Keeping your call center employees on task is perhaps one of the most important factors in creating a productive contact center environment. However, contact center training is also critically important to improving the performance of those employees, but how can you balance keeping your staff focused while providing ample opportunity for training in their schedule?

Here, we will examine a few ways to add more opportunities for contact center training into your agent’s everyday routines – all without sacrificing the productivity or efficiency your call center’s performance depends on.

On-Screen, On-Task

When your agents aren’t engaged with a consumer, there is a tendency for their attention to wander elsewhere. This is doubly true if they do most of their work in front of a large screen, as most call center employees in the modern day do. Prevent dips in productivity between calls by offering agents short, enjoyable training tasks to complete. This can be done using some of today’s best contact center training software, which automatically deploys training opportunities for agents who are between calls.

Worried that your agents won’t want to participate in these activities or might find them overwhelming? Keep each training activity short and simple. Choose game-like activities that make learning and refreshing knowledge fun. Offer reward points for completing specific units or numbers of exercises. Give your agents a reason to engage with your training software and you’ll give them more reasons than ever to stay on-task while they are on the clock.

Learning in Action

Contact center training opportunities don’t always have to come in the form of traditional, classroom-style learning. Just because your agents may not have time to sit down and undergo traditional training doesn’t mean they don’t have time to incorporate learning into their everyday routines at work. One way to keep your agents engaged and also provide them ongoing opportunities for growth is through coaching that happens during and after actual job-related tasks.

During a call, a newer agent may stumble through a script they are still learning that prompts them to ask for important information from a customer. Using technology that allows a management team member to patch into their conversation and be heard by the agent only, the struggling new agent can receive some instruction as to how to better handle the situation and can save the call while they are still on it. Afterward, they can receive feedback to prevent the same situation from happening again. All of this happens without detracting from the regular work schedule of the employee – or the productivity of the center.

Involve Your Agents in Data Analysis

There is a common misconception – or misstep in management styles, perhaps – that creates the idea that lower-level or newer employees don’t need to be informed of or involved in the process of data analysis. This is a mistake. Employees need to be involved in this process from the very beginning of their career. This allows them to have a firm handle on where their energy is going and how productive they are as both individuals and part of a team.

When your employees can see what their impact is on the big picture for their department and the company overall, they are more likely to be engaged and willing to participate. Likewise, when they understand the outcome of their efforts, they can better judge what needs improvement or what is working well – or have these things explained to them more easily by management team members using this information as an illustration point. These are all ways to improve performance on both individual and group levels – and none of them detract from everyday operations.

Take a Break for Video

Breaks are a necessary part of the workday. They help your staff remain focused and energized, as well as maintain proper physical and mental health balance. Making an employee work during a break is unethical, since it undermines the entire point of giving them a break in the first place. However, that doesn’t mean that their down time has to be completely unproductive for them or your company.

Consider a training video loop for your employee breakroom. Use short, informative training video clips in place of background music to provide ambient noise for the room. Employees will have something to watch or listen to while they relax for their breaks or enjoy a meal or snack, and your company will be able to provide one more training resource during their daily routine for a relatively low initial investment.

Remember to Focus on Soft Skills, Too

While it is important to maintain high standards for the quality of your agents’ technical skills in the field of contact center work, it is also extremely important to maintain those same standards for their so-called “soft skills”. Soft skills are any skill that involves human interaction and cannot be taught in the same technical manner as company protocol or procedure.

Use interactions between employees and management team members as opportunities for impromptu contact center training. Evaluate these interactions for the agents’ soft skills and be sure to offer feedback that can help them improve their communication and customer service skills in the future. This kind of training is the kind that any center can add to their daily routines, but few think of. Doing so will yield a tremendous increase in the performance and customer service ratings your center sees, though, so be sure to utilize this less-common approach to contact center training in your center!

When you’re ready to add more opportunities for contact center training to your call center agents’ everyday routines, get in touch with the experts here at ChaseData. We have everything you need to set your entire staff up for continuing success through education, roleplay, interactive activities, and more. Whatever your training needs might be, we can help you facilitate them with software that can easily be tailored to the size and style of your center.

Give us a call today to learn more about these and many other exciting tools we offer to help you achieve your goal of an ever-improving contact center.