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

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

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

What is the Agent Lifecycle

Before the First Call

Up, Out or Beyond the

Contact Center

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Tenure on the Job

What is the Agent Lifecycle

Recruitment

Pre-Hire Assessment

Career Paths

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Training / Incubation

Quality Assurance

WFM / Performance Management

Motivation & Incentives

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

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

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

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

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

Next Steps

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For Additional Information

Jake Wengroff

Corporate Communications

Information & Communication Technologies

(210) 247-3806

Jake.wengroff@frost.com

Ashswin Iyer

Research Manager

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(650) 475-4537

Ashwin.iyer@frost.com

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