ResponseLearning's [1] Agent Leadership Skills program is a holistic method of assessing,
training, and measuring the value that an agent brings to a call. Its patent-pending
process links your call management performance criteria and assessment to training.
Agents learn how to control the process that brings a unique customer in contact with
a one-of-a-kind organization like yours.
Agent Leadership Skills has a three-product breakthrough that transforms front-line employees
into call managers. Sales and service agents learn to communicate expertly, motivate the customer,
manage the customer experience, drive the call to a satisfactory result, and build customer loyalty.
They become strategic partners in the company by identifying, acknowledging, and acting on improvement
opportunities.
[1] ResponseLearning is Response Design’s e-learning development arm.
Click the links below to learn more about ResponseLearning's Agent Leadership Skills program.
Agent Leadership Skills Products
1. Call Management Performance Criteria
Certain roles define an expert leader on a call. A role consists of a number of skills and skills are
achieved through a series of behaviors. The Call Management Performance Criteria describes the roles,
skills, and behaviors that define call leadership. The criteria include definitions, examples, and
demonstrations, and describe opportunities for improvement and cases in which additional training is appropriate.
The Performance Criteria ensure that:
- agents, monitors, and managers are working from the same definition of excellence;
- agents understand their performance expectations; and
- call monitors focus their mentoring on the important criteria for company success and customer delight.
Individual and group achievement, as described on the Call Management Performance Criteria,
can be correlated to the key performance indicators-loyalty, revenue, and cost.
2. Performance Assessment Instrument
The second product is an easy-to-use call monitoring Performance Assessment Instrument that
mirrors the roles, skills, and behaviors defined in the Performance Criteria. Call monitors are
calibrated to this definition and use the instrument to document whether agents failed to
recognize opportunities to use the skill and whether agents who use the skill do so at an
expert level.
Because the monitors are assessing at the behavioral level, performance gaps can be
readily identified and rectified. If an agent is struggling with one or more behavior,
the monitor turns to the third product: Performance Training.
3. Performance Training Suite
The final component is an e-learning training suite with over 90 five- to seven-minute lessons
linked directly to the expert behaviors that are defined by the Performance Criteria and rated
by the Performance Assessment Instrument. Agents can take the on-demand lessons at their own
pace and when job requirements permit. Each lesson is targeted to a specific behavior and
delivered to the desktop. The lessons run using Adobe Flash® Player. They can be paused and
bookmarked when customer demand dictates, and each lesson is associated with quizzes and
tests that measure proficiency.
Agent Leadership Skills Benefits
The benefits of Agent Leadership Skills include:
Consistent Customer Experiences
A seamless customer experience can be realized only when agents demonstrate consistent
performance call after call. In our current world, customers interact with agents with
various levels of competencies, skills, and commitment-some agents know how to build the
company brand, and some do not. Agent Leadership Skills makes all agents able to produce
a consistent experience because it has:
- Consistent performance criteria-In our 20 years building agent performance systems, we have
identified the most important competencies and behaviors for delivering delightful customer
experiences at a reasonable cost. You'll find them in our Performance Criteria.
- Consistent assessment-Professionals who assess the calls are more easily calibrated to
your standard of excellence because of our comprehensive criteria and easy-to-follow assessment
instrument. Calibration of raters is a snap due to clear performance definitions.
- Consistent training-Because our lessons link directly to the performance criteria
and assessment, teams are not searching for disparate training content that they can
shoehorn into their performance management system. Our content is continually updated
through user feedback and technology innovations.
Efficient Resource Utilization
Agent Leadership Skills optimizes the utilization of both the agents and the teams who support them:
- Agents-because planning for time off the phone is complex, supervisors have difficulty
scheduling agents in traditional training. Because agent Leadership's lessons are delivered
directly to the desktop, agents no longer need to move to a centralized training area and,
when customer demands dictate, they can bookmark the lesson for later review.
- Trainers, monitors, and the human resource team-in most centers, these teams operate
separately. When monitors notice a gap in performance, they are required to find time to
meet with trainers or human resources to develop targeted training. Using the Agent
Leadership Skills system, monitors feed training modules directly to the agents.
Trainers no longer develop training reactively; both trainers and human resource
professionals have more time to support the agents individually and measure training
linkages and results.
Time spent calibrating new call monitors is reduced significantly because the
definitions on the nuance list are so specific and targeted. Keeping monitors
calibrated is a breeze.
Balanced Quality and Cost
Without the necessary tools, many managers find the mandate to "do more with less" increasingly
difficult to achieve. Our industry has suffered from ineffective monitoring forms that fail to
integrate the customer experience-creating skills (e.g., courtesy, listening) with the required
process steps (e.g., greeting, assessment, close). This creates a disconnect in the mind of the
agents-one that keeps them from developing the integrated call leadership skills required for
high quality and cost efficiency.
Trainers are forced to invest in multiple, off-the-shelf lessons that do not directly
match their in-house defined criteria. Overspending on content is common. In-house development
and update taxes resources way beyond what most operations can bear.
Agent Leadership Skills focuses on the behaviors that make an agent an expert,
including the ability to efficiently and effectively handle a call. The result of this
expert performance is increased productivity, which results in increased sales and reduced
call-handling time. In addition, agents are taught how to handle the call to ensure
first-call resolution and to recognize and act on any customer product, process, or
system problems owned by other areas. Because there is a one-to-one correlation
between the performance behaviors and training lessons overspending is eliminated.
Decreased Agent Turnover
Turnover in the customer contact industry ranges from 20 to 40 percent per year,
putting a strain on training resources. With so many new faces, managers need to
assess the skill level of employees walking in the door. When agents lack the time to
train or are given make-shift, untailored training, their morale is affected; turnover
increases.
Agent Leadership's skill- and behavior-based system gives managers the tools they
need to identify strengths and opportunities for improvement right from the start.
Targeted training begins immediately and produces fast results.
Agent Leadership Skills encourages managers to see agents as strategic assets
and help them develop their leadership skills. When employees receive this training,
along with a reinforcement of their importance to the company, they are more inclined
to stay on the job and be ready for additional responsibilities.
Pricing and Support
For a product so reasonably and flexibly priced, it has a fast and robust return on
investment that substantially increases revenue and productivity, and lowers costs.
Managers can download the nuance list and performance appraisal instrument free of
charge. They have a choice when ordering the training modules linked to the assessment
instrument:
- A one-year license based on call center size that gives the organization unlimited use;
or
- A hosted software service-managers can purchase one lesson at a time or the entire
suite of lessons. Because these lessons are housed on the ResponseLearning server,
managers can, for an additional fee, use our learning management system (LMS) to
know how long an agent spent on a lesson, how he or she scored on the tests, and
how often the lesson was accessed.
For an additional charge, the training can be customized with specific company examples.
ResponseLearning supports the users of Agent Leadership Skills through regularly
scheduled on-line workshops and a free online social network. The workshops and
network are essential for providing information that helps companies in the transition
of their agents to call managers. ResponseLearning has technical assistance for users
and suggestions regarding the best use of their Agent Leadership Skills investment.
Contact Information
For information please contact:
Thomas Tucker
TTucker@ResponseLearning.com
609-398-3230
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