The following training tips were gathered from a roundtable discussion of contact center personnel during the recent National Conference on Operations & Fulfillment (NCOF), cosponsored by MULTICHANNEL MERCHANT/OPERATIONS + FULFILLMENT. According to Kathleen Peterson, president of Bedford, NH-based Powerhouse Consulting and the roundtable’s moderator, attendees identified training as a key element in resolving or contributing to the resolution of nearly all the challenges in the contact center. Among their suggestions:
- When bringing employees such as seasonal staff back in to the job, provide a refresher training course based on the number of hours or days since they’d last worked at the contact center.
- Provide remedial training to employees as soon as their quality assurance scores fall short of a predetermined level.
- During new-hire orientation, be sure to spend some time in areas other than the contact center. Cross-functional knowledge of the organization not only creates a career path but also enables the new hire to better understand the functions of the other departments.
- In one complex business environment, new hires had up to 15 days of training, starting off by answering faxes and e-mails prior to talking to customers.
- Adopt a “sacred law”: Do not cancel training