According to the 2008 ICMI Research Report on Supervisor Selection and Training, only slightly two in five centers have a program in place to develop agents who aspire to be supervisors, and only one in three provide any formal training program for newly selected supervisors. Even those who acknowledged they do provide training, they still believe their supervisors are under trained.

Granted, that on-the-job training, experiential and tactical learning, and job shadowing have their benefits. To perform at the consistently high levels demanded today, and to inspire agents and impact customer satisfaction, ongoing supervisor training should be given as much attention as agent training.

So, what topics should be covered in a supervisor training program?

First and foremost, the ability to coach agents performance and behaviors is an ongoing skill. How to monitor a customer interaction, and then know where to focus the quality goals with an individual agent is not an automatic skill. Some do it well because they have been coached well; however, the majority of feedback is not clear. Ask any agent that you think is being coached what behaviors are expected of them, and what they’re working on to further their skills, and you’ll know if appropriate coaching is occurring.

Other topics, according to the ICMI report include performance metrics and reporting, human resource policies and procedures, team building and agent motivation. In Not By the Seat of My Pants, we share these team building ideas to build rapport and motivate agents.

• Set both individual and team goals
• Create and write down team ground rules
• Use a Plus/Delta process to check progress and process
• Do some short educational skill building on metrics, reporting
• Interview human resource executives and ask them to highlight the top 5 employee policies and procedures that are important to reinforce

It is critical that supervisors understand their role and accountabilities to the call center, their employees and the customer. Take a look at the amount of time spent on ensuring that your supervisors are successful. Rate the amount of focus your supervisors are given for on the job training, classroom instruction, job shadowing, e-learning or on line seminars, and one-on-one mentoring and coaching. Whichever approach you choose, grooming and training your supervisors has to be a top priority for your organization.