Running a successful contact center hinges heavily on enabling each team member to perform at their peak potential. Bill Gates once said, “As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.” And as cliché as it might sound, solid leadership is, indeed, based on empowering the team as a whole.

When it comes to leadership and effective call center coaching, things like industry experience and knowledge go a long way to get the ball rolling. However, it generally takes a less tangible set of soft skills to get the ball across the finish line.

Contact center leaders must sharpen essential soft skills, like the 3 explored below, to foster success on their teams.

1. Effective Communication

The number one soft skill that contact center leaders must possess is the ability to communicate effectively. You can have all the knowledge in the world about how to succeed on calls, but if you can’t articulate that to your people, it adds no benefit. Clear communication also helps leaders define expectations, share constructive feedback, and resolve conflicts.

Success Tip: Consider getting anonymous feedback about your communication style from your people. Don’t be afraid to adjust how you interact with your team if your communication is missing the mark.

2. Realistic Resourcefulness

Cookie-cutter approaches to problem solving tend to produce mediocre and unreliable results. Contact center managers must be willing to source solutions for the issues that slow their teams down or stand in the way of their goals. On the flip side, they also need to know what’s feasible within their organization so they invest in realistic solutions—not just ones that look good on paper. This skill can be honed with experience, but it’s based upon a proactive mindset.

Success Tip: Take the time to continue your education and stay on top of industry trends. Investigate out-of-the-box resources, and explore potential solutions before a speed bump on the path to success becomes a roadblock.

3. Conflict Management and Timing

Knowing when to step in and assist on a call that’s going south is an art form, but a vital one. Contact center leaders need to stay involved with agents’ day-to-day work, prepared to assist when necessary. Even the best members of your team are human; they’re bound to make mistakes, so make sure you’re available to help correct them.

Success Tip: Establish processes to quickly identify when it’s time for you to step in on a call. Coaching agents in the moment is far more effective than mining the call for insights and offering suggestions after the fact. Additionally, look to identify what caused the call to head in a negative direction—this can help you update your training, ultimately increasing your agents’ productivity and improving customer experience.

Smart Solutions Enhance Skilled Leadership

These soft skills are critical on their own, but you can amplify their impact with the right assistance. Sure, it would be great if you had all the answers to solve every problem, instinctively knew when to jump onto struggling calls at the perfect moment, and could communicate clearly with every member of your team at all times, but it’s just not realistic.

Thankfully, with the advent of technology, there are plenty of easy-to-use software solutions that can help you achieve your peak potential, which in turn will help your agents do the same.

For example, Balto’s Real-Time Coaching software allows you to program triggers and keywords that might indicate when an agent needs your help on a call. The AI software monitors 100% of calls and alerts you in real time to jump in and de-escalate the situation when it hears a trigger. This allows you to coach more often and more impactfully without wasting hours listening to past calls.

Additionally, Balto’s Real-Time Guidance and Real-Time Quality Assurance products are the industry-leading solutions to help create and support high-performing agents.

Understanding which soft skills drive contact center success can transform the way you lead your team. So can implementing the right solutions. If you’re interested in seeing how Balto can complement your skills and support your team, schedule a free demo today.