Most customer service representatives in a call center environment dread call coaching. By turning call coaching into a positive experience for agents, supervisors and managers can relieve the anxiety that customer service representatives may feel about call coaching. Doing so may also increase the agent's willingness to approach a supervisor when questions about call handling arise, simplifying future call center coaching.

Tips to Make Call Center Coaching a Positive Experience

There are several things that supervisors can do to help their customer service representatives view call center coaching as a positive experience. Supervisors can help agents perceive the call coaching experience as positive by letting agents know what they're doing right, not just what they're doing wrong. Encouraging customer service representatives to deliver feedback to team leaders in the organization can help agents view call center coaching and other forms of feedback as a positive tool to improve job performance.

Don't Just Focus on the Negative in Call Center Coaching

Although there are always things that a customer service representative can do to improve his or her performance, those things shouldn't be the sole focus of a coaching session. If a customer service agent established great rapport with the customer during the call, he should be complimented and encouraged to continue doing so. If he did a great job of verifying customer information, paraphrasing the customers problem, or did anything that left the customer with the impression that the agent 'went the extra mile' in resolving his issue, these things can all be used as positives to let the agent know that the call coach appreciates the things that he is doing well.

When delivering a call coaching session to an agent, it's best to begin the session on a positive note, emphasizing the things that the agent is doing correctly, then move onto the things that the agent needs to improve upon. Call coaches should always try to include at least one positive item that the agent is handling correctly in each call center coaching session, and end each session with a word of encouragement.

Positive Feedback as Part of the Business Culture

Make positive feedback a part of the business culture. Encourage customer service representatives to provide feedback to team leaders on their peers or other members of the organization, be it kudos for something they see another agent doing well, or a suggestion to help another agent improve his performance. Stress to customer service representatives that feedback, when it involves suggestions for improvement, shouldn't be perceived as tattling.

Agents that provide team leaders with feedback that does seem to be tattling, snarky or vindictive should be educated on how to provide appropriate feedback. A one-on-one session with a call center coach on how to provide appropriate feedback should be enough for most agents to understand what feedback is meant to accomplish, and the spirit in which the organization provides it to agents.

Team meetings should be a time to share kudos that customer service representatives have received directly from customers or from other agents. This provides coaches with the opportunity to show customer service representatives how the feedback system actually works, and gives those agents that have received positive feedback for a job well done the opportunity to share with their peers tips and techniques that they are using to deliver outstanding customer service.

As agents begin to see feedback and call center coaching as the valuable tool that it is, they may show more willingness to seek the help of a coach or other senior member of the team when they have questions about call handling. When customer service representatives begin exhibiting these proactive behaviors, they should be heartily encouraged. The practice of approaching more senior team members or coaches with legitimate questions can help agents to improve their performance more quickly and vastly improve the quality of service being delivered to customers, before coaching on a problem area becomes necessary.

The Benefits of Positive Call Center Coaching

When call center coaching is delivered in a positive way, everyone benefits. Customers receive better service when customer service representatives continually strive to improve their skills, agents that see call center coaching in a positive way feel better about their work performance, even when suggestions are made for improvements, and coaches experience better relations with their agents when their suggestions are not perceived as a hostile critique of the agent's job performance.