How to Improve Your Agents’ Critical Thinking Skills

Critical thinking is a key skill for contact centre agents that, when finely tuned, can positively impact everything from Customer Satisfaction and First Contact Resolution to employee engagement and staff retention.

But how do you make sure this skill is woven into your contact centre culture, so every agent knows how to use it? Our Editor, Megan Jones, spoke to Adam Boelke, Brittany Hodak, and Kim Ellis to find out.

10 Ways to Improve Your Agents’ Critical Thinking Skills

1. Encourage New Hires to Speak Up So They Know It’s Expected of Them

It’s about setting expectations and encouraging critical thinking from the minute a new agent walks through the door!

“When I meet with any new hires, I always say to them “tell us if you see something that’s not working as well as it could be”. That way they know speaking up is expected of them as part of the company culture.” – Adam Boelke, Managing Partner at The Alignment Advantage Group

2. Role-Play Scenarios That Require Agents to Apply Critical Thinking

Sow the seeds of critical thinking in your training programme with role-playing scenarios that require agents to apply critical thinking.

“Throw red herrings into your role-plays!

For example, starting off with a scenario that feels very much like a routine request, then throw in a curve ball, so agents have to pivot their thinking to find the right information, resources, and department to resolve that query.

It’s good practice for any real-life curve balls customers might throw at them.” – Kim Ellis, Chief Learning Architect at Go Ginger Learning Solutions

Also make sure to let other agents observe the role-play and all discuss it afterwards.

“When you role-play “How do we solve this problem?” as a team, it’s a chance for agents to learn from one another, discuss how they would resolve more challenging queries, and then, most importantly of all, celebrate the creativity and critical thinking the agent has applied.” – Brittany Hodak, Keynote Speaker & Author of Creating Superfans

Want advice on using mock calls in your customer service training? Read our article: How to Use Mock Calls to Improve Agent Performance – With Free Exercises

3. Give Each Agent a Solutions Budget to Use at Their Discretion

Empower your agents with a solutions budget to use at their discretion.

For example, the ability to use a budget of up to £10 for every month someone has been customer to help fix or smooth over the issue in hand. Note, this should be an amount that best aligns with your brand positioning and product line.

Also be sure to share and celebrate where and how that solutions budget has been used to build momentum and engagement with using it.

4. Create a Safe Environment for Experimentation and Mistakes

Adam Boelke

If you truly want to nurture critical thinking in your contact centre, you’ve got to make sure people feel safe to challenge what’s going on, try new things, and make mistakes.

“I always tell everybody that we have a high tolerance for non-repetitive mistakes.

And that is the key: to allow people to fail, to allow people to try new things, and see if things can work out.” – Adam Boelke

5. Give Critical Thinking Context Through the Importance of One-Call Resolution

Using the term ‘critical thinking’ within a contact centre can be a bit too jargony and lead to disengagement, so make it relevant to your agents, so they can see what it means for them and their customers.

“Put the focus on one-call resolution instead. When agents are actively trying to solve the customer’s issue on the first call and avoid repeat contacts, that is essentially critical thinking because they’re analysing the problem and finding the right solution for that customer’s unique needs.” – Kim Ellis

6. Share Real-Life Examples of Agents Using Critical Thinking

A great way to build momentum around critical thinking is to share and celebrate good examples with the team, so it becomes a staple part of your contact centre’s culture.

Brittany Hodak, customer experience speaker and author of ‘Creating Superfans’ — Brittany Hodak

“Make a habit of listening back to great calls with your agents so you can say “This is where Josie really utilized her critical thinking skills to help this customer”.

This not only shares best practice, but also celebrates and recognizes the agents who’ve done great work.

You could also try setting up a Slack channel or bulletin board where these examples can be shared regularly – all in one place.” – Brittany Hodak

7. Create Easy Pathways for Sharing New Ideas

Make it easy to share ideas!

It’s all well and good encouraging agents to apply critical thinking, but if all they do is share it with their colleague sitting next to them, it’s likely nothing will come of it – so to be sure to create easy and visible pathways for agents to share their ideas with the wider business.

An additional step to this is to make sure ideas are vetted by subject-matter experts or Heads of Departments for viability before they are put into development.

8. Make Sure Every Agent Can Find the Information They Need Quickly and Easily

Make sure that all of your processes are up-to-date, and all information is readily available to all agents, so they don’t have to scrabble about to find the answer.

It’s no good to anyone if an agent is applying critical thinking, remembers that a specific document exists, but can’t find it for 5–10 minutes!

Quite simply, don’t make it harder than it needs to be or create barriers to agents’ success!

An easily accessible and up-to-date knowledge base is an invaluable resource for agents. For tips on knowledge base management, read our article: How to Keep Your Knowledge Base Up to Scratch

9. Close the Communication Loop on All Examples of Critical Thinking

Always close the communication loop on new ideas and examples of critical thinking in practice!

If people feel their voice isn’t heard or get shouted down when they come up with new ideas, then any critical thinking training or programmes will inevitably fail.

Even if the feedback is that “it’s not the right idea this time”, make sure they are thanked for their feedback and reassured that you took the time to consider it.

10. Recognize and Reward Ideas and Innovation

And last but not least, reward people for sharing ideas and practising critical thinking.

Showcase examples of success to the whole contact centre (even the wider company) and even consider financial rewards, vouchers, or additional annual leave as incentives for initiatives that prove to save the company money and retain loyal customers.

It’s all about positively recognizing people who’ve taken their time to put an excellent idea forward, so they feel encouraged to keep up the good work!

For examples of goodwill gestures that will help leaders strengthen employee relationships in the contact centre, read our article: 18 Goodwill Gestures to Build Better Employee Relationships

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Don’t Ever Let Your Agents Think “It’s Not My Problem, I’m Not Management”

If you think you’re too busy to empower your agents with critical thinking skills, think twice!

Here’s a personal anecdote from Brittany Hodak – taken from the immediate aftermath of her son having an accident at an aquarium – that shows just how dangerous a lack of critical thinking can be:

Worker approaches Brittany whilst son is still crying from falling over.
Worker: How old is he?
Brittany: He’s four. Why?
Worker: I have to keep track of all the kids that get hurt at this exhibit.
Brittany: How many kids get hurt at this exhibit?
Worker shows her the clipboard with over 20 recorded accidents.
Brittany: How far does that go back?
Worker: This is today.
Brittany: That’s how many kids have got hurt here today?!
Worker: Yes. Management is trying to decide if they’re going to remodel this exhibit. That’s why I have to keep track of it.
Brittany: Why don’t you block the gap? You could just put a trash can there, so kids don’t fall?
Worker: I’m not management. They just told me to write it down…