Where Metrics Meet Mentorship: Chat's 'Coachable Moments'
By pairing quantitative data and survey responses with proactive performance management tools, today’s live chat supervisors can transform recognizable trends into “coachable moments” to improve and sustain the quality of live chat operations.
Daily chat volume. Average session length. Wait time. While your customer service team is fielding inquiries, your live chat platform is busy tallying and tracking the performance indicators displayed on your chat dashboard. But for hands-on supervisors using leading live chat platforms, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Today’s customizable reporting tools go beyond standard industry benchmarks to include out-of-the-box metrics, such as the percentage of an agent’s total time spent engaged in a single chat versus multiple chats or a tally of proactive chat requests. Pair this quantitative data with post-chat survey responses and it becomes clear what’s working and what’s not. These are powerful insights to have … but then what?
Velaro provides a number of ways for supervisors to further examine individual performance and deliver effective feedback to agents: as part of the training process, in response to metrics of concern, or even while a chat is taking place. Here’s how.
Annotated Transcripts
Using performance management tools, supervisors can opt to automatically receive all transcripts, random transcripts, or those with particularly high or low post-chat survey scores. By surveying the content of select transcripts, supervisors can pick up on patterns in performance and gauge how canned messages are being utilized and received. From there, Velaro makes it easy to annotate transcripts and share detailed feedback directly with associated agents.
Mock Chats
Mock chats are a common training exercise, where a supervisor stands in as a site visitor so agents can sharpen their service skills before interacting with real customers. This is a useful application for new agents who are exploring basic chat functions, practicing how to use canned messaging and learning when and how to conduct transfers. However, this form of role-playing continues to be a valuable method of addressing targeted problem areas with experienced agents, as well.
Live Evaluation
A popular training method for more hands-on supervisors is to initiate a chat with a customer service agent while “undercover” as a site visitor. Velaro provides a valuable alternative to this methodology by instead allowing managers to “sit in” on actual live chats as they happen. Without the site visitor’s knowledge, the supervisor can identify coachable moments in real time, communicate with the agent behind the scenes, and turn an everyday chat into a real-world training opportunity. This method of chat shadowing is a simple – and tactful – way to redirect agents and improve live chat performance.
Managing a successful live chat enterprise requires extensive training for new hires on both the software and soft skills of effective live chat conversations. But the most successful live chat teams don’t stop there. By monitoring for and taking advantage of everyday coachable moments, contact center supervisors can modify behavior, improve performance and maximize the ROI of a well-trained live chat team.