Call center agents are the primary point of contact with customers, and their performance influences customer perceptions and satisfaction with your business. 

So, how can you improve the performance of call center agents? Traditional methods (based on metrics such as adherence to schedule, CSAT scores etc) are effective only to a certain extent. That’s why modern contact centers are now leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to not only track but also course-correct agent performance in real-time. 

Understanding call center agent performance

Call center agent performance measures and analyzes the effectiveness, efficiency, and quality of agents' interactions with customers. Performance in this context is not just about resolving customer queries but also understanding how agents represent the brand, their ability to provide accurate information, their problem-solving skills, and their overall demeanor during interactions. 

Measuring agent performance directly impacts:

• Customer satisfaction and loyalty

• The efficiency of call center operations

• Business growth and success

By effectively evaluating and enhancing agent performance, you ensure a higher quality of service delivery, improved customer experiences, and increased retention.

How to improve call center agent performance

NTT DATA indicates that a substantial 95.5% of customers prefer to have the option to speak with a human agent during service encounters. This finding emphasizes the importance of measuring and enhancing contact center agent performance in order to deliver a fulfilling customer experience.

Here's how to get started:

1. Monitor customer feedback across all channels

Leverage AI tools that automate collecting and analyzing feedback as a way to facilitate a culture of continuous improvement and professional growth. Take an omnichannel approach. When you monitor all interactions (recordings, chats, emails etc) from one central location, you get 100% visibility into your customer interactions. 

2. Leverage AI technology for deeper insights

With AI-driven solutions in contact centers, you don’t need to spend hours reviewing customer feedback. It’s all in real-time. This immediate insight helps agents and managers understand performance and swiftly implement course corrections. And you uncover deeper insights, too.   

With Echo AI's AI-driven Conversation Intelligence platform, you get answers to complex queries with natural language search and find specific interactions to review. The platform also features automatic tagging of conversations, which helps quickly identify emerging trends, product and service issues resolved, and potential compliance and fraud risks. 

Discover how generative AI will change the future of call centers.

3. Use AI to assess contact center agent performance metrics

By analyzing traditional agent performance metrics, AI helps identify patterns and trends that human supervisors might overlook. In fact, McKinsey reports that implementing automated AI transcription in contact center call analysis drives better call coverage and faster analysis, boosting the speed of traditional diagnostics by 400% and enabling agents to implement recommendations faster.

Typical contact center metrics include:

4. Engage in continuous training and development

According to Salesforce, 61% of customers feel that most companies treat them like just a number rather than recognizing them as individuals. Customers don't appreciate this lack of personalization and increasingly expect businesses to tailor experiences to their unique needs and preferences.

To meet these customer expectations, invest in continuous training and development. Follow these best practices:

• Adapt performance goals based on real-time data. By deploying AI-driven performance management solutions, you’re able to automatically set performance goals based on recent data and modify them according to the required business outcomes.
  
  

• Acknowledge and reward outstanding performance. Recognition is a powerful motivator and encourages the agent to set a benchmark for others in the team to strive for excellence.
  
  

• Establish improvement strategies for underperforming agents. Focus on support and progress rather than punitive measures. Provide personalized coaching and additional training resources to help agents improve their skills.
  
  

• Automate quality assurance processes. Streamlines call center agent performance evaluation by automatically analyzing and scoring all customer conversations, so your team gets instant feedback.
  
  

• Encourage employee engagement and listening to feedback: Engaging with agents empowers them with real-time performance data, encourages them to share ideas for training or process improvements, and ensures they feel heard and valued.

5. Employ AI-based coaching in your contact center

By harnessing generative AI, conversation intelligence platforms conduct an in-depth analysis of performance data derived from customer interactions and employee KPIs. This approach leads to real-time, data-driven performance coaching, enabling agents to make informed decisions and improve performance rapidly. The result is more objective, meaningful, and actionable insights for agents, enhancing their ability to address customer needs effectively.

Improve your call center agent performance scorecard with Echo AI 

Echo AI's Conversation Intelligence platform, powered by generative AI, revolutionizes call center agent performance by analyzing real-time customer interactions and employee KPIs. 

With AI-enabled sentiment analysis, automated score suggestions, and autonomous coaching, your agents will be able to comprehend customer interactions better — and get the guidance to improve CX performance. You can even compare between manual and AI evaluations in areas like empathy, positivity in interactions, and problem resolution.

Let’s help you improve call center agent performance. Request a Echo AI demo today.