“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.”
Ernest Hemingway

This high Impact program aims to provide managers with essential skills and knowledge related to the effective control of incoming/outgoing calls, as well as planning development, resource allocation and staffing issues.

Training Course Modules
•    Contact Center Capability Assessment and Analysis
•    Contact  Center Metrics
•    Key Performance Indicators and Performance Scorecards
•    Contact  Center Technology
•    Forecasting and Scheduling
•    Hiring and Staffing
•    Training and Retention
•    Coaching for Improved Performance
•    Quality Monitoring

A.    Call Center Capability Assessment and Analysis

1.    Perform a current assessment of your call center's operations and your own capabilities as a call center manager

2.    Understand the five levels of process area capability
a.    Compute capability levels for each of your call center's process areas
b.    Identify areas most in need of improvement

3.    Determine your contact center's Corporate Maturity Model score and what it means

4.    Understand the use of Service Level Agreements  and Operational Level Agreements
a.    How to create and manage SLAs and OLAs

5.    Perform a call center SWOT analysis

6.    Define a call center vision statement

7.    Define your center's service mission

8.    Identify and document near-term strategies for your center

B.    Contact  Center Metrics Part I: Call Center Metrics Detail.

•    Understand the difference between metrics and Key Performance Indicators
•    Classify metrics for a performance management scorecard
•    Learn all the most commonly used call center metrics and performance indicators

• o    A definition of the measure
• o    Useful scorecard classifications
• o    How to calculate the measure
• o    How to use the metric or KPI in managing the call center
• o    The relationships between key metrics
• o    Establishing call center metric target values
• o    Evaluating results
• o    ABA - Abandonment Rate
• o    ACW - After Contact Work
• o    AUX - Auxiliary Time
• o    Available Time
• o    AHT - Average Handle Time
• o    ASA - Average Speed of Answer
• o    Attrition Rates
• o    ATT - Average Talk Time
• o    Blockage
• o    Calls in Queue
• o    Contacts per Agent
• o    Conversion Rates
• o    CPC - Cost Per Contact
• o    Customer Satisfaction    o    Employee Satisfaction
• o    Error Rates
• o    FCR- First Contact Resolution
• o    Forecasting Accuracy
• o    Hold Time
• o    Idle Time
• o    OCC - Occupancy
• o    Quality
• o    Schedule Adherence
• o    Schedule Efficiency
• o    Self-Service Utilization
• o    SL - Service Level
• o    Staff Shrinkage
• o    Transfer Rate

•    The Life of a Contact  

o      Call arrival
    Blocked contacts
    Extended wait times
    Self-service
    Abandoned calls

o    Call processing
    Average speed of answer
    Average talk time
    After contact work
    Hold time
    Average handle time

o    Call disposition
    First Contact Resolution
    Transfer rates
    Conversion rates
    Error rates

o    Productivity
    Contacts per agent
    Closed tickets per analyst

•    Managing resources
o    Schedule adherence
o    Auxiliary time
o    Available time
o    Idle time
o    Occupancy rate
o    Agent utilization

 
Contact  Center Metrics Part 2: Key Performance Indicators and Performance Scorecards
 

•    Customer satisfaction
o    Setting satisfaction targets
    Industry targets for customer satisfaction
o    Conducting a customer satisfaction survey
o    Establishing the goals of the survey
o    Determining the survey sample
o    How to select the customers to be surveyed
o    Types of new and existing customers and feedback they can offer
o    Surveying former and prospective customers

o    Selecting an interviewing methodology
    Written
    Telephone
    Verbal
    Electronic
    Focus group
o    Surveying frequency
    Transaction surveys
    Ongoing surveys
    Spot surveys
o    Alternate survey method advantages and disadvantages
o    Designing the questionnaire
    Common survey question formats and examples
    Rating scales and agreement scales
o    Data analysis and reporting
o    Communicating the findings
    Results
    Findings and conclusions
    Follow-up actions with customers and key stakeholders
•    Cost per Contact
o    Calculating cost per contact
o    Calculating cost per contact by channel
o    Managing cost per contact and cost variance
o    Benefits and responsibilities of access to the call center budget
    Budgets and expense category examples
o    Strategies for controlling cost per contact and areas to target for cost reduction
•    First Contact Resolution (FCR)
o    What you can learn from FCR
    Correlations
o    Factors that affect FCR
o    How FCR is tracked and measured
o    How to improve FCR
    Specific areas you can investigate that positively impact FCR
•    Quality
o    Quality defined
o    Quality monitoring mission
o    Goals of a quality program
o    Implementing a quality assurance program
•    Abandonment metrics
o    Abandonment metric myths
o    Calculating abandonment rate
o    How to interpret meaningful information from abandonment rates and bail rates
    Time series analysis
•    Creating an actionable KPI scorecard
o    Actionable process metrics
o    Investment, capacity, and utilization
o    Efficiency
o    Productivity
o    Effectiveness and ROI
•    Conducting the KPI Stakeholder Impact Analysis
o    Identifying the stakeholders
o    Capturing stakeholder objectives and interests
o    Evaluating the stakeholders' impact on KPI's
o    Assessing stakeholder influence
o    Assigning priorities to stakeholders
o    Identify assumptions and risks
•    Strategies for reporting and marketing call center successes
o    Customer satisfaction
o    Quality scores
o    Agent performance
o    Key Performance Indicators
o    Stakeholder objectives

C.    Contact  Center Technology
•    The role of technology in the call center
•    Tracking the flow of calls through various technologies
•    Call arrival and delivery technologies
o    Public Switched Telephone Network
o    Private Branch Exchange
o    Voice over Internet Protocol
o    Automatic Call Distribution
    Skill-based routing
    Priority-based routing
o    Interactive Voice Response
    Prompts, scripting and dialogue design
    Best practices for creating IVR scripts
o    Computer Telephony Integration (CTI)
•    Key roles technologies play in today's contact center configurations and business models
o    Single/Centralized vs. Multi/Decentralized
o    Domestic and offshore
o    Virtual
o    On-demand
o    Remote agents and home workers
•    The pros and cons of virtual call centers
o    Benefits and risks of virtual call center reps
o    Business considerations before adding virtual reps
o    What to include in your Telecommuting Standard Operating Procedures manual
•    Workforce management software tools.

D.    Forecasting and Scheduling
•    Forecasting future call center volume and demands
o    Key forecasting principles
o    Metrics that effect forecasting
o    Forecasting limitations
o    Volume variation patterns that can facilitate forecasting

o    Planning for the forecasting process
    Time intervals that correspond to variations in call volume
    Selecting a forecasting time horizon
    Planning for unanticipated changes or events
    Assessing forecasting risks and hazards
    Performing analyses
    How and when judgment and intuition play a role in forecasting

•    Forecasting call center agent workload
o    How to collect workload metrics
o    Analyzing historic call volumes and predicting variations and trends
o    How to calculate and forecast future workload

•    Forecasting required staffing levels
o    Adherence to schedule and how it impacts the call center
    Schedule adherence variances
    Calculating schedule adherence
    Tactics for improving agents' adherence to schedule

•    Maintaining your agent workforce capacity
o    Controlling internal and external attrition
o    Contact center productivity targets that lead to burnout and stress
o    Normal turnover vs. agent churn
o    Controllable and uncontrollable absenteeism and what to do about each

•    Creating optimal staffing schedules
o    Schedule optimization techniques
o    How to use workforce management software
o    Easy workforce management tools that costs little and do and great job
•    Developing an action plan for improving forecasting and scheduling in your call center.

E.    Staffing
•    Building your call center staff
•    Assessing current staffing conditions
o    The current staff hiring process review
o    How to determine skill gaps

o    Current attrition and its impact
    Calculate the cost of attrition
    Examine causes of attrition
    Developing a plan to reduce attrition
    Attrition do's and don'ts checklist
o    The exit interview process
o    Working forecasted staffing requirements and workforce management practices into the process

•    Preparing the business case
•    Perform an Agent Skills Analysis
•    Perform an Agent Skills Gap Analysis
•   Contact  center job descriptions
•    Conducting an agent search
o    Methods of searching for qualified candidates
o    HR Operating Level Agreements and establishing parameters of support
o    Techniques for developing an employee referral program

•    Pre-screening processes
•    Correct use of candidate testing and assessments
o    Developing a testing process
o    Types of pre-employments skills tests and other assessments
•    Simulation and observation techniques in hiring
o    Developing the process
o    How to select appropriate simulations
o    Methods of observation
o    Observation planning steps
•    Face to face interviewing
o    Behavioral-based interviewing techniques
o    How to align the interviewing process with the job skills analysis
•    The job offer
o    Verifying criteria for employment
o    How to draft effective offer and rejection letters

F.    Training and Retention
•    The impact of an effective training program
•    Preparing the business case
o    Appropriate budget allocation for training
o    How to evaluate the current training plan and its effectiveness
•    The continuous improvement call center agent training cycle
o    New hire training
o    Nested transitional training
o    Up training
o    Refresher training
•    How to develop and communicate standard operation procedures
•    A training program development design methodology
•    Analysis of call center training needs
o    How to conduct a training needs analysis
o    Identifying training program stakeholders
o    Prepare a Stakeholder Impact Analysis
•    Training program design
•    How to establish training goals and objectives

G.    Coaching for Improved Performance
•    Fundamentals of coaching
o    The special role of a coach
o    Your coaching role within the call center
o    Differences between coaching, critiquing, feedback and performance reviews
o    How to create a coaching culture
o    Qualities of an effective coach
o    Perform a coaching self-assessment
o    Assess your coaching fears and learn how to overcome them
o    Common coaching mistakes and strategies for avoiding mistakes
•    How to define and prepare for a coaching session
o    Pre-coaching phase preparation
o    The coaching situation statement
o    Determining a person's disposition based on motivation and performance levels
    The four dispositions
o    Selecting a coaching method and preparing for responses
    Different types of coaching conversations and how to correctly conduct each for maximum effect
    Performance Improvement
    Counseling
    Teaching
    Motivating
    Investigative
    The five types of employee responses and how to address them
o    Establishing a coaching plan for team leads and supervisors
    The 11-step coaching self-assessment
    The coaching session Action Checklist
    The 10-step coaching discussion planner
o    Practice coaching sessions
•    Conducting the coaching session
o    Coaching techniques; how and when to utilize them
    Active listening
    Proactive questioning
    Positive tone, words and body language
o    Notes, review, and good summarization techniques
•    Post-coaching follow-up action planning
•    Fine-tuning your communication skills
o    Learn how to communicate effectively with different communication styles
o    Assess your communication style in class using the "Classic" (i.e. non-abbreviated) DiSC Communication Style assessment
o    Strategies you can use to better communicate and adapt to others' communication styles

H.    The Quality Monitoring Process
•    Establish the quality requirements for your call center
o    Quality management defined
o    Defining the organization's concept of quality
o    Developing a quality monitoring program mission statement
o    How to define quality monitoring standards
o    Aligning quality objectives with customer satisfaction
o    How to communicate quality monitoring goals and value to agents, customers, and management
•    Designing a quality monitoring form
o    Build a new monitoring form based on seven best practices
o    How to determine and categorize characteristics of a call that lead to quality
o    Guidelines to be used in evaluating call quality
o    Monitoring forms that incorporate the key service categories and call components
o    Creating a quality monitoring scoring system
o    How to define agent scoring objectives
•    Establishing quality team responsibilities and parameters
o    Who monitors
o    How often should calls be monitored
o    Who provides post-monitoring coaching
o    The volume of calls to monitor
o    Methods by which call can be monitored
o    Determining the frequency and timing of call monitoring activities
•    Performance evaluation standards
o    Performance measures for the quality monitoring process
o    Performance measures for the quality monitoring team
•    Implementing a coaching and feedback loop for continuous improvement
o    The who, how, and when of providing effective monitoring feedback
•    The calibration process
o    Standard deviation and uniformity of scoring -- how they relate
o    How to compute and use standard deviation to improve quality in monitoring
•    Quality monitoring software and capabilities
•    How to document the quality program and manage changes in the process
•    How to use quality scores as a marketing tool with key stakeholders

I.    Performance Improvement Project Selection
•    Factors effecting management's evaluation of contact center performance
o    Customer loyalty and retention considerations
o    Corporate marketability
•    Components of contact center value
•    Management initiatives and effects
•    Selecting and prioritizing performance improvement projects
•    How to identify high-impact, affordable, worthwhile improvement projects
o    Financing criteria
o    Staffing requirements
o    Impact criteria


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