How often have you sat through a training class that taught you 90% of what you already know? Too often, training call center employees go the exact same way.
Answer the phone friendly. Ask for the customer's name. Be polite.
These sorts of tips are common sense, and they aren't effective ways to train. We've got a few tips to help you train your call center employees better.
Be Engaging With Call Center Employees
One of the most important things you can do to boost the quality of your training methods is to engage your call center employees. One effective strategy is to engage your employees while you train them.
You can do this by playing out scenarios with the group you're training. Get your trainees to interact with each other by pretending to call in and answer. You can lighten the mood with this by joking around—this will help your employees remember their training and get something useful out of it.
Train Call Center Employees Consistently
It's important that call center employees be trained regularly. While the initial training is extremely important, there are always new things happening when it comes to phone marketing. Make sure you've got training rituals to go over these.
This can look like monthly meetings in person, maybe over a company lunch. However, in the age of working from home, this can also look like recorded videos you require employees to watch monthly.
Define the Outcomes Call Center Employees Should Achieve
Your call center can have a number of different duties, and it's important that your employees know what they need to accomplish each day.
For example, you may require your employees to send a warm transfer as often as possible to boost sales and keep prospects on the phone even when problems arise. Call center employees need to know that this is a solution to certain problems, and you should have some sort of metric to measure how often this is happening.
This can apply to any outcome you want to happen within your call center; try thinking of what metrics you can use to measure the outcomes you want.
Be Transparent With Call Center Employees
Call center employees need honest feedback, and you should provide a space for them to receive that during training as well as after the initial training. This can start with having a healthy culture within your call center.
A healthy call center workplace culture also promotes time for questions and feedback for you. This is a critical step to ensuring that your call center employees are succeeding, so don't be afraid to ask how you're doing as a supervisor or trainer.
Ready to Up Your Call Center Morale?
Call center employees can make or break your company; oftentimes it's the first place that a customer will speak with within your company. You need to establish good training and a great workplace environment for call center reps to ensure that your customers are receiving the best care you can offer. This investment in call center worker success will make you money in the long run!
