Credit union call center performance management

Three foundational building blocks must be optimized to consistently deliver engaging member experiences over the phone: people, processes and leadership. Our journey of nine articles will cover each in detail. After hiring the right people for your call center, you need to train and coach them to perform at a top level.

If you want to most effectively manage employee performance, setting clear expectations is critical, starting with the interview process, on through your onboarding program, and reinforcing the expectations as the employees begin to take calls.

The challenge comes when agents either don’t have clear objectives or when expectations are equated with sales goals. For example, Sam has to sell x checking accounts within the next 90 days. While the expectation is there, the process to reach that expectation is unclear. Therefore, simply having a sales goal as a performance metric for a call center agent is not a sustainable approach. What if Sam met his quota, but provided only average service to several members along the way because he wanted only to speak with members who did not already have a checking account?

That’s why it’s imperative to coach your employees on the fundamentals of excellent customer service, and not just on the outcomes. Duke head coach Mike Kryzyzewski’s book “Leading With the Heart” makes clear that he never sets a goal to achieve a specific number of wins in a given year. Instead, he believes that if you teach and coach the right fundamentals, the desired outcomes will follow. This strategy has helped him become one of the most winning coaches in college history.

 

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