How contact centers with remote agents maintain coaching quality with live assist
-
Bella Williams - 10 min read
Maintaining coaching quality in contact centers with remote agents can be a daunting challenge. Supervisors often face limitations in capacity, leading to inconsistent coaching experiences and potential burnout. The stakes are high: agent performance directly impacts customer satisfaction, and without effective coaching, agents may struggle to develop their skills. This post explores how contact centers can leverage real-time coaching solutions, particularly through live assist technologies, to enhance coaching quality and ensure consistent performance across remote teams.
Understanding Real-Time Coaching
Traditional vs. Real-Time:
In traditional coaching models, feedback is often delayed, occurring days or weeks after a call. This approach reviews past performance, which can correct historical behavior but fails to address issues as they arise. Agents become passive recipients of feedback rather than active participants in their development.
In contrast, real-time coaching occurs during live interactions, allowing supervisors to provide immediate guidance. This method not only prevents errors before they happen but also engages agents in the learning process, making them active learners who can apply feedback instantly. The coverage is comprehensive, as real-time coaching can be applied to 100% of calls, unlike the 2-5% typically reviewed in traditional methods.
How It Works:
During the Call: Real-time agent assist technology monitors conversations, identifying coaching opportunities such as missed upsells or incorrect information. When an opportunity arises, a prompt appears on the agent's screen, allowing them to apply coaching immediately.
Supervisor Monitoring: Supervisors can view all agents simultaneously through a dashboard, receiving alerts for moments requiring intervention. This capability enables instant messaging for coaching and captures performance data automatically, streamlining the coaching process.
The result? One supervisor can effectively coach 20-30 agents in real-time, compared to just 8-10 in a traditional setup.
Supervisor Capacity Transformation
Workflow Shift:
The integration of real-time agent assist technology transforms the workflow for supervisors. In the traditional model, supervisors spend approximately 60% of their time listening to calls and manual scoring. However, with real-time coaching, this shifts dramatically:
Old Workflow:
- 60% Listening to calls and manual scoring
- 20% Documentation and reporting
- 15% Scheduled coaching sessions
- 5% Real-time floor support
New Workflow with Agent Assist:
- 10% Exception review (automation handles routine)
- 30% Strategic coaching on patterns
- 40% Real-time intervention on high-impact moments
- 20% Performance analysis and team development
This shift allows supervisors to focus more on strategic coaching and real-time interventions, enhancing their ability to support agents effectively.
Dashboard Capabilities:
The dashboard provides a real-time view of all agents, displaying live quality scores, alert notifications for intervention, and team performance trends. This visibility ensures that supervisors can respond quickly and effectively to any issues that arise, fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
Self-Coaching & Agent Development
The Dependency Problem:
Agents often wait for supervisors to tell them what to improve, leading to slow development and learned helplessness. To combat this, organizations can build self-sufficient agents through a phased approach:
Phase 1: Guided Learning (Weeks 1-4)
- Heavy real-time prompting
- Active supervisor monitoring
- Post-call automated feedback
- Weekly coaching sessions
Phase 2: Supported Independence (Weeks 5-12)
- Reduced prompting, more on-demand knowledge
- Supervisor monitors patterns, not every call
- Agent reviews own analytics
- Bi-weekly coaching
Phase 3: Self-Directed Improvement (Week 13+)
- Minimal prompting unless complex
- Agent drives own analysis
- Self-identifies improvement areas
- Monthly strategic coaching
By gradually transitioning agents from dependency to self-sufficiency, organizations can foster a culture of continuous improvement and engagement.
Analytics-Driven Coaching
From Gut Feel to Data-Driven:
Traditional coaching often relies on subjective assessments, which can lead to inconsistencies. By implementing an analytics-driven approach, organizations can leverage data to identify specific skill gaps and prioritize coaching efforts effectively.
- Analytics-Driven Selection:
- The system identifies calls showing specific skill gaps.
- Focus on the highest-impact improvement opportunities.
- Data-driven coaching topics ensure objective metrics.
Coaching Preparation Intelligence:
AI-driven systems can recognize patterns in agent performance, such as struggling with price objections or excelling in empathy. This information allows supervisors to prepare targeted coaching sessions that address specific needs, ensuring that agents receive the most relevant and impactful feedback.
Data-Driven Session Framework:
- Performance Overview (5 min) – Review dashboard together.
- Pattern Discussion (10 min) – Coach agent to identify own patterns.
- Call Examples (15 min) – Play specific moments, ask "What could you do differently?"
- Skill Building (20 min) – Provide frameworks, practice responses.
- Action Plan (10 min) – Specific behaviors, goals, timeline.
This structured approach not only enhances the effectiveness of coaching sessions but also empowers agents to take ownership of their development.
Measuring Coaching Effectiveness
Real-Time Coaching Impact Metrics:
To truly understand the effectiveness of coaching initiatives, organizations must move beyond traditional activity-based metrics. Instead, they should focus on real-time coaching impact metrics that correlate coaching efforts with tangible business outcomes.
Agent Performance Improvement:
- Quality score trajectory (upward trend)
- Specific skill development
- Time to proficiency (new agents reach performance faster)
Business Outcome Correlation:
- Conversion rate improvement
- Customer satisfaction increase
- AHT optimization
- FCR improvement
By measuring these metrics, organizations can demonstrate the ROI of their coaching programs and make data-driven decisions to enhance their coaching strategies further.
In conclusion, contact centers with remote agents can maintain coaching quality through the strategic implementation of real-time coaching solutions. By leveraging live assist technologies, organizations can provide immediate feedback, enhance supervisor capacity, foster self-coaching, and utilize data-driven insights to continuously improve agent performance. This holistic approach not only supports agents in their development but also drives overall business success.
