The Day of the Dashboard Jun 13, 2007 12:25 PM
, By Lynn Grogan
JobZone
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Customer service representatives account for roughly
two-thirds of a contact center’s operating costs. In addition to the
considerable boost in revenue generated by improved up-sell and cross-sell
efforts, well-trained agents provide organizations with a valuable opportunity
to enhance the customer experience and improve loyalty. But training is an
expensive, ongoing process that represents a significant investment – one that
must be well protected. Agent attrition is a huge problem, and organizations
are recognizing the importance of implementing tools that not only train
agents, but also keep them happy and motivated.
Desktop dashboards can help. Driven by real-time performance
management and eLearning solutions, desktop dashboards provide management with
highly effective tools to train, empower, and motivate their agents. Desktop
dashboards are implemented for various uses and functions – from launching
training courses and coaching tips to displaying morale-boosting messages and
up-to-the-minute performance data, such as number of calls handled, conversion
rates, sales, and talk time.
The degree of technological automation in contact centers
today is quite astonishing and it’s easy to understand how some may be wary of
working under what could be perceived as Big Brother conditions. Workforce
management solutions figure out which agents should be working which shifts and
when they get to take breaks, lunch, and vacations. Each call can be recorded,
mined by speech analytics software for content, evaluated for quality, and
scored for countless key performance indicators (KPIs) by performance
management software. Automated post-call surveys invite the customer to score
an agent’s attitude and aptitude. At the end of the day, managers and
executives can access Web-based reports, enabling them to view performance by
group, site, or individual agent – they can even drill down to listen to
individual calls. Indeed, one could argue that agents are placed under such
intense scrutiny it’s hardly surprising that attrition rates are routinely in
excess of 30%.
So, with agents being managed, monitored, analyzed, and
optimized by a variety of highly effective technologies and systems, what kind
of impact will dashboards have on agent performance and morale? Unlike many
other contact center technologies that tend to work behind the scenes,
dashboards are literally in your face – they are docked on agent desktops and
customized to deliver an ongoing stream of up-to-date, real time information
specific to each agent. However, unlike most of the other contact center
technologies, the dashboard is designed to report to the agent, rather than reporting on the agent – acting as a helpful personal assistant, responsible
for supporting and informing the agent at all times. In addition to displaying
training flashes, quizzes, eLearning courses, examples of best practices calls,
compliance bulletins, and pre-shift announcements, dashboards can be configured
to enable agents to monitor the progress of their call handling expertise and
achievements on an ongoing, daily basis. They can view their quality scores,
skill development trends, and KPI-based metrics – individually, or compared to
the team.
Do agents feel oppressed by the presence of a dashboard? Do
they resent the constant reminders of their performance to date – docked on
their monitor throughout their shift? Far from it. Dashboards are proving to be
powerful motivational tools for agents. Instead of waiting for a weekly report
to inform them that their conversion rates have dropped or that they haven’t been
adhering to new quality requirements, agents are presented with a constant
update – providing them with the necessary impetus to take part in additional
training sessions and take control of their own performance.
Lynn Grogan is product marketing manager for Camarillo,
CA-based Voice Print International, a provider of interactions recording and
workforce optimization solutions for contact centers.
