How To Improve Coaching & Development of Customer Experience Employees

Great customer experience starts with the people who interact with customers every day. Contact centers can invest in technology, redesign processes, and introduce new communication channels, but well-trained, supported, and motivated employees remain one of the most important elements in delivering consistently strong customer experiences.

• Employees and Customer Experience
• What CX Experts Recommended
• 3 Lessons for Contact Center Coaching
• Make Development a Continuous Process

Employees and Customer Experience

As customer service contact centers, we know that customer experience is one of our priorities. Organizations constantly look for new ways to improve CX by implementing technology, adapting processes, and developing new service strategies.

But we should not forget one of the most important elements of a great customer experience: our employees.

Agents are the people directly interacting with customers who have questions, problems, complaints, or purchasing decisions to make. Their communication skills, product knowledge, confidence, empathy, and ability to solve problems can directly influence how customers perceive the organization.

This is why agent development is an important part of a successful customer service contact center operation.

But how can organizations help agents develop the skills they need to deliver a great customer experience during every call or point of contact?

In 2017, CCSI decided to ask customer experience experts directly.

What CX Experts Recommended

CCSI reached out to customer experience professionals on Twitter in May 2017 and asked a simple question:

What is the first step you would take to improve coaching and development of CX employees?

Three customer experience professionals responded with advice focusing on hiring, continuous coaching, employee feedback, and career development.

Shep Hyken: Start by Hiring the Right People

“Besides hire me? (HA!) Seriously, hire the right people to begin with. Then define what’s expected & make time to properly train them.”

— Shep Hyken (@Hyken), May 18, 2017

Hyken's response emphasized that employee development begins before training starts. Selecting people with the appropriate attitude, communication abilities, and customer-focused qualities provides a stronger foundation for coaching and development.

Once those employees are hired, organizations should establish clear expectations and dedicate sufficient time to training rather than assuming employees will learn everything while handling customer interactions.

Leslie O'Flahavan: Make Coaching Frequent and Provide Career Opportunities

“Great question! I'd hire #CX staff carefully, make coaching frequent & authentic, present a clear career path w opportunities for growth.”

— Leslie O'Flahavan (@LeslieO), May 18, 2017

O'Flahavan's recommendation went beyond initial training. Coaching should be frequent and authentic rather than something employees receive only when a problem occurs.

Career development also matters. Employees who understand how they can grow within the organization may have stronger reasons to continue learning, improving, and investing in their performance.

Career opportunities, internal development, recognition, and employee support are also important components of CCSI's approach to company culture and employee development.

Annette Franz: Listen to Employees

“My first step: Listen to employees and understand their needs and where they'd like to go.”

— Annette Franz, CCXP (@annettefranz), May 18, 2017

Franz highlighted another important part of employee development: listening.

Coaching should not be entirely based on what managers believe employees need. Agents can provide important insight into the skills they want to develop, the challenges they face, and the direction they would like their careers to take.

Listening to frontline employees can also help managers identify process problems, training gaps, customer concerns, and opportunities for operational improvement.

3 Lessons for Contact Center Coaching

Although each expert approached the question differently, their responses can be summarized into three fundamental principles.

1. Hire the Right Customer Experience Employees

Successful coaching starts with recruiting people who have the qualities required for customer-facing work.

Technical procedures and systems can often be taught. Communication, empathy, patience, adaptability, listening ability, and a genuine willingness to help customers can be more difficult to develop from scratch.

CCSI's bilingual and bicultural agent workforce combines language skills with cultural familiarity and professional development to support U.S. customer interactions.

2. Make Coaching Frequent and Continuous

Coaching should not be limited to onboarding or annual performance reviews.

Customer interactions provide continuous opportunities to identify strengths, recognize successful behaviors, and find areas where employees need additional support.

A structured Quality Assurance and Call Monitoring program can help connect actual customer interactions with agent coaching and performance development.

Call monitoring, scorecards, calibration, feedback sessions, and targeted training can give supervisors more useful information for coaching than relying exclusively on productivity metrics.

3. Understand Agent Needs and Create Growth Opportunities

Development becomes more meaningful when employees can see where it may lead.

Managers should talk with employees about their goals, listen to their feedback, and identify opportunities to build new skills or take on additional responsibilities.

A clear career path can also strengthen engagement by showing employees that continued learning and strong performance can create opportunities for advancement.

Effective coaching is not simply about correcting mistakes. It is about helping employees develop the skills, confidence, and opportunities they need to grow.

Make Development a Continuous Process

The advice CCSI received from these CX professionals in 2017 remains useful: start with the right people, provide frequent coaching, listen to employees, and create opportunities for professional growth.

Contact center environments continue to evolve as customer expectations, communication channels, technology, automation, and AI change the way customer interactions are handled.

That evolution makes continuous employee development even more important. Agents need opportunities to strengthen communication skills, learn new systems, understand changing customer expectations, and develop the judgment required to manage increasingly complex interactions.

Strong coaching also requires good leadership. Supervisors should be prepared to recognize performance, provide useful feedback, communicate expectations clearly, and help employees understand how their individual work contributes to broader customer and business objectives.

At CCSI, employee development is part of a broader effort to create stable, experienced teams capable of delivering high-quality customer interactions for our clients.

Special Thanks to Our CX Contributors

CCSI would like to preserve its original thanks to the three customer experience professionals who responded to our question and shared their knowledge with us in 2017:

• Shep Hyken — @Hyken
• Leslie O'Flahavan — @LeslieO
• Annette Franz, CCXP — @annettefranz

Their original responses helped reinforce an idea that remains fundamental to contact center management: investing in employees is an important part of investing in customer experience.

Discover How CCSI Invests in Employee Development

Historical note: This article preserves responses shared with CCSI by customer experience professionals through Twitter in May 2017. The original advice and contributors have been retained, while the surrounding content, structure, terminology, and internal links have been reviewed for current relevance.

Originally published: 2017
Last reviewed and updated: July 25, 2026