That's part of my original question. Cisco lists "coaching" as a specific supervisor feature, but doesn't indicate any approach. What are the features and methods to coach an agent?

In the TDM days, the coach would sit by the agent and listen in on a second set of headphones and watch what the agent did. Typically the agent would remain not ready at the end of the call, the coach would discuss the previous call, then the agent would go ready and take the next call.

A supervisor desktop with Monitoring could allow some sort of coaching.

Regards,

Geoff

Geoff,

Thanks for the info. I'm thinking that using a combination of features: monitoring, recording, messaging, and perhaps some tweaking in agent settings, including automatic work would help. I was hoping someone would have some creative approach on how to best use the tools. This is something I would have expected to see in the Design Guide.

Brian

Brian,

I guess the design guide is to cater the technical bits of it (how to make it work). What you're looking for its more on the day-to-day operation best practice, etc.

As was mentioned, in the good old days supervisor would be seating next to the agent to coach/teach/guide/evaluate them in handling the different kinds of calls.

These days (for example) its typically used together with some form of call recording & QM solution where the supervisor doesn't need to perform this task real-time (as the call is on going). The call recording would allow the supervisor to evaluate the agent anytime they want. Agent would be evaluated based on how they greet the customer, resolve an issue, etc. Some QM solution would be able to link the agent to an e-learning course on how to improve certain areas (maybe a link to an example of a proper way to greet callers). There's are also other QM solution which are able to alert the supervisor if the agent is having problem in handling the call (based on agent's request, high tone of voice, use of certain words/phrases) and upon receiving the alert the supervisor can jump into the call and assist/coach the agent accordingly. I guess each contact center would have their own way to making use of this function.

Thanks!

-JT-