I recently read this LinkedIn blog post from Jeff Toister (I've been following him since I heard him speak at an ICMI conference a couple of years ago) about solving performance challenges through observation of agents who "get it right":
"Can you identify your Betty?
Early in my career, I learned that finding Betty was a great way to solve a problem.
My department was tasked with creating a training program to teach contact center agents to upsell credit cards.
Our success rate was 5%. It needed to be 20%.
The instinctive move would be to gather the management team in a conference room and invent something.
I'm glad I didn't do that.
Something told me to look at the numbers.
One agent, Betty, really stood out.
While the average was 5%, Betty was successful 40% of the time.
So I spent some time with Betty. Listened to her calls. Picked her brain.
It quickly became clear what she did differently, and better, than everyone else.
*That* was the basis of the training program.
Agents loved it because it came from Betty, not management.
Very soon, the upsell average went from 5% to over 20%.
That lesson has always stuck with me. Anytime I want to solve a problem, I try to find a Betty."
I think this can help solve FCR challenges, be used to create more effective training, and also recognize top performers (instant morale boost).
@Riley James Young could this approach have been implemented at Pipedrive trainings?
Yes! :)
We did have a training set around intercom and response times, something we called 'support productivity training'. The foundation of this training ended up being based on the 'Bettys' of our team.
We had been trying to solve the problem of getting the rest of the dept. up to the same standards and we struggled to really identify why there was a gap.
Only after we took time to discuss with the top performers, and shadow them for a few hours, and ask for their input on the training content were we able to build a training that actually worked ;)
And like @Corinne Flanagan said - it also was a great tool to recognise the top performers! Having agents contribute to training content is a bit of a win-win situation really.
@Riley James Young I love that this worked for you. I'm currently trying to round up some "Bettys" to do the same!