Performance Management 101 — Tools And Techniques To Improve Results By Shalesa Charron, Syntora, Inc.

Nowhere is performance management, the measurement of staff efficiency and effectiveness, more in demand than in the contact center environment. Contact center agents and their supervisors are by far the most important and costly resource within the contact center. With agents accounting for roughly two-thirds of the contact center's operating costs, even modest improvements in agent productivity yield enormous returns. Measuring agent performance based on key performance indicators (KPIs) such as call handle times, customer service, first call resolution, number of calls in queue, and service level, is crucial to effective agent management. Identifying performance gaps and having solutions, such as automated coaching, in place to correct under-performing behavior enables agents to self-improve and supervisors to spend less time on training initiatives.

Performance Management is a process that drives operational improvement by analyzing business performance through business metric analysis. By using the appropriate tools and techniques to close performance gaps, automate tasks, and improve employee performance, customers are better serviced.

Performance management techniques identify performance gaps early and provide tools to correct and automate tasks. Analytic software allows users within the contact center to have access to the data that they need to improve productivity and make the right business decisions. Real-time dashboards show key performance metrics; consolidated real-time and historical reports give users personalized views of important metrics. Scorecards display the goals defined by management and the actual performance results, allowing both employees and managers to see if goals are being met. Alerts, based on the results of the performance metrics, can be automatically sent to notify managers and agents when performance compliance is not being met; appropriate suggestions can be automatically made by the system to help the agent self-correct. Managers can be alerted to which agents have been notified and what self-improvement content has been sent.