Building a better workforce: how performance management solutions can help contact center managers successfully develop employees

In a contact center, a lot is expected of managers – and rightfully so. They’re in these positions of power because of their impressive skills and experience, and they’re well remunerated for the work they put in.

However, as talented as these individuals are, they aren’t always set up to succeed by their organizations. As customer experience solution provider NICE points out in their guide to workplace coaching, a whopping 90% of organizations believe a contact center manager’s most important role is coaching. There are many benefits of using an executive coach. But how many of those organizations are providing managers with the tools they need to effectively coach ? If an organization believed an employee’s most important role were painting, would they not give that employee a paint brush?

Probably, so for the sake of a contact center manager, an organization should probably be equipping itself with effective performance management software – here’s why:

Performance management software gives managers time

The most important tool of all. A performance management solution is designed to track all of the data related to customer service processes from every available source and every customer contact channel, creating a one-stop shop for information on every aspect of the contact center and customer experience. Many leading performance management systems use the cloud, making this one-stop shop accessible anytime and anywhere for updates the very second they’re needed.

After collecting that massive amount of data, it then analyzes it and turns it into actionable insights. With these steps, performance management software automates a lot of the preparatory work managers have to do in order to coach and does so with a level of precision that even the best managers would struggle to attain. With these tasks taken off their to-do lists, managers are free to spend more time actually coaching.

Performance management solutions also empower frontline agents with a clear picture of their own performance, right up to the minute. This combined with dynamic goals and gamification aspects inspires many agents to take performance improvement into their own hands with the self-training tools included in the solution, freeing up managers to focus on agents that require more intensive coaching.

Performance management software gives managers automated actionable insights

Not only does all of that data gathering and analysis take a huge amount of time and effort if completed by a manager, but it’s also hard to wade through the endless metrics to identify specific issues with teams as well as individual frontline agents, let alone in a timely manner. A performance management solution produces automated reports tied to the organization’s KPIs that provide actionable insights, allowing managers to act quickly and begin corrective coaching, often from within the solution itself.

A leading performance management solution will also identify the root cause of existing issues, allowing managers to get to the bottom of not just what is happening, but why – important information for truly addressing an issue. Further, this system can also identify teams and agents that are performing well and are deserving of positive feedback, something that often gets forgotten when managers are struggling to stay on top of agent performance.

Performance management software gives managers embedded coaching capabilities

Many contact centers consist of dozens or even hundreds of agents handling millions of customer interactions on a yearly basis on channels ranging from the phone to email to social media to messaging apps and beyond. While it would be nice to think a manager could go over his or her reports then head directly to a team in need of coaching and have a sit-down with them, it’s entirely unrealistic.

A leading performance management solution will include embedded coaching tools tied to relevant KPIs that allow for manager to agent coaching, group coaching and peer coaching, all within the solution. Automated coaching workflows are also included in some solutions, providing what is quite possibly the quickest jumpstart to necessary coaching.

Performance management software gives managers a quick heads-up on emerging issues

Performance management solutions work in real-time, which means managers are informed in real-time when there is an emerging or ongoing issue that requires immediate attention. A manager being able to respond so quickly not only provides agents with valuable in-the-moment coaching, but it may also salvage a customer service experience that could have otherwise resulted in a lost sale or, worse yet, lost loyalty.

Performance management software gives managers coaching feedback

Performance management solutions don’t just provide reports on frontline agents, they also provide feedback on coaching effectiveness in the form of analytics. This helps managers finesse their overall coaching techniques and also helps them refine tailored techniques for specific teams or agents. This helps optimize the performance of managers as well as frontline agents, and it does so quickly. No more waiting for the next weekly or monthly round of reports to see if improvements have been made.

Some performance management solutions also include a coach the coach modal, providing training for managers within the solution.

Performance management software gives you overall contact center improvements

Chances are, you hired your contact center managers at least in part for their coaching experience and abilities. With a performance management solution automatically doing the customer experience and agent performance analysis grunt work, your managers will actually be able to focus on sharing that coaching experience and those coaching abilities with your frontline agents. Give your managers the chance to truly shine at what they’re best at. With the right type of software, it will be optimal performance all around for your contact center.