While many contact centers invest in contact center coaching, in many cases, good agents stay good, and average agents remain average. Call listening can make all the difference.
It refers to monitoring live customer calls to identify agent improvement opportunities. It allows managers to listen in on conversations and understand how agents handle customer interactions.
When used effectively, call listening enhances contact center performance. It helps identify training needs, uncover potential issues within the service experience, and provide valuable employee feedback.
The Benefits of Call Listening
Going into greater detail, here are a few critical reasons why call listening is central to contact center performance management.
Identify Training Needs
Managers can identify areas where agents may need additional training by monitoring calls. By filling in a QA scorecard, they can look for performance trends over time and get to grips with improvement opportunities, alongside agent strengths.
Provides Valuable Employee Feedback
In addition to identifying training needs, call listening helps provide employees with constructive feedback. Such feedback enables employees to improve performance and serve customers better while increasing agent engagement.
Uncover Potential Issues Within the Service Experience
If managers notice a trend of customer dissatisfaction, it may indicate a more significant problem with the company's overall CX design methodology or products/services. Call listening can help businesses isolate these issues and make necessary changes.
Improves KPI Analysis
Contact centers can track agent performance as a KPI by call listening and filling in a QA scorecard. By factoring in other agent KPIs - such as schedule adherence, handling times, and perhaps even first contact resolution (FCR) rates - companies can build a holistic view of each individual's performance.
Increases Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)
When agents are more efficient and better equipped to handle customer queries, it directly impacts CSAT. Call listening helps ensure that agents provide the best possible service – supported by their team leader – which will lead to happier customers.
Ensures Prompt Intervention
If something goes wrong during an interaction, call listening can help managers intervene promptly. This could involve monitoring a follow-up call in real-time or handling the issue directly with the customer.
During call listening, if an agent cannot resolve a client issue, the management can intervene to salvage the service experience and offer guidance to agents for solving similar problems in the future.