In a marketplace with shifting paradigms and evolving technologies, it’s easy for enterprises to lose focus on the value of the customer experience. However, success always begins and ends with the customer. There are necessary ingredients to achieve business goals such as a mix of expertise, infrastructure, and collaboration.
Many businesses use offshore contact center agents. While there may be a mixed perception, these agents can be integral to the customer experience with the right training, tools, policies, and procedures, along with coaching and calibration sessions.
To ensure these rules and expectations work well, it is essential to establish a quality monitoring and coaching program that addresses the who, when, and how of contact sessions with offshore agents. Within such programs, there are many important behaviors to listen for to determine whether or not offshore agents are delivering best-in-class service. The three primary behaviors are the following:
1. Listens actively:
When you’re working with offshore agents, language can be a success barrier. Language tends to lead to a perception or misconception of an agent’s ability to accurately answer questions. During the selection process, closely assess the agent’s language skills. Make sure agents truly listen to the customer’s problems and understand how best to address the questions.
2. Takes responsibility:
Oftentimes agents resist handing over an escalation to a supervisor. During a coaching session, it’s imperative to educate the frontline on all the right policies and procedures, so they can answer questions correctly the first time around without needing to escalate to supervisors. Encourage offshore agents to respond to negative customer sentiments with value and positive reinforcement statements. Apologizing and taking ownership of the problem can strengthen a customer—agent relationship.
3. Transfers interactions to the correct organization:
Frequent transfers, disconnects, and misdirected calls are all factors in customer dissatisfaction. It’s important to train the contact center agent on when to transfer and to ensure that the next point of contact has the right answers to assist the customer. Train offshore agents to use the right verbiage that ensures the caller that they have gotten to the right department and will receive the proper assistance.
By implementing a robust quality monitoring program that includes coaching and calibration sessions along with building a strong and collaborative partnership with your offshore team, you can enable your offshore agents to be a strong frontline for your organization. Furthermore, by focusing on these three behaviors you can ensure success in an offshore contact center.
Contact us to learn more about quality monitoring for successful coaching sessions.
