8 Strategies to Improve Contact Center Agent Performance

‍TL;DR: Agent performance isn't just about speed metrics like handle time. It's the combination of efficiency and quality that actually drives business results. To improve it, you need to measure across four categories (efficiency, quality, customer experience, and agent experience) and then apply strategies that address root causes like inadequate tools, poor scheduling, and disconnected coaching.

Every contact center leader knows the difference between what their agents could be doing and what's actually happening on the floor. The truth is, agent performance drives nearly everything in a contact center. It shapes customer satisfaction, controls costs, determines whether you hit revenue targets, and influences whether your best people stick around or burn out. When agents perform well, the whole operation hums. When they don't, problems compound fast.

This guide breaks down what agent performance actually means, how to measure it properly, and eight strategies that address the root causes of underperformance rather than just the symptoms.

What contact center agent performance means

Agent performance isn't just one thing, and that's where a lot of contact centers get it wrong. The term often gets boiled down to just operational efficiency, stuff like how fast agents answer calls, how long they spend on each interaction, and whether they show up on time. These things matter, but they only tell part of the story.

Real agent performance has two sides to it. The first is operational efficiency, the basic mechanics of getting work done. The second is quality, which is what actually drives business outcomes.

When organizations focus only on efficiency, they often end up sacrificing the quality that determines whether customers stick around or leave. An agent who rushes through calls to hit speed targets might look great on a dashboard while actually hurting customer relationships. On the flip side, an agent who takes extra time to really solve problems might seem slower but creates more value through customer loyalty and fewer repeat contacts.

This distinction matters because it shapes how you invest in improvement. If you think of performance narrowly as speed and cost control, you'll end up optimizing for the wrong things. But if you see it as the combination of efficiency and quality that produces business results, you'll build a contact center that actually performs.

How to measure agent performance

If you want to get a full picture of agent performance in your contact center, you need metrics across four categories.

Efficiency metrics track operational performance:

• Average Handle Time (AHT) measures how long agents spend on each interaction from start to finish, including talk time, hold time, and after-call work
• Schedule adherence tracks how closely agents follow their assigned schedules
• Occupancy rate shows the percentage of time agents spend handling customer interactions versus waiting for work
• Call abandonment rate measures how many customers hang up before reaching an agent

Quality metrics capture whether agents are doing the job right:

• First Call Resolution (FCR) measures whether an agent solves a customer's issue completely during the first interaction, without requiring the customer to call back or escalate the problem
• Quality Management (QM) scores evaluate agent interactions for compliance, accuracy, and whether they're following best practices
• Transfer rate tracks how often agents need to escalate or hand off calls to other departments
• Error rate monitors mistakes in data entry, process compliance, or information given to customers

Customer experience metrics show how customers feel about their interactions:

• Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) scores, usually gathered through post-interaction surveys, measure how happy customers are with specific interactions
• Net Promoter Score (NPS) gauges how likely customers are to recommend your company based on their service experience
• Customer Effort Score (CES) measures how easy it was for customers to get their issues resolved

Agent experience metrics help predict retention and long-term performance:

• Agent satisfaction scores track how agents feel about their work environment, tools, and career prospects
• Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) measures whether agents would recommend working at your contact center
• Attrition rate monitors how many agents leave over a given period
• Time to proficiency tracks how long new agents take to reach full productivity

The key here is balancing these categories rather than going all-in on any single one. Organizations that only track efficiency metrics often sacrifice quality and agent experience, which leads to higher turnover and worse customer outcomes over time.

Eight strategies to improve agent performance

Now that we've covered what agent performance really means and how to measure it, let's talk about how to actually improve it. These eight strategies tackle the root causes of poor performance rather than just treating symptoms.

1. Quality management that analyzes every conversation

Traditional QM only looks at a small percentage of calls because supervisors and quality analysts can only review so many interaction recordings or transcripts. Machine learning-powered quality management changes this by analyzing every conversation automatically, scoring interactions against your rubrics and spotting patterns across your entire operation.

Organizations that roll out comprehensive QM see real cost savings in quality operations while also improving agent efficiency and customer satisfaction. The return on investment usually shows up within quarters rather than years.

If you're looking for a platform that makes this possible, Cresta is an enterprise AI platform built specifically for contact centers. Cresta's conversation intelligence analyzes every interaction for improvement opportunities and brings together real-time agent assistance with quality management in one system.

2. Agent assistance during live interactions

Agent assistance gives agents real-time support during customer conversations instead of making them dig through knowledge bases or wait for a supervisor while the customer sits on hold. The technology listens to conversations as they happen, brings up relevant information, suggests responses, and delivers next-best-action recommendations right in the agent's desktop.

When agents have the right information at the right time, they spend less time on busywork and more time actually helping customers. Handle times go down while resolution quality goes up.

Cresta Agent Assist supports agents across voice and digital channels with three core capabilities. Behavioral Guidance learns from your top performers and delivers situation-specific hints, checklists, and compliance reminders during live conversations. Knowledge Assist proactively identifies moments when agents need information, then generates exact responses grounded in your source material with citations. This creates a single source of truth across multiple repositories while preventing hallucination. 

And for chat, Typing Efficiency tools like Smart Compose and Suggested Responses minimize keystrokes and help agents handle multiple conversations at once.

3. Workforce engagement management systems

Workforce Engagement Management brings scheduling, forecasting, performance tracking, quality management, and coaching together in one integrated approach. When you connect these functions in a single system, better forecasting helps solve that weird problem where agents report burnout even though a lot of time sits idle. That usually points to bad scheduling rather than too much work.

Schedule adherence improves a lot when workforce management systems are set up right. Better scheduling improves operational discipline and reduces burnout at the same time by creating more predictable work patterns.

4. Coaching workflows connected to performance data

Generic coaching that happens every now and then doesn't move the needle much. Good coaching needs a structured approach where feedback connects directly to specific behaviors from actual customer interactions. Coaching workflows tied to QM scores create targeted development by pinpointing exactly which skills each agent needs to work on and giving examples from their own conversations.

Organizations that combine quality management with coaching in one system consistently outperform their peers on revenue, cost, and customer satisfaction. A regular coaching rhythm produces real improvements in First Call Resolution.

Cresta's coaching tools find specific coaching moments based on what top performers do differently, connecting conversation intelligence directly to agent development.

5. Agent wellness and burnout systematically addressed

Agent burnout shows up as emotional exhaustion, cynicism toward customers, and just not being as effective. That strange combination of high burnout with lots of idle time suggests the problem isn't too much work but rather poor workforce management creating unpredictable schedules and uneven workload.

Workforce management systems with better forecasting get rid of the schedule unpredictability that causes burnout. When agents work consistent, predictable schedules with the right workload distribution, stress levels drop while productivity goes up.

6. Transparent career development pathways

A lot of agents see contact center work as a dead-end job, and that mindset contributes to high turnover. Career development pathways give agents a clear picture of how they can move up within the organization. Create documented career ladders showing how someone can go from agent to specialist, team lead, quality analyst, trainer, or manager with transparent promotion criteria tied to performance metrics.

Lower turnover saves real money per agent, which means career development programs basically pay for themselves through better retention.

7. Automate after-call work and administrative burden

After-call work covers things like updating customer records, logging call notes, sending follow-up emails, and processing transactions. These tasks eat up a lot of agent time without adding direct value for customers. Set up automation for screen navigation, data transfer between systems, and post-call documentation so agents can focus on actual customer interactions.

AI-generated summaries are one of the highest-impact automations here. Instead of agents spending minutes after each call typing up notes, AI can generate accurate summaries in real time and push them directly to your CRM. When you cut down on administrative work, agents can put their energy into conversation quality instead of paperwork. Handle times decrease and agent satisfaction improves.

8. Balance your performance measurement framework

Contact centers tend to obsess over operational metrics like abandonment and AHT while ignoring agent satisfaction. A balanced measurement framework goes beyond efficiency metrics to include quality scores, customer effort, agent satisfaction, and employee Net Promoter Score, and connects everything back to business results.

When your measurement framework doesn't put speed above customer outcomes, you can catch retention problems before they turn into expensive turnover. Organizations with balanced measurement consistently outperform their peers on revenue, cost, and customer satisfaction.

Making agent performance improvement work in your operation

The strategies we've covered all come back to a few core ideas. Improving agent performance means tackling efficiency and quality together, measuring the things that actually predict business outcomes, and giving agents the tools and support they need to do their best work. Point solutions that try to solve these problems one at a time end up creating integration headaches and data silos. The organizations getting the best results are combining multiple strategies on a single platform.

Cresta brings all of this together into one enterprise AI platform built for contact centers. The platform combines conversation intelligence that analyzes every interaction, real-time agent assistance that brings up the right information during live conversations, and coaching workflows that connect performance data directly to agent development.

Cresta figures out what your best agents do differently and helps every agent pick up those winning behaviors in real time. Quality management scores every conversation automatically instead of just sampling a few. Coaching recommendations tie directly to specific moments from actual customer interactions. And the after-call work that used to eat up agent time gets automated so agents can focus on helping customers.

Visit our resource library to explore more guides on contact center performance, or request a demo to see how Cresta can help your operation.

Frequently asked questions about contact center agent performance

How long does it take to see results from agent performance improvements?

Most organizations see initial improvements within a few weeks of rolling out new tools or processes. Bigger changes to metrics like First Call Resolution and customer satisfaction typically show up within one to two quarters. The key is picking strategies that compound over time rather than quick fixes that fade.

Should I focus on improving my worst performers or my average performers?

Average performers usually offer the biggest opportunity. Your worst performers may have fundamental fit issues, while your top performers are already doing well. Moving your middle tier up even slightly can have a huge impact on overall contact center results because they represent the largest group.

How do I get buy-in from agents on new performance initiatives?

Be upfront about what's changing and why. Agents respond better when they understand that new tools and processes are meant to help them succeed, not just monitor them more closely. Involve agents early, show them how the changes will make their jobs easier, and celebrate wins publicly.

What's the biggest mistake contact centers make with agent performance?

Focusing too heavily on efficiency metrics like Average Handle Time while ignoring quality and agent experience. This creates a pressure cooker environment where agents rush through calls, customers don't get their problems solved, and turnover stays high. The short-term cost savings get wiped out by repeat contacts and constant hiring.

How often should agents receive coaching?

Weekly coaching conversations produce better results than monthly or quarterly reviews. The feedback stays fresh and agents can apply it right away. Even brief 10-15 minute sessions are effective when they connect to specific moments from recent customer interactions.