What is Agent Quintile in the Call Center

Call center agents performance is measured on different KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) such as Wrap time, average talk time, overall handling time, CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score) , NPS (Net promoter Score) etc. 

What is Agent Quintile in the Call Center

On the basis of agents’ performance and to rank the agents further, call centers do Stack ranking, cluster analysis, Grouping, etc. ” Agent quintile” analysis is also one of the methods used in call centers to group the agent on the basis of performance.

What is Agent Quintile in the Call Center?

As the word “Quintile” means dividing a group or data into 5 equal parts and every part contribute 20% of the range.

In a Call center, this “quintile” method is mainly used to cluster the agents or to identify the bottom performer agents, however, it is not necessary that every group contributes an equal percentage as it depends on the metrics target.

“Agent quintile is a method of categorizing agents into 5 groups on the basis of their performance in relation to specific metrics or a combination of metrics.”

On the basis of the performance and target set by the client, agents are categorized into 5 groups. “A”, “B”, “C”, “D” and “E”. 

In a layman’s language and for better understanding we can compare the agent quintile method with the survey (Star) rating methodology of a product.

In the rating system ranging from 1 to 5. A 5-star rating  survey given by the customers to a product represents a high level of satisfaction and can be categorized as a top and best product, while a 1 star signifies the lowest level of satisfaction or “worst quality product”. Likewise in Agent Quintiling :

• Quintile “A” denotes the group of  top-performer agents.

• Quintile “E” denotes the bottom performer agents.

How to do Agent Quintiling?

Preparing an agent quintiling report is very important 

Let’s understand it with an example based on an agent’s performance.

Assume we have 10 agents in a process and the metric for quintile is “NPS”. Below is the list of agents with their NPS performance for a specific month and the client has asked to do the agent quintile:

Agent NPS Scores

The target of NPS is 55 and the criteria for the agent quintiling are below:

Quintile Criteria

To do the agent quintile first we need to sort the NPS score in descending order . Below is the result for the same:

Now as per the criteria set by the client, we can quintile the agents. As per the performance stated above, below are the results:

If you want to publish the quintile-wise agent count, just draw a pivot from the above grid and you are done. With the above example here is the result:

Quintile wise agent count

How to improve Quantile “E” Performance?

Now comes the big question that how to improve the performance of Quintile “E” agents. 

Here I am sharing 5 proven steps to improve the performance of Quintile “E” agents which (if implemented strictly) can boost NPS performance in a couple of weeks.

1. Regular chats audits:

Regular Chat audits can help to understand the root cause of bottom- performing agents. A bottom performer might not be doing good in a specific call or chat driver. Or he/she might be having some skills issue which can be improved.

So with the help of regular audits, we can find out the opportunities area and can take action to improve that.

2. Regular refresher sessions:

As mentioned above post chat auditing and finding the opportunities area we need to conduct a refresher session with bottom-performing experts. These refresher sessions may be specific to the call driver, soft skills or a specific product.

Trainers must ensure that for a better understanding of experts, roleplay sessions are the mandatory part of the refresher training schedule.

Conduction refresher sessions in a timely manner will definitely produce fruitful results.

3.Conducting PKT :

PKT is an abbreviation for Product Knowledge Test. Post completion of Step 1 (Auditing Chats) and Step 2 ( Refresher sessions) we need to asses whether whatever training the Quintile “E” agents are taking is it worth or not?.

So to evaluate the impact of the refresher training and to assess product or soft skills knowledge of an agent Call center should conduct a Product knowledge tests.

4. Feedback Sessions:

After completion of step 4 i.e. Conducting PKT, you should conduct a feedback sessions with the Quintile “E” experts either One o One or in a group. 

In the feedback session address the opportunity still observed during the evaluation of PKT (Product knowledge Test).

5.Warning Letter  Sessions:

Though after implementing above mentioned 4-step solution for Quintile “E” experts, you can expect a decent 70%- 80% of output, however, 20% – 30% agents still may be not able to improve their scores.

Action on these agents can be taken after discussing them with the process head. 

Though issuing warning letters are not a solution to the problem in most call centers if agents are not improving despite all efforts over a period of time, issuing a warning letter to the agents is the last resort.

                                 *********ENDS*********

So readers, I hope today’s article “What is Agent Quintile in the Call Center” is a worth reading and now you know how to prepare an “Agent Quintile Report”.

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