Don’t Just Talk: 3 Real Ways to Achieve Call Center Agent Engagement

Committing to creating a harmonious call center environment is indeed a necessary first step for customer management leaders, but it cannot be mistaken for the entire journey.

The employee experience is one defined by action, not declaration, and it is therefore essential for organizational leaders to take accountability for the workforce atmosphere.

From the “little things” to sweeping changes, successful call center leaders must honor their commitment to agent engagement at every possible turn, recognizing fully that unhappiness within the call center will always find its way to the actual customer experience.

To be certain that the call center agents who communicate with your customers do so from a position of happiness—with complete acceptance and support for the brand they are representing—you must actualize your commitment to the agent experience. Copying some fun little “best practices” from the customer experience elite is a tremendous starting point for improving the environment, but it, too, is not the entire journey.

The best call center environments are not built solely on the foundation of pizza parties and comfortable chairs (though both can be valuable). They are instead built on the brand taking its mission to engage agents as seriously as its mission to sell products.

After all, the call center culture has clear consequences for the customer experience, and if said culture does not maximize agent engagement, sales and customer satisfaction—two factors with immense implications for profit and loss—will suffer.

If your goal is to actually deliver a quality agent experience—and not simply talk about it—consider the following strategies.

The name game
At the Call Center Performance, Productivity & Metrics event, Frontier Communications’ Lynn Holmgren explained that in her organization, there is no such thing as a call center “representative.” The members of her frontline are called consultants, and as a result, they feel a much greater sense of purpose and belonging in the conversation.

Though how an organization labels its frontline might seem trivial, the meaning of that label is anything but. For an agent to truly be “engaged,” he must feel empowered to support the customer and connected to the heart of the organization.

“Representatives” are one-directional microphones for the brand. They broadcast the brand’s message with little ability to individually consider the best response for a given customer. And their sole focus is to mitigate the volume of customer inquiries; they are not truly valued for their ability to give insight into how a brand can better deliver for its customers.

Fruits of labor
Without seeing the results of his effort, how can one be expected to place the appropriate value on that effort?

Simply put, he cannot.

If the call center wants its agents to accept accountability for their performance, it must give the agents legitimate reasons to care. Performance against given benchmarks should not only be measured but prominently linked to an agent’s status within the organization, if not outright trumpeted to the rest of the organization.

Meaningful rewards and perks should await those who achieve certain company goals and milestones, serving to remind agents how deeply the company values their effort. If the brand cannot be vexed to deliver bonus compensation more valuable than the consolation prizes on “Jeopardy,” how can it turnaround and ask agents to deliver above the baseline?

But beyond compensatory rewards, brands also must show that they work these agents do matters to the actual business strategy. Brands must connect the feedback agents provide to actual changes in the way it does business. If brands do not, they will not only discourage agents from providing feedback but also signal that learning about the customer is unimportant.

Is that the mindset call center agents should possess?

Training isn’t coaching
One of the greatest inhibitors to an agent’s engagement level is concern about the organization’s investment in his career. Sure, the brand wants agents to perform well, but when push comes to shove, is it looking for someone to answer phones competently or for someone to grow into an integral corporate asset?

How leadership goes about developing its agents speaks volumes about how it perceives such agents. If the main “development” focus is training the employees to properly route calls and read from the script, it is sending the message that agents are expendable resources designed to perform tasks.

If, instead, the supervisor takes a vested interest in learning the intricacies of how each agent is uniquely adapting to the role, he demonstrates the legitimate investment in that agent.

Coaching is about a commitment to making the agent more valuable to the organization, rather than simply better at performing tasks. It is also about self-awareness and learning how one can better provide for his staff in the supervisory role. Often, the key to being an effective coach is letting oneself be coached.

Essentially, the manager-agent relationship needs to be one based on partnership rather than order. Agents can only be driven to best deliver for the business when they believe the organization wants them to be the best version of themselves possible.

Coaches can only deliver that advice when they commit themselves to building on an individual’s unique strengths while helping him overcome his unique weaknesses. That commitment is not actualized from an Ivory Tower or from the pages of a textbook; it requires true vision and appreciation for what happens on the front-line.