Mark Pereira is one of Contact Center Pipeline’s most prolific contributors. And for good reason.
The author of our “Coach’s Corner” column, along with numerous articles and participation in others, Mark provides thoughtful, in-depth observations, analysis, and advice that have been gathered from, honed on, and proven on the call floor.
I recently had a virtual conversation with Mark to find out more about his contact center background and the changes and trends he sees affecting the industry. Along with recommendations to help supervisors and managers deliver the best customer experience (CX) through their agents.
Q. Tell us about your contact center career. How did you become a coach, trainer, and leader?
On December 10, 2007, I started training as a call center agent, which enrolled Indiana Medicaid members with a managed care health plan. Most Medicaid members get enrolled with a health plan to coordinate their healthcare services, such as transportation rides and help with prescriptions, to name a few.
As time passed, I found my stride in the role, becoming proficient enough that the center entrusted me with mentoring new agents. Guiding them through the ropes of the job was rewarding; it felt a bit like being Yoda from Star Wars, minus the wrinkles and with a bit more height.
I noticed the call center brought in several classes, and trainees would drop off before their training could end. Then the call center leadership asked agents if they could help with the training classes and I decided to throw my hat in the ring.
My first training class went well, and my second one did not, so I sought certifications and courses to help me become a better trainer. Then, like Superman rising from the rubble, I started improving. I made it a goal to retain 80% of the class for their first six months of employment and gradually achieved this lofty goal.
Then a position for a team lead opened up, and I decided to apply for that position, which taught me a lot about hiring, coaching, call center statistics, workforce management (WFM), and more. However, I wouldn’t have been here without the people who believed in me and allowed me to grow.
Q. What are the biggest changes that you have seen in contact centers?
1. Increasingly advanced technologies. Artificial intelligence (AI), chatbots, speech recognition, and natural language processing (NLP) have revolutionized operations and empowered center leadership to provide better customer service.
As businesses learn, these technologies will continue to improve. These technologies automate routine tasks, enhance self-service options, and boost the efficiency of agent-customer interactions. They place the expertise and strategic thinking of managers and professionals at the forefront of the call and contact center evolution.
2. Omnichannel shift. When I started in the call center space, most centers primarily handled phone calls. However, they have now evolved to support multiple communication channels, including email, chat, social media, and messaging apps like WhatsApp.
This shift towards omnichannel communication reflects changing customer preferences and the need for a seamless experience across various platforms.
3. Focus on CX. There has been a significant shift in centers towards a customer-centric approach, prioritizing CX over traditional metrics like call resolution times.
This shift emphasizes the role of every individual in the center, the agent experience (AX). It recognizes the importance of delivering personalized, empathetic service that meets customers’ needs and exceeds expectations.
Adopting customer journey mapping, sentiment analysis, and other tools further highlights the role of each individual in identifying and addressing customer pain points.
4. Rise and acceptance of remote and flexible work options. The COVID-19 pandemic revved up the adoption of remote work in call and contact centers.
Due to the uncertainty caused by the pandemic, many organizations transitioned their agents to remote or hybrid setups. They leveraged cloud-based technologies and virtual private networks (VPNs) to maintain productivity and continuity of service for customers.
This shift has also allowed businesses to recruit talent from untapped talent pools crossing state and national borders. It has also helped them to retain talent by freeing workers from expensive, stressful commutes while reducing facilities costs and providing business continuity.
5. Emphasis on data-driven decision-making. With it, organizations can analyze customer interactions, agent behavior, and operational metrics to identify trends, anticipate customer needs, optimize processes, and enhance WFM. Real-time analytics enables centers to adjust quickly to meet changing demands, such as increased call volume.
“The constant evolution of technology necessitates ongoing training to ensure agents can effectively utilize new tools.”
—Mark Pereira
Q. What are the top challenges that you are seeing in coaching and training?
In my experience, coaching and training agents, I’ve observed several trends.
First, there’s a constant stream of technological advancements. Some directly impact how agents assist callers, such as updates to CRM systems. Others have indirect effects, such as new technology.
When callers reach out, they may inquire about a specific technology, and agents must grasp its functionality to assure customers of their competence. The constant evolution of technology necessitates ongoing training to ensure agents can effectively utilize new tools.
Second, and over time, I’ve noticed a decline in trainees’ attention spans and engagement. To counter this, I’ve adopted various methods of presenting content to each training class.
Gone are the days of simply reading from a text-heavy PowerPoint. Now, it’s crucial to ensure trainees truly grasp concepts before they start taking calls.
Third, there is an increasing need for soft skills training, such as call de-escalation and sensitivity training, to name a few, in combination with teaching or coaching agents on how to use the center’s software while understanding the center’s knowledge.
As customer expectations grow, agents need empathy, confidence in issue resolution, and stress management skills. These should be part of every new hire, and there should be ongoing training to keep agents sharp.
“However, there shouldn’t be an overreliance on AI to do all the heavy lifting. Your expertise...will still be needed...”
Fourth, as legislation and regulations increase and become more complicated, and with stiffer penalties for violations, compliance training to ensure agent adhere to them becomes more essential. But this adds to the time and complexity of training efforts.
With data breaches increasing like dandelions on a lawn, it’s only a matter of time before Big Brother steps in with harsher punishments, moving beyond mere wrist slaps and finger-wagging.
Fifth, high turnover rates in the industry necessitate frequent training for new hires, which can strain resources and impact training quality.
Sixth, coaching and quality assurance (QA) have always been great tools for helping bridge gaps in agent knowledge.
The workforce in call and contact centers comes from a diverse background in expertise and experience. With such a diverse workforce, connecting with agents, simplifying instructions, and then gauging understanding through future QAs is essential.
New tools, including AI, can detect emotions and provide real-time statistics, enhancing coaching and QA. However, there shouldn’t be an overreliance on AI to do all the heavy lifting. Your expertise as a coach, trainer, or leader will still be needed to help agents grow and succeed.
Lastly, maintaining consistency and quality in training is a big challenge, especially in medium to large centers.
Due to the diverse training needs of a larger workforce, the varying experience levels of trainees and trainers, and the different learning styles, make it difficult to deliver uniform instruction for each class.
High turnover rates require constantly onboarding new hires, which strains training resources and impacts service consistency.
Additionally, the geographical dispersion of agents, such as remote workers, adds complexity since you may be dealing with different time zones, and the worst comes with the trainee’s availability during the training program.
Scalability issues further complicate maintaining training quality as the call center grows. Ensuring sufficient resources, such as skilled trainers, updated materials, and technology, is crucial but challenging.
Keeping training materials current with evolving company policies, products, and industry regulations adds another layer of complexity, as they require updating and then review by subject matter experts (SMEs) or even the client, creating delivery delays.
Q. What are the top opportunities that you see that are becoming available to contact center coaches and supervisors?
I’ve seen a few opportunities:
AI-powered analytics can provide feedback to leadership, offering insights that can help understand challenges and even provide suggestions to mitigate these issues. This allows trainers to develop training to improve the center’s success. At the same time, some of the feedback to coaches can help with coaching conversations.
Gamified learning platforms make training fun and engaging, motivating agents with rewards and challenges. It’s even better if the incentive has a monetary reward.
Virtual Reality (VR) training allows trainees to attend a class that looks like they are in an actual class and perform tasks such as watching videos, reviewing material, or sitting at a desk.
At the same time, in the VR training environment, simulated calls come into their line, answering questions and working on the CRM, allowing the agent to learn in a close to real environment. I also recall one of the trainees asking about incorporating augmented reality (AR) training into the class, and I feel it could be used again for scenario-based learning.
Personalized learning paths using AI to customize training for each agent’s needs, ensuring they get the most relevant support.
Communication tools like Slack, Teams, and Zoom improve teamwork and allow agents, trainers, and coaches to provide real-time feedback to improve the training experience.
“Your frontline staff are who your customers and potential customers interact with, and each interaction forms your company's image.”
Q. What are your recommendations to contact center supervisors?
I recommend the following:
- Know your people. Understand each team member’s strengths and weaknesses. With this knowledge, assign tasks or queues that match their strengths and provide targeted coaching to address weaknesses.
- Deliver the best training programs. Equip your team with the necessary skills. Provide ongoing agent development, notably on improving your agent’s soft skills, such as communication, empathy, and conflict resolution, to help agents succeed because when they win, you win.
- Equip staff with the right tools. Ensure your team has access to the necessary tools and technology to succeed. Remember, you don’t win the grand prix by giving your team a minivan.
- Address challenges proactively. Identify challenges by looking both backward and forward. Understand the root causes of issues and implement metrics to measure and improve performance.
- Communicate effectively. Regularly communicate through short and clear emails, instant messages, and newsletters. Regular check-ins should be supportive rather than intrusive, showing your team that you are available and supportive.
Q. What are your recommendations to contact center managers?
To help contact center managers I recommend the following:
- Invest in advanced technology. Utilize AI-powered tools and automation to streamline workflows, reduce handling times, and improve efficiency.
- For example, better dashboards provide agents with key or frequently used panels to review customer information, or AI assists with documenting calls.
- To assist with administrative tasks in training, assign courses to agents based on their challenges. When an organization offers a variety of training, each session is categorized by topics, content description, and keywords. AI can then recommend courses, videos, or articles based on the specific areas where an agent is struggling.
- Additionally, automation can be used to assign curricula based on completed courses, reducing the need for trainers to manually track and assign courses in a learning management system (LMS). These tools relieve your center’s training staff to concentrate on training creation and delivery.
- Invest in training and development. Ensure your coaches and supervisors have the right tools. Implement standard slides, facilitator guides, checklists, knowledge checks, and comprehensive train-the-trainer sessions for new trainers to ensure consistency and excellence across the board.
- Optimize WFM. Implement flexible scheduling to accommodate peak times and improve work-life balance. Establish clear performance metrics and regularly review them to ensure agents meet their targets. Provide rewards to motivate agents and recognize high performers at least monthly.
- Foster a positive work environment. Create a supportive and inclusive culture where agents feel valued and engaged. Provide regular feedback so agents know what they can do to improve. Organize team-building activities to strengthen relationships and enhance collaboration.
- Leverage data for continuous improvement. Continuously evaluate and refine processes to eliminate inefficiencies and improve service quality, such as understanding call trends, frequently used web pages, or questions asked. Compare performance against industry standards and best practices to identify growth opportunities.
Your frontline staff are who your customers and potential customers interact with, and each interaction forms your company’s image.
These interactions turn into reviews on social media, forums, and sites, which help create the perception of your company in the minds of future customers who might consider doing business with your company.