Can you imagine having your work performance measured and
analyzed every minute of every day?
Today, most call center agents know exactly how that feels. Today’s modern call center is designed to
capture performance measures about every aspect of every interaction an agent
has with a customer. In fact, outside of
the computer chip plants, I suggest that customer service interactions are the
most instrumented parts of most companies.
All this measuring and all this evaluating in order to
deliver the highest level of service possible and yet there is a big hole in
the entire process. While there are
daily measures of agent performance, when was the last time you heard of an
agent’s current knowledge levels being measured? In fact, in a great many companies, once an
agent has attended training and passed the exams accompanying the training, the
assumption is that “knowledge gained is knowledge retained.” I beg to differ.
Studies have shown that information learned but not utilized
is quickly forgotten. A recent study of
physicians attending an eLearning course found that the doctors had forgotten 50%
of the material in 8 days and 90% of the material in just 8 weeks. I cannot imagine that the retention rate of
the contact center agent is any better.
It is time for companies to regularly measure knowledge just as
they regularly measure performance. Agent
knowledge levels have a direct effect on agent performance. Where knowledge gaps are identified,
gap-filling training courses needs to be delivered.
Agent performance measurement is an ongoing and continuous
process in all contact centers. It is
time to incorporate knowledge measurement into the equation and fill a vital
yet mostly ignored characteristic of all high performers; they know the
material they need to know.
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