingly. Getting the most out of performance management is no easy task: it requires coordinated planning and execution throughout the contact center, and it involves a lot more functions that just call recording.

“Creating an integrated quality monitoring program will take time and preparation, with particular focus on call recording, PCI (News - Alert) compliance, quality scorecards and screen capturing,” wrote Monet Software CEO Chuck Ciarlo in a recent blog post. “No quick fixes there. However, once the foundation for both programs is established, small changes can indeed pay significant dividends toward the ultimate goal of ensuring consistent, high quality service that meets or surpasses expectations.”

The foundation, of course, will mean a solid performance management platform that incorporates call recording as well as all those other functions Ciarlo mentions. After all, what good is a call recording solution that doesn’t allow you to easily evaluate, analyze and make use of the data it records? To do this, you need to build your contact center’s performance management foundation from the ground up, and this means starting with agents when they are new.

“While agents are still in the induction phase, introduce the QM system and expectations in place, and make sure they are aware of the criteria,” wrote Ciarlo.

From here, you can put praise and reward systems in place that allow you to offer recognition to agents almost immediately after a particularly good call. (Likewise, you can offer remedial training immediately after a less-than-quality call.) Immediate feedback after a particularly noteworthy customer call (good or bad) can help agents better understand which approaches work, and which don’t. Even better, a high quality performance management systems allows managers, supervisors or coaches to share a great call with the rest of the team, and use it as an on-the-spot learning opportunity. Features such as quality scorecards help a contact center rate calls fairly and evenly across the contact center, and this is critical: if feedback from managers isn’t fair, agents will tune it out, and it will become part of what drives them to apathy and, ultimately, to leaving their jobs.

“Feedback won’t work unless it is clear and actionable,” wrote Ciarlo. “You can find out if this is the case by providing agents with feedback forms about coaches (they’ll love that anyway). Offer them a chance to confirm that they understand the assessment they received, and if the coach took their thoughts and opinions into consideration.”

In the end, agents need to be partners in the quality management process, too. When monitoring and feedback fall on them unexpectedly like a ton of bricks, or is dropped on them only when they’ve done something bad, the technology will become “the enemy” of the contact center. Ensure you’re using performance management for positive behavior at least as often as you’re using it for corrective behavior. 

Edited by Stefania Viscusi