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Best Practices in Managing the Agent Lifecycle
Keith Dawson, Principal Analyst
Contact CentersContact Centers
December 15, 2010
Frost & Sullivan’s Growth Consulting can assist with your growth strategies
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Today’s Presenter
Keith Dawson, Principal Analyst
Frost & Sullivan
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Focus Points
• Agent population is not homogenous
• Managing the different stages are critical to
coping with turnover
• Combination of technology and operations
practices come to play at each stage
• What are the best practices in each stage,
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• What are the best practices in each stage,
and overall
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The Care and Feeding of Agents
Proper agent management means:
• Making sure you have the right number of them
• That they have the right skills for the job
• That they have the proper tools to do their work
• That what you spend on them does not balloon out of control
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• That what you spend on them does not balloon out of control
• That they perform at a consistent level
• That you properly measure that performance and relate it to other
goals of the company
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What is the Agent Lifecycle
Before the First Call
Up, Out or Beyond the
Contact Center
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Tenure on the Job
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What is the Agent Lifecycle
Recruitment
Pre-Hire Assessment
Career Paths
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Training / Incubation
Quality Assurance
WFM / Performance Management
Motivation & Incentives
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Before the First Call
• Larger and more qualified talent pools
• Regional or skills-based pipeline management
Recruitment
• Personality testing for better “fit”
• Improves morale, leads to longer Pre-Hire
Assessment
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• Improves morale, leads to longer tenuresAssessment
• Linking hiring tools with coaching
• Better metrics, scorecards and dashboards for agents
Integrated Training
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Tenure on the Job
• Moving beyond traditional KPIs
• Linking hiring tools with coachingWFO Tools
• Internal communications skills
• Collaborative skills
Continuous Training
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• Collaborative skillsTraining
• Streamlining desktop processes
• Better metrics, scorecards and dashboards for agents
Workflow Optimization
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Up, Out or Beyond
• Clarity on agents’ positions in the hierarchy
• Clarity on potential options inside and outside the center
Career Pathing
• Measure criteria that go beyond performance on call handling
• Provide info on the contextual
Motivations & Options
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• Provide info on the contextual role of CSRs
& Options
• Systems for sharing of shortcuts
• Capturing hidden agent knowledge
DataCapture
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Best Practices
• Inventory job specs and skills
• Audit success and failure
factors
• Leverage turnover costs in
business case
• Bring in other relevant
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• Bring in other relevant
professionals
• Benchmark assessments
against predicted performance
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More Best Practices
• Spell out the advancement
options
• Constant skills/refresher
training for reps at all levels
• Experienced agents =
training & knowledge
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training & knowledge
resource
• Instill more than call
handling, instill contextual
understanding
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Next Steps
� Request a proposal for or Growth Partnership Services or Growth Consulting Services to support you and your team to accelerate the growth of
your company. ([email protected]) 1-877-GoFrost (1-877-463-7678)
� Join us at our annual Growth, Innovation, and Leadership 2011: A Frost & Sullivan Global Congress on Corporate Growth (www.gil-global.com)
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� Register for Frost & Sullivan’s Growth Opportunity Newsletter and keep
abreast of innovative growth opportunities
(www.frost.com/news)
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Competitive Structure?
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For Additional Information
Jake Wengroff
Corporate Communications
Information & Communication Technologies
(210) 247-3806
Ashswin Iyer
Research Manager
Contact Centers
(650) 475-4537
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Sales Manager
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