7 Call Center Agent Training Tips to Educate Your Reps

Call center agent training isn’t usually a walk in the park. But you don’t have much of a choice if you intend to meet the growing expectations of your client’s customers. After all, your call center agents may be a customer’s first touchpoint in interacting with the brand.

83% of high-performing call center agents attributed their performance to the quality of training they received at their call centers. So, it’s wise to ensure that you train your call center agents to equip them with skills and tools to increase their productivity and, in turn, improve customer satisfaction.

7 Effective Call Center Training Tips You Can Implement Easily

With the following tips, you can train your call center agents to set them up for success at their tasks:

1. Focus On the Major Call Center Skills

Whether new or existing employees, your call center training should focus on reinforcing their skills as agents. You can’t afford to assume that every employee has all it takes to deliver on their job just because they scaled through your recruitment process.

One of the skills to reinforce in training your call center agents is clear communication. You want to teach them to express themselves clearly and without ambiguity when attending to customers. They should also know not to use slang or unnecessary technical language.

68% of customers expect brands to demonstrate empathy. Empathy helps your agent put themselves in the shoes of the customer. With this skill, they can understand the customer better and know the right solution to provide. The customer, in turn, will feel heard and valued. So, you want to train your agents to be empathetic when attending to customers.

Also, you want to train your call center agents to resolve complaints on the first call. 35% of customers consider this as the most important indicator of good customer service. Not only can repeated calls frustrate a customer, but they also add unwanted costs to running your call center. That’s why it’s crucial to educate your agents on the importance of resolving the customer’s issue and resolving it on the first call.

2. Equip Your Agents with Sufficient Knowledge About the Product

Don’t just stop at training your agents on call center etiquettes and other productivity hacks. 

Educate them about your client’s product. This goes beyond just knowing that the client’s product is called XYZ and does ABC for its customers.

Thoroughly educate your call center agents on the specifications, features, benefits, and purpose of your client’s products.

And, if possible, get them enthusiastic about it. By doing this, customers will perceive them as knowledgeable and trust them to resolve their concerns. This leads to a better customer experience overall.

3. Create KPIs for Every Training Session

How will you know how effective your call center training is if you can’t measure performance? 

This is why you need to create measurable targets for your agents after training. Ensure that your supervisors evaluate your agents based on your set KPIs and give you periodic feedback.

By using KPIs, you can quickly identify skill gaps and evaluate individual growth among your agents. Equipped with this information, you can restructure your call center training resources to include new ways of improving your agents’ skills.

4. Make Training Sessions Practical and Easy to Implement

During coaching sessions, use case scenarios and practical demonstrations to illustrate your points. This will enable your agents to assimilate quickly and find it easier to implement the training on the job.

Beyond training, have random evaluation sessions on the job. You can also listen to recorded interactions with customers. This will provide you with more accurate insights into your agents’ performance.

5. Foster Continuous Improvement

Learning is a continuous process, and it shouldn’t be any different from training your call center agents. 

As a call center manager or owner, you need to organize regular training for your agents. This will help reinforce their skills and improve productivity gaps.

Your client may add new features to their product to improve it for their users. In some cases, they may launch an entirely new product. Previous training will not suffice to provide satisfactory customer service when this happens. You’ll need to train them regularly on the nuances of the latest changes till your agents are confident.

6. Provide Constructive Feedback

Apart from setting KPIs for every training session, create a system that encourages constructive feedback. Without this your agents won’t know whether they are on the right track or not.

In giving constructive feedback to your call center agents, ensure you communicate their gaps clearly and provide them with specific improvement tips. 

You can also give them access to relevant educational resources.

Feedback is more effective when it’s a two-way street. Encourage your agents to provide you with feedback on the effectiveness and impact of every training session. Use these insights to improve on training content and delivery methods. Call center training is more productive when created alongside your agents’ inputs than solely by the management.

7. Map Out a Clear Growth Pathway for Your Agents

Mapping out a clear growth path for your agents helps you give a defined structure to your call center training program.

A well-defined growth pathway doesn’t just help you. It also helps your agents. It’s a great way to get them excited about working on your team. This is because it reassures them that they have a future at your company. And it can also motivate them to be better and more efficient at their jobs.

At Expivia, We Don’t Just Train Our Agents, We Educate Them

Training your call center agents is crucial to the success of your company. But, training your agents isn’t easy. It’s continuous hard work, especially if you focus on education over mindless training. 

If you’d rather outsource it all, Expivia is here to help.

With over 25 years of experience in improving customer engagement for different brands, we’re one of the leading contact center experts in the country. We use the newest technology, well-trained agents, and our positive work culture to serve our clients and their customers.

Contact us today to begin your journey towards excellent customer engagement.