" IF AGENTS ARE VIEWED MORE AS A COST TO MANAGE, THEN TIME AWAY FROM THE QUEUE IS ALWAYS GOING TO BE QUESTIONED."
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HOW HAVE COACHING AND TRAINING SESSIONS BEEN TYPICALLY SCHEDULED?
A: There are probably three ways this tends to happen, and most organizations are using some mix of all three whether they realize it or not.
The first is what everyone is aiming for. Ops identifies who needs coaching or training and why, and the WFM team works with Ops to place it into their schedule( s) in a way that doesn’ t create unnecessary service level risk. It’ s planned out, or at least as planned as it can be.
Then you have the more real-time version of that, where something comes up and Ops just needs to address it. WFM gets pulled in, or sometimes WFM is just informed, and everyone kind of accepts that the service level might take a hit, but the issue is worth it.
And then there’ s the version that’ s really just friction between teams. Ops pushes coaching into the schedule regardless of impact, or WFM supervisors push back because they’ re trying to protect service level. At that point, it’ s less about scheduling and more about a lack of alignment.
Ideally, coaching and training are planned and you’ re using available time without really feeling it from a service level perspective. In reality, most teams are bouncing between all three depending on the situation.
HAVE YOU BEEN SEEING – AND DO YOU EXPECT TO SEE – CHANGES TO BOTH COACHING / TRAIN- ING AND IN SETTING ASIDE TIME( AND HOW MUCH) FOR THEM?
A: I think there’ s a version of the future where coaching and training increase, but it’ s not automatic.
As more of the simpler interactions get handled through self-service, what’ s left for agents to resolve or complete( like an involved sale) is just harder to accomplish. That should create more need for coaching and training, and in theory it should also create some space for it.
The part that complicates that is the cost is very easy to see. If I pull 20 agents into a training session, I can do the math on that immediately. The benefits are a lot less obvious. You’ re trying to improve conversations, reduce churn, build better skills, and a lot of that shows up indirectly if it shows up at all.
At the same time, even small reductions in volume start to put pressure on headcount. If you’ re deflecting 5 % of contacts, it’ s hard for a leadership team to ignore that and not at least ask questions about staffing.
" IF AGENTS ARE VIEWED MORE AS A COST TO MANAGE, THEN TIME AWAY FROM THE QUEUE IS ALWAYS GOING TO BE QUESTIONED."
-- DAN SMITLEY
So, you’ ve got this tension where the work is getting harder and arguably requires more investment, while the math is pushing you to do the opposite.
Where I have seen clear change is in how the time gets scheduled. Tools like Intradiem and QStory have taken a lot of the manual effort out of placing coaching and training into the day. That part is just getting easier and more precise.
Whether organizations actually use that to invest more in development is still very much up in the air.
WHAT CHALLENGES ARE YOU SEEING IN THE ABILITY AND THE JUSTIFICATION FOR SCHEDULING COACHING AND TRAINING, INCLUDING TIME SPENT AWAY FROM CUSTOMER INTERACTIONS?
A: A lot of this comes back to how the organization views the role of the agent, and that shows up pretty quickly in how easy or hard these conversations are.
If agents are viewed more as a cost to manage, then time away from the queue is always going to be questioned. If performance is acceptable, there’ s not a lot of urgency to invest more into development. And if anything, the pressure is usually in the other direction.
But if agents are viewed as part of how the company delivers value to customers, then coaching and training are a lot easier to justify. Not because the cost goes away, but because the expectation is that it leads to better outcomes.
Even then, it’ s not simple. The cost is immediate and visible. The benefits are often preventing something from going wrong later or improving something that’ s hard to tie directly back to a single training session.
That’ s where a lot of teams struggle. They know coaching and training matter, but it’ s hard to prove in a clean way. And if you can’ t articulate the upside clearly, the conversation usually defaults back to cost.
IS THE INFUSION OF AI INTO THE CONTACT CENTER, BOTH TO DEFLECT BUT ALSO TO SHORTEN AND IMPROVE THE OUTCOMES OF CUSTOMER CONTACTS, IMPACTING COACHING / TRAINING AND IN SCHEDULING AGENTS FOR THESE SESSIONS? IN AGENT FORECASTING?
A: It is, but probably more in terms of pressure than clean solutions.
The scheduling side is improving through AI and automation. It’ s now easier to place coaching and training into the schedules without someone manually trying to protect service levels all day.
The bigger shift is in the type of work agents are doing. As more gets handled through self-service, the interactions that make it to the agents tend to be more complex. You see some of that in handle time, but that doesn’ t really capture how mentally or emotionally taxing those conversations can be.
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