Importance of Executive Coaching
Executives are the backbone of any organization, as their dedication, contribution, and decisions make the organization grow.
Coaching
Why Coaching and Learning Tools Are Integral to Your QA Program?
Every business needs to be constantly on the lookout for new ways to evolve. If you want to make meaningful progress as a company, one of the best things you can do is seek out new opportunities for growth and improvement.
Leadership Courage in this Moment: Be Encouraged
When crisis hits, it is critical to have alignment around key priorities that can be used to guide decision making, and to communicate these priorities clearly, widely and often. Once that is done, the real work begins. How to meet priorities can often become a point of friction under the best of circumstances. Throw in a time of crisis and it can truly feel overwhelming. Take heart and be certain…there will always be times of uncertainty. Whether dealing with changes to technology, process, economic pressures, resource gaps, political discord, catastrophic weather events, global pandemics, or any combination of unsavory hardships be encouraged. While this may sound strange to you, there is a method to the madness. Here is what you need to know. YOU are and can be the right leader for this moment. Anything worthwhile is uphill…meaning it comes through challenge, friction, resistance and quite frankly a lot of hard work. Do not be detoured by this; let it fuel you. YOU are uniquely qualified for this moment…that is why you are here. This is an uphill battle, but you are not alone on this journey. Success will not come overnight. If it did the endeavor was not that worthwhile to begin with. No, true success will only come with the unrelenting pursuit of forward progress. One step at a time, one day at a time break through moments are right ahead. Commit to do the work and carry the load. It won’t be easy but you do hard things and you find ways to do them better than anyone else continually. Make this your super-power! Where to start? It begins with you. In this moment focus on three things to position yourself and those you lead for success. 1.) Reachhigh – Don’t put limits on yourself or your team. Instead, be encouraged to transform. Like The Little Engine That Could chants over and over, “I think I can, I think I can”, listen to that inner voice and know you can. The vision you have for ultimate achievement for yourself and your team…the one you are afraid to even dare dream? Yes, that’s the one now is the moment to reach for it! Opportunity is born in times of adversity for those with the courage to stretch, grow and reach beyond current circumstances. Make the decision, now is your time to reach high. 2). Reach long– Simon Sinek talks about an Infinite Mindset. This isn’t striving for peaks only to be followed by valleys, rinse and repeat. In fact, it’s not a single destination at all which will define success. Instead it is knowing you and your team are meant for far greater things perpetually and to have this perpetual mindset. In this moment, focus less on numbers and more on the behaviors that drive these numbers and do this with consistency. What am I saying? Great empathy statements drive CSAT, asking for the sale drives conversion, reading disclosures ensures compliance and reduces cancels, role playing these behaviors with your team correctly builds confidence and competence. The list goes on and on. Focus on building skills that link to what you need to accomplish. There is no limit to what you can achieve, the secret is in the effort and the journey…keep going, keep building and keep reaching long. 3). Reach back– One of the most important things we are called to do is to care for those we have the privilege and responsibility to lead. Be the one to lift others up. Every person has an important story. Every person goes through things in their lives that will shape who they are, how they see things, and how they respond to different events. Know your team and be intentional about building your connection in a meaningful way to meet them where they are. This heart/mind leadership is one of the most important life skills you must develop as a leader. Nobody cares how much you know…until they know how much you care. As servant leaders we can serve without leading, but we cannot lead well without serving. To do this we must extend a hand to support, to equip, to guide, to teach, to prepare, to correct, to inspire, and to lift. Whether it is in person or virtually is not what is important in this moment. The significance is in the action. You can be creative and mix up the tools you use. Virtual meetings like those on TEAMS are great ways to meet individuals as well as groups around the globe and build connection personally and professionally. We live in a virtual world and building community by leveraging technology is easier now than ever before. There are many platforms to choose from. Phone, video chat, email and text can also be a part of your connection strategy. Be clear, be transparent, and most importantly be there to care for your team…reach back. There is a greater purpose to why you are here, and who you are called to be. This moment is not easy; it will not be easy. You do hard things. This is why you are the right leader for this moment, and your best days are right ahead. Reach high, reach long, reach back to lift others and be encouraged!
5 Keys to Effective Coaching
Coaching employees is important for continuity of an organization. Your leadership team needs to pass on the wisdom and knowledge they have gathered over the years to the upcoming managers. As a leader, I believe this is an important indicator of your commitment to your organization. Are you taking time to coach the middle-level managers to be great leaders, maybe even better than you are? A coach (you) is someone who trains and teaches, therefore, coaching is helping others to develop, improve, and learn new skills. Business coaching leads to empowered personnel, therefore increasing their productivity. It is not only important to know how to coach, but also important to be effective at it. Here are five keys that will help you move from being just a coach to being an effective coach. 1. Start with Relationships Coaching focuses on helping, not controlling. Therefore, to help an employee to improve you need to have a relationship first. For example, a manager who leads by position cannot coach others because his focus is on personal authority and power not the other person. This is no way to build a relationship. The coached can only listen and learn from someone he or she trusts, and similarly will follow the leader he or she trusts. As the coach you need to develop trust with the coached, set out clear objectives of the coaching, exercise patience with them, and fulfill your promise. 2. Get Consent from the Coached You cannot force your agenda onto another person because they may not take it well. In most cases a manager will coach an employee in a performance area that they need to improve. Imagine a scenario where you just inform the employee they are not doing well and you will show them how to get better. Do you think they will learn from you? The key is to clarify where the performance issue is and get the employee to acknowledge and understand it. Then ignite a desire in them to get better at it and show them your improvement plans. The employee will willingly accept to do it your way and your coaching journey will begin. Keep in mind, it will be a waste of time and energy to proceed with coaching without an agreement from the employee. 3. Encourage and Support This is the essence of coaching. As you develop the coached, you need to do it by encouraging and supporting them. The result of your coaching should be a productive manager or employee. Important to note is that coaching is not one sided. The coached plays a critical role just like the coach. Listen to them as they vent or express their challenges without judging them harshly because this is what they are experiencing. From these conversations you will learn how to support and lead them in the right direction. When you encourage, cheer them on to achieve set goals. Just like the crowd cheering an athlete in a race motivates him to run faster, being the cheerleader will propel your employee forward. 4. Challenge Them Your coaching cannot be effective if all you do is encourage them. Get the employee to question the norm and come up with creative ways to doing things. When a situation is challenging, ask them open-ended questions to make them think deeper and harder on a solution. As much as you may have ideas of your own, do not give them away. Challenging the status quo and taking calculated risks builds their confidence. With increased confidence in decision-making, the coached will achieve more. 5. Give Feedback At the start of a coaching relationship, you need to set goals. Always let the employee know how they are performing. Are they getting better? If not, what is holding them back? Coaching is a continuous journey with evaluation stopovers. Remember these rules of thumb when providing feedback – be specific on what has changed or not, focus on the “what” not the reason “why”, be timely and use a sincere tone. Bringing it Together Keep in mind that you are coaching different individuals with different needs. Set out SMART goals to match the employees improvement needs from the onset. This way you can measure the outcome and know whether the coaching was effective or not. Incorporate coaching as part of your company culture; it is beneficial to all parties involved. Iron sharpens iron. Sharpen the younger generations to build better future organizations.
Are You Coaching Your Agents To Enhance Productivity?
Your call center performance is affected by the overall performance and productivity of your automated call center agents. Because of this, it’s enormously critical to set up and establish an effective agent training program to aid your agents’ achievement and promote quality assurance. There has in no way been a better time to educate your automated call center agents. Customer’s expectancy for service is constantly increasing making call center agents coaching a vital part of the puzzle. Improving overall performance control and coaching best practices in the automated call center is prime to keeping your customers happy. Customers depend on those organizations where they get a quicker result on their problems and get to engage with professional agents. This is why the agents need to be furnished with qualitative coaching for meeting the client’s expectations. Managers monitoring an automated call center understand that their agents require consistent trainings in order to deliver notable customer services. Regular coaching is critical for call center agents, whether or not it’s about any newly released product or adjustments in the already existing product. From taking orders to give customer support, difficult situations are bound to come up. But the way you deal with those conditions can be the difference between creating loyal customers and losing the business. Educate Agents in ways to create an emotional connection with clients Building upon core psychology of communication “it is not what you say, it’s how you say it”, the award-winning crew at Lebara Limited have translated a vision to “make lives better” into an effective operational tradition. This reinforces an emotional connection with clients. Training of workers to create these emotional connections with the customer makes for memorable customer experience thus promoting quality assurance. This emotional connection also can be achieved with the aid of the use of empathy statements that helps to enhance agent-customer rapport and by teaching agents to use high quality phrases, while keeping off bad language, along with “no”. Intensify the Agent’s Skill A fundamental part of the training periods need to be committed to the improvement of the agent’s skills. Here are the few elements to be covered to improve call center performance: Clear Intercommunication: Make sure the agents properly articulate words while offering something to the clients, whether or not they’re offering discount or giving them something complementary. Avoid jargons or the utilization of slangs. Empathy: Ensure your automated call center agents imagine themselves in the client’s shoes, this way; they will treat clients the way they would want to be handled. Look into their issues and offer them immediate help. They will actually appreciate the gesture. First Contact Resolution: A client would hate to call you over and over, and also repeat calls add cost to the call center. So, train your automated call center agents to perceive its significance. Link training to KPIs. Make certain that your automated call center agent training is focused. Having key overall call center performance indicators related to your training application will allow you to see patterns so as to spot issues and possibilities for improvement. Use these KPIs as the standards you’ll use to broaden your coaching program. Develop a positive remarks mechanism The agent’s level of overall call center performance should be measured and evaluated after each coaching session. It is carried out to recognize how much the agent has grasped from the coaching. And if a rep is lacking somewhere, bringing up their issues to them won’t be enough. It is vital to offer them the right directions, so, they would realize how they could make an effect in the near future. This is a part of the program that is majorly done to perceive as how many more classes are required with the aid of the reps or they’re already qualified for the activity. Handling calls during induction coaching Handling calls throughout the initial coaching session is a process that cannot be removed from the curriculum. This is what new hires were hired to do. Often either the device inside the lecture room doesn’t allow new hires to handle those calls or individual gadgets isn’t present for dealing with calls on the production ground. Maybe volume is so heavy on the call center ground that the new hires are requested to remove a session of call taking because of seating shortages. It is imperative that the brand new hires get practices in dealing with real-time calls. There isn’t any substitute for this experience. Role-play is ideal, but real call handling is crucial. Trainers have to make certain that equipments in the classroom work and are available for every “real-time” call handling session. Automated call center managers should make this a priority. Let agents pay attention to their call recordings Allow your agents to listen to their very own calls. When operating on a training objective, you can additionally, after the initial training, make them to give you a call where they assume they had been capable of implement that coaching. Running through this process will bring about the agent actively thinking about the coaching objective, so as to help them to embed the training into every call. Make them your Product Influencers Provide your agents with thorough product understanding. Your reps shouldn’t simply understand what you are promoting; they ought to even believe in it. Doing this will make your agents more like influencers and finally after they communicate to the clients, they will be perceived as an authority. This way they are able to impress the customers and establish a slim line of trust and credibility thus ensuring quality assurance. Along with the product capabilities, the agents have to even master the technological gear. The reps should get acquainted with CRM, ACD, dialers and different channels of communicating. Make certain it’s constant A coaching program that lacks structure and consistency can in the end do more damage than good. That’s why it’s so important to define your coaching strategies together with your call center supervisors before implementation. If
Is Your Call Calibration Integrated to QA Scoring and Coaching?
During a call center interaction between a representative and customer, a third participant sometimes monitors the call to ensure quality. This is called call calibration, and it is a very effective way to ensure that the quality of your customer service remains high. Businesses score the quality of the call using the call quality guidelines and quality monitoring form to provide representatives with feedback. If there is a problem with your call calibration, it will inevitably lead to customer service issues. Read the information below to determine if your call calibration is properly integrated with your coaching and scoring technique. The Benefits of a Uniform Approach Your calibration sessions will only be helpful if everyone has agreed to adhere to a single set of standards and objectives. If all participants have not agreed, there will be no uniform scoring method. It can take a while for your workers to adjust to a uniform set of guidelines, but once they do, your calibration sessions will allow you to enjoy the following benefits. Calls are measure consistently, regardless of which calibration professional scores it. Call monitors understand how to properly evaluate calls and adhere to performance standards and objectives. Representatives or agents receive fast, consistent feedback regardless of which QA monitor issues it. Calls are evaluated uniformly by all supervisors and QA monitors. Coaching improves because everyone is on the same page and uses the same approach. Tips for Successful Calibration Sessions There are numerous ways to ensure that your call calibration sessions are successful, including the following. Classify the nature of your calls, and select them according to your own QA needs. Devote at least one hour to each calibration session. If you need to determine which participants need coaching, send a copy of the recorded call to a QA monitor, and have them score it prior to the session independently. Record these independent scores for your own records. Have a single person give a summary of the call. Discuss variations in scores and review objectives with participants. Once a call is scored, ask the scorer for an explanation. Summarize lessons learned at the end of each session. Help each member understand whether or not they met the standards, and review the standards after each discussion. Take notes for future reference and for your own records. Prior to each session, go over the Call Quality Guide. Scores may vary, but you should always set an acceptable variance standard. Once the participants get used to the new guide, you can lower the window of variance to five points or less. If you are utilizing recorded calls, you may want to post the scores so that any variance will stand out. If you prefer to utilize live calls, you can have the participants score them one at a time. Just be sure that you go over the results with each scorer. Review the guide with participants before the start of each calibration session. Following the tips above will help you make the most of your calibration sessions. It will also ensure that the participants have a non-confrontational and supportive environment to voice their opinions and concerns in. This blog was first published on LinkedIn.
How to Integrate Quality Assurance and Coaching for Success
We all know the importance of offering exceptional customer service and the countless benefits that result from doing that. Quality assurance is at the core of ensuring that your customers receive quality services. In order to fully equip customer-facing employees, coaching programs must be comprehensive. How you train your staff determines the effectiveness of the quality assurance program. The seamless integration of quality assurance and coaching processes is critical to producing sustainable success. Define the Coaching Process You need to define the exact coaching process that everyone can follow so that this process can be integrated uniformly. Depending on the particular quality assurance goal, determine how much time, on average, the coaching session should require, what points will be covered in each session, how you will monitor the progress of the agent after the coaching session, and what elements should be documented in the resulting action plan following the session. Typically, front-line managers will initiate the coaching sessions, so consult with them on the best practices and methods in addition to your other subject matter experts. It is essential to have a mutual understanding of the process for consistency of the messages passed to the representatives. As you seek their input, you will also gain buy-in to the process, particularly if it is new or requires change. Document the process, you agree to follow for future referencing purposes. Train Your Coaches In addition to involving them in the process definition, you must train the coaches in order to drive lasting performance improvement. A well-trained coach knows that the employee should be able to both identify their errors and offer possible solutions. The coaches’ role is to guide them to accurately assess the situation and articulate how they will address the area of opportunity. The invaluable skills the coaches learn during their training will go a long way in ensuring that all employees receive consistent coaching. They will understand better how powerful teamwork is and instill the same spirit into the agents, without any bias during the evaluation and coaching stages. When the leaders are well-trained they will be positioned to develop consistent behaviors that promote quality interactions with the end customer. Build Partnerships with Agents The partnership means both parties own their roles and duties towards achieving the agreed goal. When the agents understand how they contribute to the success of the QA program they will be at the center of developing an improvement strategy. Leaders need to encourage agent participation in the evaluation process for an active partnership. For instance, seek their input as you draft the evaluation forms and involve them in calibration sessions. A great leader inspires others to be the best they can. You will motivate your agents to deliver quality services by demonstrating the behaviors you wish for them to emulate so that they learn from you even when you are not actively coaching. Choose and use words that will impact their attitude. Listen carefully to them and they will listen to your advice and guidance. Create an environment conducive for effective coaching to occur. Prepare in Advance Once you have looped in the managers and customer representatives, you need to prepare them mentally regarding the upcoming coaching sessions. Failure to do so will lead to one-way communication and mediocre results. A coaching session will be most effective when the agent is free to provide input on delivering quality services, identify where they believe they went right or wrong, and possible solutions to remedy the prevailing issues. An Acknowledgment under your guidance will equip the agent to take responsibility for his or her actions and encourage effective two-way communication. Leverage Technology Technology is always your ally when it comes to integration. There are countless technology options that will make your work effortless and seamless. For example, you can develop scorecards and dashboards to reduce the time you would otherwise use for data analysis and free up time for coaching. Information can be aggregated to make it easy to understand and provide targeted direction for program remediation efforts. Following these tips will enable you to integrate quality assurance with coaching: define the process, train the coaches, build partnerships with agents, prepare in advance and leverage technology. Your business will grow and thrive when every person actively participates in the Quality Assurance program.
3 Ways to Help Others Develop Valuable Leadership Skills
Leadership skills do not come naturally to most people, but almost everyone will need them at some point. Most people will inevitably be faced with situations that require them to exercise leadership skills in various aspects of their life ranging from personal to professional. As a leadership coach, it is important for you to understand the various stages of the leadership journey. Once you understand what it takes to become a leader, you will have an easier time helping others develop valuable leadership skills that will help them throughout their lives. According to Blanchard’s Situational Leadership® II model, people who are learning a new task or skill go through four predictable phases. They start in the Enthusiastic Beginner stage then make their way through the remaining stages until they are Self-Reliant Achievers. Those who have made it to the latter level feel confident in their current roles. Due to the level of comfort and familiarity they have achieved in their current positions, they often have trouble adjusting when they take on leadership roles for the first time. As a leadership coach, it is your job to turn Self-Reliant Achievers into confident leaders. Here are three ways you can utilize your coaching skills to help new leaders get past their initial nervousness and uncertainty until they develop the leadership skills they need to succeed. Set Realistic Expectations One of the most common problems new leaders run into is setting unrealistic expectations for themselves. As a coach, it is your job to reinforce the fact that developing new skills takes time and effort. Once individuals in leadership roles realize that each attempt they make is a step towards success and greater experience, they will see their professional journey in a whole new light. Leadership skills don’t just pop up overnight. They must be learned and developed before they can be mastered. Put Knowledge Into Practice You can’t learn a new skill unless you put your knowledge into practice. Even if you fail, you still grow and learn something new from the experience. One of the most important things a new leader can do is try over and over again until they get it right. Accept Help When placed in a new leadership role, it may feel like you are expected to know everything right from the start. However, the best leaders are those who know how to ask for and accept help from others when needed. Most people will not look down on you if you ask them for their advice or expertise. In fact, they are more likely to be flattered at the opportunity to share their knowledge with you. There is no need to try and do it all alone when you have helpful resources all around you. Collaborating with others is also a great way to enhance organization culture and improve interdepartmental cooperation. Becoming a successful leader is a difficult process that can be painful at times. However, with perseverance and proper coaching, anyone can accomplish their goal. Great leaders become invaluable assets to their companies and communities and enjoy rich rewards for their hard work.
4 Tips for Reducing Attrition in the Contact Center
High turnover is a challenge for a contact center and especially the recruiting department whom need to ensure that the companies has sufficient staff to meet all the customers’ needs. A majority of the agents in the contact center are aged between 18 years to 35 years. These are the famous generation Y, and their working culture has seen its fair share of negativity. Generation Y employees expect instant results and success, and will move to another job without blinking if they will reach their goals faster. That makes the contact centers all over the world have the highest turnover rate according to statistics. It is inevitable for employees to leave your company, but that should not discourage you. You can try working on these four tips to reduce churn at your contact center: Engage the employees Employee engagement is very important for you to reduce churn. When your employees feel engaged and involved with the company, they will be more productive. A high-performing employee is recognized for their hard work, and this motivates them to do more. To engage the millennial employee, think of utilizing technology, as they have grown up with technology and work well with it. For example, you can introduce electronic games that they can play during their breaks, and can compete as individuals or teams. At the end of the day, your goal is to have highly engaged employees who will be satisfied with their roles and not want to leave as soon as they start working. Create a supportive working environment An agent is under a lot of pressure. The management expects him or her to meet certain KPI’s, and the customer expects to receive the best customer care. Being the link between the two parties, at times it gets tough, for example, when dealing with frustrated customers. Why and how the customer is angry is not under your control, but you can ease the burden for the agents by creating a supportive working environment. Let them feel your support and motivation on a daily basis. Allow your agents to escalate extremely difficult issues for them to resolve and you can give the customers a solution as well as teach the agent how to deescalate at the same time. Ensuring their working spaces are clean and habitable will also help employees to be comfortable as they work. Add meaning to their jobs Another reason that generation Y employees quit their jobs is if it doesn’t create some meaning. They don’t want just to work for the sake of it; they want their work to be meaningful. You can create meaning by involving them in charity work or volunteer opportunities. They get to interact with the communities around them and feel they are giving back to the community they live in. You can also ask them to give suggestions of the charities they want to support. Such opportunities get them involved and interested in their job as it gives them a chance to influence the company decisions. Acknowledge their Performance Finally and importantly, you need to acknowledge their efforts. Motivation fuels the desire to do better even when the going gets tough. As a manager, you need to appreciate your agents and show them that they are doing well. A simple “Thank you” for handling a customer well, for bringing in the highest sales, or showed the best improvement will go a long way in motivating that agent. They will feel appreciated and valued. Therefore, they will continue giving their best to work not searching online for the vacancy announcements. Remember to commend even the ones who are trying to reach the top, not just those who are already there. Working with a highly motivated team will reduce churn in your contact center. In summary, to reduce churn in your contact center, keep you employees engaged and motivated. They will derive satisfaction from their jobs and not be quick to look for something else. This blog post first publish on LinkedIN
