Three Approaches to Minimize the Challenges of Contact Center Performance Management

November 12th, 2021

Written by Emily Miller, Director of Marketing

We’ve been managing the effects of COVID-19 in the workplace now for quite some time. In the contact center space specifically, one in five centers saw call volume spike more than 50% compared to the previous year. With agents working hybrid or remotely now, the importance of having a quality cloud platform increased substantially. Contact center managers and supervisors had to be able to ensure that their agents were performing to their standards when they were miles away from each other. Contact center performance management became a hot topic of discussion due to its changing dynamic with remote and hybrid workers.

Some of the challenges that contact center managers face now when it comes to performance management include: less visibility into day-to-day employee activities, fewer in-person coaching or guidance opportunities, and a disconnected feeling from the agents due to a lack of engagement, incentive, and brand awareness. How do we face the new normal of performance management in contact centers? Here are three approaches to mitigating those challenges:

Gain Visibility with Desktop Analytics and Workforce Management

Desktop Analytics monitors the usage of different applications and browsing patterns, identifying if and when employees are spending time in productive and non-productive applications. When used with a workforce management solution, a manager can benchmark the desktop analytics reports against it – this provides visibility into employee activity during different hours of the day and enables managers to identify staff knowledge or focus gaps. This strategy pinpoints opportunities for improving the service of individual employees, improving team performance, and helping to accomplish business objectives.

Personalized Coaching

Personalized and highly targeted coaching programs empower employees with a clear sense of direction, providing specific steps to progress. The traditional classroom-style training can be expensive and less effective in improving employee engagement and performance – especially when the employees are stuck at home. With personalized coaching, managers can leverage information collected from monitoring tools to identify which employees require coaching on what topics.

Gamifying Improvement

Gamification can be a powerful tool when most employees work remotely and hardly see their peers. It can bring new energy and competition into a disconnected atmosphere. Effective performance management tools and data enable, inform, and creatively expand the vast potential of gamification. Some examples include quizzes, trivia apps, or challenges that are geared toward effectively impacting learning and performance. It could also look like success in reaching sales targets, lowering average handle time (AHT), or other KPIs is rewarded with points or badges of distinction. Finding what engages people at an emotional level and turning it into a gamification opportunity will be sure to increase agent productivity.

The new normal has shown us how critical it is to be adaptable. Finding solutions that adapt and grow with your contact center means stronger employee effectiveness, higher quality interactions, and larger profitable pathways. Wilmac’s consultative sales and superior service powered by the NICE CXone solution is sure to adjust with your needs and long-term goals.