As we get ready to explore what's new with computer-based training, let's begin with a one-question quiz. Imagine a training session with agents. A supervisor plays a recording of a call that concludes as follows:
Agent: "Thank you for your order. Did I provide excellent service to you?"
Customer: "Yes, you did!"
Agent: "Great! Your answer proves that the service I am providing is excellent!"
(Call ends.)
Supervisor (to agents): "And that, folks, is how you provide excellent service!"
During this training exercise, agents learned:
(A) To strive for excellence.
(B) Nothing.
(C) At the end of every call, agents had better ask the same question as they heard in the recording. Such behavior leads to the best possible outcome: a good evaluation from the supervisor.
No matter what answer you select, you escape neither the circular reasoning nor the underlying message of this exercise: Do this because I told you to.
If the goal of training is merely to get agents to follow scripts, your choice of content, and your method of delivering this content to agents, are immaterial.
Before you think about products, you have to identify the outcomes you aim for through training. Only then can you determine the circumstances when software is the best tool to train agents.
The outcomes you strive for impact, in turn, how you deploy computer-based training. If you want agents to understand concepts in customer service, this goal entails a different method of training than if you want to show agents how to perform certain tasks. As we elaborate later on in this article, simulations could have an expanded role in call center training because they help agents put concepts into practice.
WHAT IS COMPUTER-BASED TRAINING?
Computer-based training (CBT) refers to courses on computers, software for delivering courses and software for creating courses.
A growing roster of vendors offer learning management systems so companies can provide CBT to their employees. Our focus, though, is on the subset of vendors that specialize in developing courses and training tools for call centers.
Courses for agents usually comprise modules, each of which highlights fundamental skills and behaviors, such as recognizing the reasons customers call, or helping customers feel that agents are working on their behalf.
Agents access courses through the call center's computer network, through the course provider's network or on-line. Training delivery tools allow agents to take courses during scheduled training times or when they experience lulls in calls.
What is the appeal of CBT in call centers?
First, it's potentially more efficient and less expensive in the long term than classroom training alone. Since the training occurs at agents' computers, it's possible to convey more material to, and conduct more simulated calls with, more agents at the same time than in a classroom.
Second, CBT allows agents to learn or review material at their own pace. Yet the content of the training is consistent because it comes from one source.
Third, CBT allows supervisors to be more efficient, too. Besides the assurance that the subjects and methods of instruction are consistent, supervisors have reliable documentation of agents' progress with their training.
Fourth, the software that delivers training also automates performance reports associated with the courses. That ensures agents' grades are accurate while saving trainers the time of grading agents themselves.
Fifth, CBT lends itself well to call centers. Nancy Treaster, senior vice president of global marketing with Witness Systems (Roswell, GA), points to characteristics call centers tend to share: a clear set of skills agents must have and flexibility with agents' schedules.
CONTENT IN ACTION
Before you decide on how you provide training to agents' computers, look closely at the content.
Developers of computer-based courses for call centers tend to structure modules in similar ways. After defining the skills they cover, the modules present agents with hypothetical calls to show them how to use these skills during calls. The examples also demonstrate how certain behaviors affect customers positively and negatively.
Modules often intersperse, and nearly always conclude with, multiple-choice questions. The questions test whether agents know what skills and behaviors are essential to doing their jobs well. The questions also verify that agents understand conceptually how to apply skills they employed during hypothetical calls.
(We share our experiences with some on-line courses in sidebars on-line.)
Witness Systems, for example, offers 35 modules, each running about 15 minutes, through its eQuality Now Courseware. The modules deal with issues that arise in most call centers, like how agents can take a problem-solving approach when speaking with dissatisfied callers.
Witness delivers these courses to agents' PCs through eQuality Now, which presents agents with home pages from where they can view which courses they're taking and when. eQuality Now and the accompanying courses complement other products Witness offers, including its call monitoring and performance tracking systems.
Among the executives we interviewed from CBT software vendors, most recommend creating or customizing courses if you're training agents to develop skills that are specific to your center.
Executives also agree that the more broadly you can apply certain concepts in call centers, the more efficiently off-the-shelf courses help agents grasp these concepts. A frequent phrase to describe these topics is "soft" skills.
Because the form the training takes hinges on the content, the distinction between "soft" and "hard" skills is important.
"A lot of call centers try to bundle two types of training at the same time," says Debbie Harne, director of educational services with Annapolis, MD-based Incoming Calls Management Institute (ICMI). "They end up short-changing soft skills."
How do you know if training on soft skills is the priority?
Kevin Hegebarth, director of strategic planning with Witness, believes that the more successfully a center retains agents, the less need it has to train agents how to handle calls. "The agents who stay tend to be more skilled anyway," he says.
In centers with greater turnover among agents, managers have less reason to assume new hires know how to communicate effectively by phone. So managers at these centers first have to train agents on fundamentals before imparting information specific to the center's company or industry.
Although CBT is its own discipline, the outcome of this training depends heavily on how you assess agents before you hire them and how you subsequently coach them. (We define "coaching" to encompass the individual feedback trainers or supervisors give agents after they evaluate agents' communication with customers.)
