PayPal Uses Agent Coaching To Boost NPS, Customer Loyalty

We know that happy agents produce happy customers.

Thanks to PayPal, we also know that expertly coached agents produce loyal customers.

When it first arrived, PayPal had to establish the trust, respect, and loyalty of a marketplace generally unfamiliar with its online payment system. In recent years, it has worked to grow that trust, respect and loyalty amid its own expansion and the emergence of competitors.

Suffice it to say, customer loyalty is a paramount PayPal objective.

In its quest to achieve that objective, PayPal has uncovered a significant, undeniable link between effective agent coaching and improvement in loyalty/advocacy-related metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS).

Peg Raposo, PayPal’s senior quality leader for global operations (pictured), will share her company’s coaching strategies at the Global Contact Center Excellence event, October 26-28, Miami, FL. In advance of that presentation, she offered some insights to Call Center IQ.

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Call Center IQ: How do you measure and assess customer loyalty? Does that approach differ across your different regions of operation?

Peg Raposo, PayPal: We use the standard loyalty question to [measure] NPS and assess progress monthly. The measurement is based on customers providing a 9 or 10 on an 11-point scale saying they would be willing to recommend PayPal to friends and colleagues. The approach does not differ across regions in PayPal.

When it comes to customer management, many business leaders talk in broad, big picture terms. They "prioritize the customer experience." They want to be "customer-centric." But we’re curious about specific actions. What, specifically, must you do to build customer loyalty?

Various items are needed:

• Partner with the survey vendor to validate the key drivers of customer experience.
  • Then: Drive change in the organization – from leadership and teammates – based on those changing customer expectations.
• Work by product, process, policy and procedural groups to understand customer pain points.
  • Then: Work to modify and improve processes to meet customer needs.
• Understand the key [agent] behaviors that drive satisfaction and loyalty at the front-line level.
  • Then: Coach based on those key drivers of customer experience.

Call Center IQ: In addition to talking about loyalty, your presentation at the Global Contact Center Excellence Summit specifically focuses on the importance of proper coaching and training. What prompted your company to focus so notably on the agent side of the equation?

We have seen remarkable [results when] leaders who train front-line teammates [apply] an effective coaching model. This process enables teammate ownership of performance, drives engagement in making improvements to the customer experience, [and inspires teammates to develop] their own action-planning and accountability.

Call Center IQ: What have you done -- and what are you doing -- to assure your agents are in position to create the kind of experiences that foster customer loyalty?

• [Create] team leader accountability for coaching teammates.
• Also coach all levels of leadership--from Director to Group Leader to Team Leader--[based on a customer focus].
• Conduct huddles and team-learning sessions all focused on the customer experience and how to deliver it.
• Share best practices globally on initiatives that drive customer experience improvement.

Call Center IQ: What kind of results have you seen? What do you want to see moving forward?

• Key performance indicators such as agent satisfaction, NPS, and a key driver index have all risen significantly. They continue to increase.
• Since 2012, NPS has increased from ~32 to ~50 globally. It is 60+ in some business units.
• [Devoting a greater percentage] of time and accountability [to the] coaching and development of our people will drive NPS improvement further. New driver work is also being deployed; it will enable us to take the customer experience to the next level from a behavioral perspective.