Call center agents deal with frustrated customers and difficult technical issues more often than you think.
Ongoing call center training prepares your agents to handle many situations, including interactions with unhappy customers.
Your agents deal with many callers daily while working in a call center. Training helps manage complex situations and pushes their operational efficiency beyond set benchmarks.
This guide will help you advise your agents and call center managers, making training more effective. The suggestions below will show you how to enable call center staff and train them for better performance.
Is Call Center Training Needed?
Whether in-person, on-demand, or online, call center training modules create a supportive work environment of frontline agents who feel competent and valued.
Beyond the apparent benefits, training offers significant advantages, especially when onboarding new hires, like:
- Increases confidence: With call center soft skills training and product knowledge, agents become more confident handling any situation. It reduces their stress while keeping their morale at peak, resulting in high operational efficiency.
- Makes agents more productive: Effective training sessions streamline processes for your agents and help them use tech correctly. It empowers them to take calls faster and solve problems, getting more work completed.
- Reduces turnover: Continuously hiring new people is a hassle no one has time to deal with. Adequate training shows employees that they’re valued and that their success is important to you, improving overall employee engagement.
Call Center Agent Training Advice
While handling customer inquiries and resolving their issues, your agents risk heavy stress if they’re not adequately trained.
In a survey of 2,100 call center agents, 87% reported high or extreme stress levels at their call centers, and 60% of these agents felt their training wasn’t adequate to respond to calls adequately and manage this stress. The same survey confirms that more training leads to lower stress levels.
With a lower stress level, your agents are better equipped to deal with customers and resolve their issues efficiently.
These call center best practices will help effectively train your agents, allowing them to build their skills and provide memorable customer service experiences.
Master the fundamentals
Your agents need a few fundamental skills to rely on when working directly with your customers. Train them to be active listeners and to pay close attention to what customers say. Ask your agents to paraphrase and acknowledge the issue, making your customers feel heard and valued.
Understanding and caring for your customers’ situations helps you build a strong rapport. Show empathy to improve your interaction quality and transform a negative situation into a positive experience.
In a study of 1,000 Americans, 58% were willing to pay more if a brand provided a better customer service experience. This means that delivering a better service experience will help you retain customers and generate more revenue through upselling and cross-selling.
Try communicating clearly and avoiding industry jargon as much as possible. Make sure the customer fully understands the solution you’re offering. You need a thorough knowledge of a product or service to get there. The better you know your product, the easier it is to provide resolution.
While developing fundamental skills, focus on these in contact center training:
- Technical skills that let them make the most of call center tools.
- Basic understanding of data analysis.
- A tenacity that makes them resilient to adverse situations.
- Bilingualism, if you serve diverse clients who speak multiple languages.
Sharpen your call handling skills
Train your agents to deliver a consistent service experience using a script and company rules. They can ask additional questions as needed and listen to customers’ comments. Agents should start by figuring out the main problem to resolve it faster. Then, teach them to communicate the solution in an easy-to-understand way.
Train your agents to follow these communication practices while delivering service:
- Keep your cool: Stay calm, be kind, and try to understand where customers might be coming from.
- Try to reduce the tension: Assure customers that their problems will be prioritized and give them resolutions as soon as possible.
- Don’t presume: Customers don’t have the same knowledge as your agents and are already frustrated that they can’t figure out a solution on their own.
Become a productivity pro
Train agents to explore your contact center platform’s features and capabilities that reduce manual work, like interactive voice response and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). This will give them more time to manage critical customer queries rather than administrative busy work. Teach them how to prioritize and address the most critical issues first, helping them effectively manage their time.
Equip your agents with knowledge and create a collaborative environment for faster resolutions. If possible, try building a self-serve knowledge base to concentrate more on the team’s priority issues.
Tips to Create a Call Center Training Program for Managers
This Forbes Insights Report claims that 74% of consumers are at least somewhat likely to buy based on experience alone. You should set up processes and practices that help your agents deliver memorable and more positive customer experiences in every interaction.
Lead by example
Let your behavior set the standard for your team. Exhibit excellent communication and problem-solving skills in every customer interaction, and your team will be inspired to do the same while delivering customer support.
There are a few key areas to focus on while leading a team, including:
- Foster trust: Create an environment where your agents feel comfortable sharing their challenges and seeking advice. Offer constructive feedback when needed. Avoid being critical, and share areas where they can improve.
- Create a collaborative culture: Cultivate a workplace culture that values mutual respect and collaboration. Encourage agents to work together and share knowledge as a cohesive team rather than working in individual silos.
Coach and develop your agents’ skill sets
Conduct regular 1:1s, performance reviews, and coaching sessions to deeply understand your agents’ unique abilities and areas for improvement. This will help you create more personalized training courses for your team and coach each rep on the specific areas they need training most.
Based on their skill gaps, create customized customer service training programs and focus on closing those gaps. It’s important to keep celebrating their success with regular recognition and awards. These are powerful motivators that boost morale and encourage new and experienced agents to give their best while dealing with customers.
Optimize team performance
Set clear customer service goals and expectations for your team. Ensure they understand their targets and show them how their contribution aligns with the company’s goals. Measure agents’ performance consistently and help them be more efficient with technology and resources.
Below are a few metrics you can measure to monitor and optimize an agent’s performance:
- Customer satisfaction score: Reveals that the higher the score, the better your chances of customer retention.
- First call resolution (FCR): Measures how many customer issues were resolved on the first call, with most call centers aiming for a 74% or higher FCR rate.
- Average speed of answer: Estimates the time customers wait in a queue before talking to your agents.
- Average handle time: Determines the average time an agent takes to handle customer calls.
- Service level: Highlights the number of calls answered in a given time frame.
- Occupancy rate: Calculates the time an agent is taking calls or doing other productive work.
Think about investing in reliable call center software. Make sure agents are well-trained to use it in their daily operations. It’ll streamline your team’s workflows, improving operational efficiency and job satisfaction.
Ultimately, your agents will achieve their full potential to deliver exceptional customer service. When they’re happy, they’ll stick around, serving customers eagerly day in and day out.
Pair Your Training With the Right Call Center Platform
Call center training helps you and your teams stay sharp and motivated. It boosts your agents’ confidence and helps them improve consistently, reducing their stress significantly and making them happier.
Pairing your training material with the right platform helps teams serve customers to their satisfaction.
Nextiva spots trends so you can act on data before it’s too late to course correct — providing real-time insight into calls, frequency, quality, customer feedback, and other performance metrics while streamlining contact center management into a single dashboard.
