published 03-30-2018

CX Best Practice Award Winnerfor CSR Coaching Program

Mr. Cooper

CX Best Practice Success Story – CSR Coaching Program

Company Description

Mr. Cooper is the consumer brand for the mortgage servicing and originations operation of

Nationstar Mortgage Holdings Inc. (NYSE: NSM). Based in Dallas, Texas, Mr. Cooper is one of

the largest home loan servicers in the country focused on delivering a variety of servicing and

lending products, services and technologies to make the home loan process more rewarding

and less worrisome.

Mr. Cooper

Contact Center Description

Location

Dallas, TX

CSR Headcount

1,313 CSRs

Background

Coaching is the most important job in the call center, and there is no role in the company that’s

more influential to our performance than that of a frontline manager. The actions of our managers

will either make or break us, and it’s critical that they provide top notch coaching to their agents

in order to succeed.

Over the years, Mr. Cooper has refined a coaching program that is four things:

• Formal

• Prescriptive

• Comprehensive

• Consistent

During 2017, we acquired approximately 1 million new customers, and our staff grew by 400+

agents. Nevertheless, in spite of our low tenure, by using this highly effective program, along with

the survey feedback received from SQM, we’ve been able to continuously improve our overall

performance, which is why we believe our program is a best practice. This write up will summarize

the key components of how it works!

One-on-One Agent Coaching

Every agent is scheduled to meet with their manager, bi-weekly, for an hour, to have a formalized

one-on-one coaching session. They’re all trained to follow specific steps in each of these coaching

sessions to make them as effective as possible. These steps are as follows:

1. Prepare (Review score card, find a surveyed call, preview the call, review prior

coaching notes)

2. Set the stage (Explain the purpose of the meeting and check for agent readiness)

3. Recap the prior coaching session

4. Ask agent how the current action plan is going

5. Play a new call

6. Ask agent to summarize the call (What happened?)

7. Ask agent to identify the strengths of the call (What did they like about what they

heard?)

8. Reinforce the strengths (Add to their list of things you noted that they did not)

9. Ask agent how they feel their opportunities from prior session changed (Better?

Worse? Same?)

10. Ask agent to list all opportunities for improvement (New or Same)

11. Point out additional opportunities for improvement (if applicable)

12. Share SQM feedback

13. Ask agent to explain how their performance impacts the customer

14. Identify top 1-2 opportunities to work on (What will make the biggest impact?)

Each of these steps are better explained in our Coaching Handbook.

Coaching Database

Every coaching session is logged in the Coaching Database. This data is used to help ensure all

agents are being coached, understand the opportunities they’re struggling with, and stay informed

of their action plans. This is also used to aid the coach in keeping track of each agent’s individual

action plans. Therefore, our philosophy is if a coaching session is not logged in the database,

then it did not happen.

Once a coaching session is logged, an e-mail is sent to the person who was coached so they can

electronically sign off on their action plan. Having documentation of the action plan is good, but it

also helps give the agent a reminder, in black and white, of exactly what they should be working

on before they get coached again. A report is maintained that tracks the acknowledgments so if

an agent fails to sign their plan, their manager is alerted so they may follow up.

Coach-the-Coach

Each manager/coach is observed by their AVP/VP at least twice per month to receive feedback

on their coaching technique. This process has been refined over time, and we’ve created a best

practice guide and documented the required coach-the-coach steps in our handbook.

All of these activities are logged into a database and reporting is used by the leadership which

details the scores, strengths, weaknesses, and action plans for each supervisor/coach. The

coaching score combined with the manager’s overall SQM CSAT determines their ranking (i.e.,

The supervisor with the best SQM results and the highest Coaching Effectiveness rating is

considered our most valuable supervisor).

Coaching Adherence Reports

Since all of the coaching sessions are logged in a database, we’re able to produce reporting which

tracks how many coaching sessions have happened at any given time. All managers are expected

to coach their agents at least twice per month. The same goes for AVPs/VPs for their Coach-the-

Coach sessions. A report is published bi-monthly which shows the progress of each coach on the

floor and is shared with the department leadership. This is extremely helpful in highlighting which

members of the team are coaching and who is not.

Coaching Handbook & Guides

All of the coaching best practices for Mr. Cooper have been documented in an official handbook.

This handbook provides detailed step-by-step instructions for exactly how we expect our

managers to perform a coaching session. Although each manager on the floor receives training

prior to coaching, the handbook is written in a way that if they’ve never coached anyone before,

they could simply follow the instructions and be able to do a good job.

In addition to the handbook, we’ve also created handy guides with check boxes that provide the

coach with a visual aid during their coaching sessions. If they want to make sure they don’t miss

any of the expected steps, all they need to do is check the boxes on the list as they go. The guide

also serves as a grading form during the Coach-the-Coach sessions.

These guides and handbook also give the coaches instructions on how to gain access to the

coaching database, and how to log their sessions, among other coaching related tasks.

Agent Satisfaction Surveys

After each round of coaching, our agents are given a survey to assess their satisfaction level with

the coaching technique of their manager. The feedback is totally anonymous and is shared with

the managers to help them get better. The questions asked in the survey are:

A. Who coached you most recently?

B. My coach was well prepared for the session, having calls and prior session notes ready

for me

C. My coach helped me understand my strengths and opportunities

D. My action plan was crystal clear in what I had to do differently to succeed or improve

E. I’m confident that I can successfully execute my action plan

F. My coach facilitated the session in a smooth and professional way

G. I felt like my coach truly cared about helping me achieve my performance goals

H. What did you like about the coaching session?

I. What advice do you have for your coach to help them become a better coach?

Coaching Effectiveness Reporting

Each level of management is provided with a report that measures their overall performance by

combining KPIs such as SQM’s voice of the customer metrics, and handle time, along with their

coaching numbers. The coaching metrics they’re measured on are:

1. Manager Coaching Adherence

2. Coach-the-Coach Adherence

3. Average Agent Satisfaction Score

4. Coaching Effectiveness Score (Graded by AVP/VP during Coach-the-Coach)

The reports are displayed in a way that allows our leadership to easily pinpoint the opportunity for

improvement with the managers. If there is anyone that is doing a poor job of coaching, this report

will expose them, and also highlight exactly what they need to work on to improve.

Performance Score Cards

Employees at all levels (agents, supervisors, trainers, AVPs, VPs, SVPs, etc.) are given a score

card and held accountable for their metrics individually (e.g., SQM metrics, AHT, attendance,

adherence, sales leads, and QA). Just like with our Coaching Sessions, everyone is expected to

know their strengths and weaknesses, and they must commit to an action plan to constantly

improve their performance. These performance reviews are held weekly, and if metrics don’t meet

expectations, no matter what level you’re at, you’ll be coached up to meet expectations, or you’ll

be coached out.

Calls of Fame Library

Agents are able to self-nominate a call which they believe they have handled particularly well.

This has allowed the agent to be involved in the process and feel they have a voice. The

nominations allow us to highlight a particular aspect of a call and allow supervisors easy access

to coaching examples for specific call behaviors. Examples of best practice call behaviors are

tone, wow words, empathy, and active listening. The Calls of Fame Committee reviews the call

and if the call is accepted into the Calls of Fame the agent receives a Calls of Fame certificate,

announcement email, and the call is made available for coaching review with fellow agents and

to upper management.

Call Clinics

Every two weeks, we host a Call Clinic with all of our agents. This is a group coaching activity

where 6-7 agents are brought into a room for 45 minutes and coached on a topic. The topics are

decided by the leadership to address areas that we feel the entire floor could benefit from such

as empathy, call recaps, and proper hold procedures.

In the sessions, we spend the first 15 minutes discussing the topic at hand. Then we spend 5

minutes listening to snippets from the Calls of Fame Library to show agents the right (and wrong)

ways to handle the call scenarios in question. The final 20 minutes of the clinics are dedicated to

role playing, where we ensure the agents get a chance to practice what they learned in a fun and

encouraging way. After each session, the agents take a survey to provide the coaches with

feedback on how to make the clinics better.

Summary

In conclusion, the key to an effective coaching program is simply…hard work. If you want your

numbers to improve, and you want to move the needle, you have to be willing to put in the work

to make it happen. There’s no easy way to do it, and there’s no magical change that a site can

make that will cause their scores to improve overnight. We’ve kept our heads down, treated the

SQM scores as the ultimate measurement, trusted in our strategy, and have seen gradual

improvement over time. It happened because we worked hard and we stuck to doing the right

things, one day, one agent, one customer, one call, and one coaching session at a time.