Guidelines for Call Centre Agents’ Training Program

Posted by Prachi Priya

Every call centre company has certain set guidelines for its agents and some golden rules that it teaches the employees. Customer satisfaction is supreme, which is why all outsourcing contact centre firms take their agents’ training program very seriously. After all, it is the agents who reach out to the customer, thus it is they who assure customer satisfaction for the business.

To understand the significance of agent training, let us remind you of the recent pandemic that shook the whole world, the COVID-19 threat. Now you must be curious about how Coronavirus and a call centre are connected?

Well, if the agents are not trained properly, they will not be able to handle call answering services appropriately. In such a pandemic situation, companies that generally run on outsourced call centre operations feel their services will not reach the audience correctly.

However, trained call support agents make sure they handle inquiries the same as before with cloud-based systems. Moreover, call centres are approached by the healthcare sectors to handle health-related inquiries well over calls. Thus adequately trained agents will help here!

Companies can outsource their call support or maybe other secondary functions, thus call centres/contact centres need to take care of their agents’ training to help employees learn ways to tackle every situation. Your contact centre can be hired to handle any business function, thus your agents need to be trained and ready.

This is why appropriate training is stressed so that the agents do not land up their clients’ business into any trouble.

It is important to remember that customers’ expectation is growing rapidly every day and to live up to them, appropriate training and experience is necessary.

Thus, here we team up the qualitative training program every call centre must include for its agents. Check out:

Developing the Agents’ Skill

Every call centre/contact centre firm needs to devote time to the agents’ skill development. How?

Well, simple! Evaluate the agents’ clear communication skills, empathy, teach them about first call resolution and help them remove interaction fear.

Firstly, BPO companies need to hire agents that have good communication skills and do not fear to handle multiple calls. Post hiring; check whether your agents are able to deliver the required information clearly to the client or not. Their sentence formation, language and intercommunication skills have to be understandable and interactive. Thus, train the staff on their shortcomings to avoid any threat to customer satisfaction.

Secondly, train your agents to understand the customers’ perspective. Urge them to be soft-spoken and interactive to win the customers’ trust. Tell your agents that they need to understand the customers’ situation by putting themselves in the clients’ shoes.

Lastly, inform the agents about the First Call Resolution. Customers do not like calling the business agent again and again for query resolution. Therefore, every call centre company needs to train the staff about qualifying calls in the first attempt. Failing in doing so, there is a huge threat to business brand image and of losing customers' trust.

Calculating first call resolution rate. Picture source- manageengine.com

Losing the clients’ trust, their negative word of mouth considerations can have detrimental effects on business health, thus help your agents understand these small details.

Agents as Product Influencers

Call centre companies majorly work for client companies handling their non-core functions. Thus, the agents here need training for being the partners’ product influencers.

Companies outsourcing contact centre facilities work for multiple clients, which is why it is their duty to understand the clients’ expectations as well as their products and services. The details about products and services need to be disseminated amid the agents so that it is easy for them to handle customers thereafter.

The customers should not come to know that they are talking to an external agent, which makes training on products and services indispensable.

Work hard on making your call centre agents your clients’ product influencers.

Teach KPI Tracking

The Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are the guide to showcasing the decline/growth in business functions. The supervisors need to be trained on adequate recording and execution plans with KPIs under consideration. KPIs help to make sure that all functions are working properly and that there is no threat to customer satisfaction.

Training on the Cloud-Based System

The traditional call centre and contact centre systems were all about call answering support systems handled by a team of agents sitting in a call centre environment.

Nevertheless, with modern technologies taking over, call centres shifted to cloud-based systems where businesses receive services in a subscription model available over the internet. Cloud is a network-based model and agents need to be trained to work on the same.

Training helps the agents work dedicatedly at times of a natural disaster or any state of a pandemic.

Today the world is fighting the COVID-19 virus, so are the call centres shut down due to lockdown situations everywhere?

Well, no!

Call centres are still functioning the same way with cloud-based systems where. Cloud helps the business services function the same as before with just an internet connection. It also helps to keep surveillance on the agent’s work easily sitting anywhere in the world. This is the reason companies outsource their non-core functions to call centre companies, as they know there is no fear of lockdown.

So make sure you have cloud-based solutions and trained agents for your contact centre.

A Feedback Mechanism

All agent training programs need to have a feedback mechanism. This feedback help assures that the agents understand what is being taught to them.

The feedback mechanism helps the contact centres know each agent closely. It assures that agents are ready to meet customer requirements and handle high call volumes.

The agents put a great impact on customers, thus their training and professionalism matter a lot. Consequently, training in a feedback mechanism is important.

Training on Policies and Growth Path

Firms outsourcing contact centre services need to train their agents on the company’s policies and rules. The agents need to be familiar with the business growth plan so that the goals are clear.

Not only is this, but regular training sessions help the agents polish their abilities and succeed.

Training, after all, turns agents into top performers!

Thanks for reading!

Tags: Guidelines for call centre agents Training programs Outsourcing contact centre Answering Services Cloud-Based Call Centre