Considering Automating Coaching?

At what expense and benefit?   

The allure of AI has been hitting contact centers for a few years with the promise of replacing headcount and replacing processes. One instance where this promise has come into fruition is AI driven results in quality assurance. Adopters may now analyze every call instead of 1% or 2% of them.  

However, such a tool comes at a significant cost. There are other areas where AI has created significant buzz without many noteworthy results such as automated chatbot responses. We anticipate these obstacles will be overcome but require a deal of work to get there. 

Where AI is really making an impact is in helping your agents perform better. The only technology which has exposed this value proposition to date is SymTrain. The tools delivered by SymTrain automates coaching and role play exercises to help coach agents based on their actual job performance and call recordings. Agents are trained by rehearsing scenarios which mirror the type of customer interaction faced while in-role. Additionally, these solutions are used by managers.

As with any investment in new technology one of the most important points of analysis is Return-on-Investment. SymTrain has developed a method of calculating the ROI based on various industry specific factors.  

This calculation requires a benchmarking effort based on the cost of the total agent population including both direct employees and your BPO resources. After determining the total span of control that includes all team leaders, supervisors, managers and directors, one must factor in various operational costs and synergistic savings.   

These calculations will give you total loaded costs for each agent, and you can differentiate for a $15/ hour employee costs $25/ per hour while a $15/ hour BPO agent may only cost $18 or $20 along with a standard cost for managers, facilitators, SMEs, and team leaders. 

To complete the benchmarking exercises, you must consider the following:   

1. Starting with coaching you need to determine what the current coaching cadence is for each employee and total employees. How many coaches, managers, team leaders, SMEs, or facilitators are dedicated to coaching, and what is the related time and cost associated with these efforts along with impact of total improvements across the board from coaching. 

2. For training purposes, it is essential to assess your existing process for each employee, cohort, or class, as well as the collective data for all employees. Additionally, you should determine the average duration of onboarding training, the typical class size, the total number of annual classes, and the projected number of new hires, factoring in in-class attrition (30-, 90-, 180-, and 360-day attrition) as well as any anticipated growth due to business expansion or seasonal demands.  

3. For assessment you need to determine total resumes, phone screens, interviews, offers, and 1^st day arrivals required to maintain capacity planning requirements and the current cost to deliver.   

Once you've achieved benchmarking, gaining insight into how SymTrain reduces costs, enhances performance, and contributes to the business requires the following: 

1. Coaching: Have we improved performance across the board, reduced 90-day, 180-day, and 360-day attrition, while subsequently increasing supervisor span of control? 

2. Training: Have we reduced onboarding training days to proficiency? 

3. Assessment: Have we reduced no shows, increased non acceptances, and improved good onboarding attrition with early-applicant-testing? 

Conducting a comprehensive analysis lays the foundation for measuring the impact of SymTrain on your business. 

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