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Agent Training Beyond the Classroom By Harry Sheff
E-learning programs can be a powerful tool for call centers to use in the quest for balancing workplace efficiency and the need for training and knowledge. Most call centers use e-learning for two things: targeted agent training and information and skills updates. Both uses take advantage of the computer in front of every agent to deliver important course work without the need for a classroom. Adoption in call centers is still less than 25% by most estimates, but it's growing fast. To get an overview of the state of call center e-learning systems today, we spoke to Jim Davies, a principal analyst at the research firm Gartner. Following this Q & A, we delve into what some of the e-learning vendors in the market are offering.
Q & AWhat kind of situations are ideal e-learning situations?Jim Davies: There are lots of different flavors of e-learning. The flavor, I think, at the moment that is having the most beneficial impact, I wouldn't even call e-learning; I'd call it coaching. And effectively, that's giving the agent that short training course that allows them to resolve a particular performance issue. And it normally comes on the back of either an evaluation of some sort or on the back of a performance metric that isn't meeting a certain level. If their cross-sell ratios are below a certain threshold, they get sent a training course on how to improve their cross-selling technique. Or if they're not very polite (which is picked up by the call recording evaluation), then the supervisor can send them a few notes with the feedback saying 'don't forget to be polite' – it's rapid feedback from listening to that call. It's that approach that is having the most benefit (rather than the very formal, heavyweight learning systems where it's a simulation tool, or a very structured classroom type activity). It's a short and sweet bit of coaching that meets that particular pain point and can fit into a 15 minute learning break scheduled by the workforce management. That's the sort of thing I see as having the most impact at the moment. It's pretty important that these systems are integrated with each other then? Jim Davies: Yes, they have to be integrated, definitely. You have to have a way to identify these performance gaps. Let's say the supervisor's gone to the call recording, listened to agent speak to the customer and evaluated that interaction. They've identified the fact that the agent isn't very polite or isn't very professional on the phone. That supervisor can use an e-learning authoring tool to create content, which could be a couple of PowerPoint slides, a Word document or some basic notes to send to the agent. Or they can pick a course from a library and send that to the agent. If it's a more formal course from the library, it's sent via the workforce management system. The workforce management system has to look at the agent's schedule, find out when it's best for the agent to do it and lock it in at that time. The system contacts the agent, saying 'you've got a learning course at this break, here.' The agent then has to do that course. The agent's performance after that course needs to be tracked. The performance management side starts kicking in at this point. If it was a course on cross-selling, did that agent's cross-selling improve after they've taken that course, or did it stay the same? If it stays the same, what about every other agent that's done that training course? Did their cross-selling improve after they did the course, or did all of them stay the same afterwards, in which case maybe it's not the agent's fault, maybe it's the call center's fault. Completing that loop and having that integration is definitely key. So this isn't a substitute for classroom training, is it? Jim Davies: It's very different. The problem with classroom training is the time: you're away from the desk for hours at a time. Call centers now seem to get better results from having a short, targeted ten minute training courses while they're at their desk rather than shutting them down for two hours and make them wander off to a training room. How do these systems get set up? They require some input from the call center managers, right -- they don't work right out of the box, do they? Jim Davies: No. Obviously, as part of the initial set-up, you'd have the top fifty or top however many standard training courses that your agent's going to go on, which would probably be part of the service you've got to have as doing the implementation. So that would be a one-off cost setting up those first-time training courses. But after that, it's just going to be an ongoing process. As the supervisors see the need, they can create it on the fly and store it in the database for future use. It's difficult to put a time-value on that, or a cost-value. The initial set-up would be part of the service's engagement. You say coaching is the most effective use for e-learning systems – what else can they be used for? Jim Davies: Basically, most large organizations have a corporate learning management system, and those solutions, those heavy-weight learning solutions which can be electronically delivered, have their place in an organization, and in the call center. But in terms of what you're trying to get out of it, it's very different. The coaching I'm describing is more about helping the agent to do their job at the highest performance level as possible. Whereas the heavier, more complex e-learning or learning management systems tend to be used for formal career path, or providing information about a new process, or a new product launch or something that's large and enterprise-wide. And the call center agent is just another person who needs to know that information. It's not necessarily going to improve their performance during the next call, but it's going to be information they need to know. Are these ever the same systems? Jim Davies: They're rarely the same systems. The big learning management systems providers such as SumTotal and OutStart - they're trying to get into the call center to do the type of thing we've been talking about, but they're not very active there. And equally, the coaching tool we're talking about never goes into the back office. The two are very different. You could see in the future one tool being used for both. Why isn't the adoption rate for e-learning systems any higher in call centers? Jim Davies: I think it comes from corporate strategy and the focus of the contact center over the last few years, which has been on efficiency. While this tool can have a big impact on the effectiveness of the call center, there hasn't been the budget to make that sort of investment. We're seeing a big change in this now. The whole coaching and e-learning side is actually a big growth market in the contact center. Call centers are now responsible, they're part of the business in terms of how they've got to contribute to the bottom line, so they need to perform. And they're responsible for customer satisfaction and they're responsible for generating revenue. They're not just responsible for picking up the phone in three seconds – there's more to their targets than that. To try to achieve these new goals, they need to make sure the agents are performing optimally, and to do that they need to be trained, so that's why we're seeing a growth in this market. Whereas in the past, as long as a call center met its metrics - answering the phone in x seconds - that's all they were worried about. So the change in strategy increased the investment in e-learning. How effective is this mode of delivery? Is anyone testing this? Jim Davies: I think phase one is giving the agents training in this sort of coaching mode, and phase two is having the analytics in place to track the effectiveness of that training. But there are vendors doing it now, and there are organizations running it now -- it's not laboratory-based, it's actually real-life technologies that you can buy off the shelf - but it's only the very leading-edge organizations that are doing it at the moment. Are there any big trends you're seeing? What's on the horizon? Jim Davies: I think more automation is a trend, rather than relying on a human intervention to identify a training need. To have the technology identify that need, and then automatically deliver that training based on the back of that. Because ultimately, what you're trying to do is close the gap between when you've identified the issue with the agent's performance and delivery of that training that will close that performance gap. So if you've got automation technology that can do that detection and send that training, you can close that gap to as small as possible. All the time you're having to rely on a human to listen to the call or tape the feedback from the customer or whatever it happens to be to see that performance issue, there are days, weeks, months that have gone by where the agent's performance hasn't been as good as it could have been.
The E-Learning MarketWhat is e-learning for, anyway? It's not for replacing your regular training regimen. E-learning is about staying ahead of individual agent training issues. It's about efficiency and learning from agents' less successful calls. It's about taking advantage of downtime and using call recordings and call evaluations to help agents do their jobs better. It's also about keeping agents informed of new equipment, new methods and customer promotions.
David DiStefano, CEO of Philadelphia-based Richardson, told us that in a sales environment, e-learning is perfect for teaching agents about the products they'll be selling, and for giving them cross-selling and upselling tips. If you'll be using your e-learning system more for training, as opposed to knowledge-building, it's important that these systems be integrated with quality monitoring, performance management, and workforce management systems. Envision's director of product management, Dave Pennington, and Connie Smith, Envision's chief evangelist, told us that e-learning systems that weren't integrated with others were doomed to fail. That may be a little strong. An un-integrated system is a different beast – it's untargeted training courses that the agent must find their own time to use. That isn't a failure, but it isn't making the most of available technology. Some of the more dynamic systems on the market allow call centers to make their own video training courses as new learning opportunities arise. Thomas Lyerly, senior product manager for Witness Systems, told us that his company's system was easy enough to use that "even line supervisors with little training development experience can create and deploy training." Both Richardson and LearnKey mentioned new delivery modes – like iPods – when we asked them about the future of e-learning. Witness Systems says e-learning tools will increasingly harness customer feedback to identify training opportunities. Envision sees potential in using their authoring tool to create video and other content to help customers on the Web find information about your company and learn how to use the website better. Envision says its client Blue Cross of Idaho has been very successful in this innovative use of e-learning tools.
Vendor OfferingsThere are many vendors in this arena, some of which offer stand-alone e-learning tools and others, like Witness (recently acquired by Verint), integrate their tools very tightly with greater workforce optimization suites.
The idea behind most e-learning systems is simple: to give individual agents the coaching they need (based on information from quality monitoring system information, like call recordings or poor scores) at a time that doesn't interfere with work time. To do this, the best e-learning systems are either part of larger systems that include quality monitoring and workforce management, or seamlessly integrate with the systems already in place. Here are the systems offered by a handful of vendors in the industry: Autonomy etalk: Etalk was acquired by the Cambridge, England-based software firm Autonomy in mid-2005. Now, after settling in a bit, the Autonomy name is starting to appear in the merged company's corporate literature. For simplicity's sake, we'll call them etalk here. Etalk's e-learning offering is called Qfiniti Expert. This system integrates completely with etalk's greater Qfiniti Enterprise suite of call center applications, and with the Observe quality monitoring and the Advise coaching and evaluation system specifically. With Qfiniti Expert, agents can see their call evaluations alongside recommended e-learning courses. Also of note is etalk's Qfiniti Assist, a system that gives agents what amounts to coaching on the fly in the form of knowledge base and training information based on what the agent and customer are talking about. The system uses a speech engine to suggest things to the agent based on the topic of conversation. Envision: Envision's e-learning system is available as a part of the Envision Performance Suite, or as a standalone that will integrate with the workforce management and quality monitoring systems of other vendors. Yet another option is Click2Coach, a pairing of Envision's quality monitoring software with the e-learning system. The company's proprietary learning management system controls all of the storing, tracking and managing of e-learning content. The system's video authoring tool enables managers to quickly create short videos that show a demonstration of screen activity accompanied by synchronized voice recording. Knowlagent: Knowlagent has two suites that fit the e-learning definition. The Continuing Training & Communications system schedules training and informational updates during agent downtime. The Coaching & Performance Management system, which includes a simulation tool, schedules coaching and e-learning sessions based on agents' skills and performance. It also tracks the effectiveness of the coaching sessions. LearnKey: LearnKey is an e-learning software company that offers courses in everything from graphic design to accounting. Their call center offerings emphasize agents working at their own pace, and their courses tend to be more general and less targeted. LearnKey's courses are ideal for basic training and brushing up on skills. Richardson: Richardson focuses their offerings on call center sales situations. Richardson works with call centers to create training in instructor-led and e-learning delivery modes; they can also blend the two. The eLearning QuickSkills web-based library of courses has something for sales agents and sales managers. The courses include simulations. Witness Systems and Verint: Witness Systems was recently acquired by Verint, and at this point, it isn't entirely clear what that means for either company's e-learning software. Witness offers e-learning as an optional module for their Impact 360 Workforce Optimization suite, or with the smaller quality monitoring and workforce management systems. The module, called Competency-based Learning, assigns courses based on KPI scorecards and agent evaluations. Witness boasts that original course content can be made out of customer/agent recordings. Verint's ULTRA IntelliCoach software is firmly positioned in the coaching side of e-learning. The focus here is on the ability to customize training courses to individual agents. Verint suggests using recordings of highly successful agent/customer interactions as training examples. This "best practices" approach makes a lot of sense.
Copyright 2007 CMP Media LLC. All rights reserved. 4/1/07, Issue # 2004, page 18. |