Next Level Sales Coaching

11Sales and Service Coaching in the Contact Center

WORKING IN CONTACT centers around the world for many years, we've seen some great coaches, some terrible coaches, and a lot of average coaches. What separates the best from the rest? In our experience, top coaches: prioritize time for coaching activities, effectively set expectations, consistently use non-scored feedback in addition to scored feedback, coach proactively and not just reactively, focus on one behavior or skill at a time, use questions to coach, and consistently recognize people for their accomplishments.

A Tale of Two Coaches

Meet two coaches, Bradley and Sarah. Both have 12 agents on their team, and they are required to provide 2 hours of call feedback and coaching per agent, per month.

Bradley meets with his agents for 1 hour, every 2 weeks. Typically, they listen to two or three calls that are 7–10 minutes long. For each call Bradley provides a “feedback hoagie”: a couple of compliments sandwiching a pile of weaknesses and improvements he wants to see. Agents typically walk out with 6–12 items on their to-do list. Two weeks later they meet again, listen to calls, and Bradley wonders why they have not implemented their to-do lists. Their performance metrics are flat. He gets frustrated – why won't these agents give him what he is asking for?

Sarah handles her coaching differently. She spends 30 minutes per week with each agent. Two of those sessions include a scored call. The other two are non-scored coaching ...