The short answerHave a coaching plan your whole management team follows, open with what the agent does well, and come in knowing the exact numbers and moments. One of the most effective moves is having the agent score their own call while the supervisor or QA analyst scores it separately, then comparing. Agents usually hear the problem themselves.
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What this episode is about

Coaching is one of the few one-on-one moments you get with an agent, and if it goes south it tears at your culture. If a supervisor's style is telling people they're terrible, that's hurting your center, and it needs to be addressed with your management team so everyone coaches the same way.

Open with something positive, ideally related to the issue, so the agent's energy shifts before you get to the fix. Then be specific. Not "your handle time is unacceptable" but "it's at six minutes 23, and here's the piece of the call that's adding the time." When agents see you've done your homework, they take it seriously.

My favorite tip ties straight back to QA: have agents assess themselves. Put the agent in one room and the supervisor or QA analyst in another, have both score the same call, then compare. It's like looking in a mirror. Most of the time the agent hears what they did wrong, and the conversation becomes confirming rather than convincing.

Then role play both ways, agent as customer and supervisor as agent. Feedback is the drill and role play is the scrimmage. It cements the coaching and shows the agent how their words could land with a customer.

Key takeaways

In Tom's words

“have them score the calls”Tom Laird · 10:38
“don't just have them listening to calls, but have them score their score their calls as well”Tom Laird · 11:08
“it's kind of like you're scrimmaging”Tom Laird · 11:27
Full disclosure: I founded OttoQA, so take this part for what it is. We built it in our own contact center. It scores calls against your own QA forms, there are no seat licenses, and if you want to see it on real calls it's a 15-minute demo. If you'd rather build something yourself, the episode covers what to watch out for. Book a demo.

Transcript excerpt

These excerpts come from an automatic transcript and are lightly edited for readability (filler and obvious transcription errors removed). For exact wording, listen at the timestamp.

[09:38]Having your agents assess themselves means either having them listen and score their own call, or, what I like, doing a calibration session with the supervisor and the associate. Put the associate in one room and the supervisor or the QA person in another, and have them score the calls. Most of the time the associate will understand what they were doing wrong when they're listening. It's kind of like looking at yourself in the mirror.

[11:01]So don't just have them listening to calls, but have them score their calls as well. I think that's super helpful. And then the number one thing, going back to the basketball analogies, is role play. It's kind of like you're scrimmaging. Doing the drills is like feedback. Then let's put it into play before we get back out on the court.

[09:05]They now know that we know what we're talking about. We've done our homework. We know exactly what the problem is. And if we do that in a nice way, they understand this is the piece I need to fix, not just, well, I've got to get my handle time down a little.

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