Peggy Carlaw

It’s long been thought that first call res­o­lu­tion is one of the main dri­vers of cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion. SQM’s pio­neer­ing research found that for every 1% improve­ment in first call res­o­lu­tion (FCR), there’s a cor­re­spond­ing 1% increase in cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion. Stud­ies done by Cus­tomer Rela­tion­ship Met­rics reveal that cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion rat­ings will be 5–10% lower when a sec­ond call is made for the same issue. And...

Call cen­ters can be profit mak­ers or losers, depend­ing on how they’re run and the type of com­pany they’re used for. Com­monly, call cen­ters are focused on cus­tomer ser­vice and used to help cus­tomers solve prob­lems or find solu­tions – which may be great for the brand and prod­uct, but this sin­gu­lar pur­pose can turn a call cen­ter into a money pit for the company’s bot­tom line. A pop­u­lar solu­tion is sim­ply to com­bine the call cen­ter into a “cus­tomer service/sales cen­ter,” mean­ing – just have the reps upsell and we’ll start to make money.

Sounds sim­ple, right?

In the­ory, yes. How­ever, in prac­tice, com­pa­nies that attempt to con­vert their cus­tomer ser­vice teams into a sales force, with­out the proper call cen­ter sales train­ing, may soon be sur­prised to see...

We post a lot about coach­ing here at the Impact Blog! One key rea­son why it’s impor­tant to be a great coach is that your actions and approach to coach­ing can seri­ously affect your employ­ees’ atti­tudes and the over­all level of morale in the workplace.

In con­tact cen­ters where pos­i­tive coach­ing occurs and morale is high, employ­ees approach their work with energy, enthu­si­asm, and the will­ing­ness to suc­ceed. They want to come to work, or at least are enthu­si­as­tic about work once they get there. On the other hand, when coach­ing is always neg­a­tive or non-existent, morale is low and employ­ees can become bored, dis­cour­aged, and lethargic.

It’s not impos­si­ble to have high pro­duc­tiv­ity and decent bottom-line results in an envi­ron­ment where morale is low, but it is unlikely. As a coach (or a man­ager who rou­tinely coaches employ­ees), you should care about how your employ­ees feel...

Whether you’re a team leader, a super­vi­sor, or con­tact cen­ter man­ager, coaching—giving feed­back to your employees—is one of the most impor­tant thing you do leader. As a leader, your job is to set goals, and guide your team toward those goals as you inspire them toward new heights.

The term coach­ing refers to the prac­tice of giv­ing feed­back to improve per­for­mance. Coach­ing can be one-way or two-way. One-way coach­ing is when you do all the talk­ing and two-way coach­ing is when you and an employee have a dis­cus­sion about per­for­mance. Most often, one-way coach­ing is brief, spon­ta­neous and timely, while two-way coach­ing is more likely to be sched­uled, longer in length, and off the floor in your office or con­fer­ence room. Over time you will be able to tweak your coach­ing tech­nique to best suit indi­vid­u­als and team needs.

Not only does coach­ing val­i­date an employ­ees’ job per­for­mance, it also shows that you take the suc­cess of your team...