Since the transition to remote working, monitoring agent performance has become much trickier, as supervisors cannot pick up on the performance trends they would in face-to-face environments.
Does the agent appear anxious? Have they got away from their desk since the start of their shift? Are they staying later than they should? These considerations are much more challenging to monitor and intervene to improve agent wellbeing.
Yet, it is not impossible to do so. Measuring each of the following metrics helps supervisors track remote employee trends, support agents, and increase morale.
1. Quality Scores
Contact centers undertake satisfaction research to discover which agent behaviors drive customer happiness. They then build these into a quality scorecard, which analysts fill in while listening to customer calls, tracking how well agents improve satisfaction rates.
Contact centers can monitor how agent performance is improving and faltering by assessing trends in overall scores, alongside trends in individual criteria within the scorecard. As a result, leaders can enhance their reward and recognition processes while offering better feedback.
2. Schedule Adherence
Schedule adherence is the only fair measure of agent productivity, as when agents adhere to their schedules, service levels stabilize. It is also a measure that agents have complete control over, which is not the case for other traditional productivity measures, including average handling time (AHT) and occupancy rates.
It is crucial that contact centers do NOT use these two metrics as productivity. Why? Because AHT depends on the types of calls that agents handle. Meanwhile, occupancy is a workforce management (WFM) metric and hinges on how well planners complete their forecasting and scheduling tasks.
3. Average Handling Time
Now, while agents should not measure AHT for productivity purposes, it is sometimes helpful for identifying skills gaps. For example, if an agent has long handling times across specific contact reasons, that may highlight a skill gap. If handling times are high throughout the team, this may signify a broken process or a missing knowledge article.
Also, it is beneficial to measure AHT in real-time. If agents record a succession of long handle times, this indicates a wellbeing issue. A quick supervisor intervention to offer support to the agent is perhaps critical to safeguard well-being and increase morale.
4. Agent Engagement
Highly engaged agents tend to be happy. Yet, engagement is more than satisfaction; it suggests that agents deliver excellent customer experiences. After all, satisfied agents do not consistently achieve the best quality scores; engaged agents do.
So, measuring agent satisfaction alongside a performance-based measure – such as quality scores or customer satisfaction – enables contact centers to create a rounded engagement metric.
For recruits, time to competency also provides an excellent indication of engagement during the early stages of their employee lifecycle.
5. Absence Rates
Absence is more than a KPI for the HR team. Also, it enables contact centers to spot worrying trends and address them to enhance job satisfaction.
For example, consider an agent that seems to be absent on Friday too often. Discuss the reason and consider offering them a schedule with fewer hours on Fridays. Doing so may increase agent satisfaction and allow contact centers to better meet service levels.