In our last Coach’s Corner session with Mike Egli from RingCentral, he said something that stuck with us. “Instead of me listening to 20 calls today, which means I just spent 6 hours searching to find one meaty coaching opportunity, being Sherlock Holmes with a magnifying glass, I’m now being handed the opportunity with AI.”
The Coaching Moment Is Already There
A wave in a call center usually has around 15 students. In just an eight-hour shift, that wave would produce around 100 hours of call recordings. In a week, they’d end up with 500 hours of material. Usually, Managers and QA teams come in and choose random calls to evaluate, and it’s a lottery if they choose a good call recording or one with many coaching opportunities. They listen to hours and hours of recordings just to find one good coaching moment. The problem here isn’t a lack of coaching opportunities. It’s finding these opportunities at the right time to coach agents in the moments that matter.
The Problem with Searching for Coaching Opportunities
Manual call reviews have big limitations. According to RingCentral, ” The manual method is often limited to less than 5% of total conversations. The majority of calls go unreviewed.” This means important behaviors and moments get missed, and managers spend more time searching for insights instead of acting on them and coaching agents promptly and efficiently. This gap grows even larger as teams and conversation volumes increase.
AI Changes the Starting Point
AI tools can now analyze conversations at scale and surface potential coaching opportunities. Instead of listening to hours of recordings to find that “Aha!” moment, managers can rely on AI as the “search layer” that identifies where to focus their coaching. Instead of replacing the manager, AI tools give managers better visibility into their wave’s opportunities for improvement and give them more time to do the actual coaching.
“39% of AI-centric organizations report very high value from interaction recording, nearly three times the share reported by low-maturity organizations.”
Finding the Opportunity Is Only Half the Job
Pinpointing the coaching opportunities is just the first half of the job. As Egli puts it, “The thing is, what do I do with that? Like, great, I have a coachable opportunity. Is my first reaction to walk down the hall and, like, wait for them to be off the phone and sit down with them?”
Coaching now has to move from insight to action. There’s a big gap between telling an agent where they didn’t perform their best vs. actually showing the right path to help them improve.
From Insight to Practice
The answer to Mike’s question on what to do once you find that coaching opportunity is simple: targeted, realistic practice. Once the opportunity is identified, the agent should practice that specific behavior. That’s where SymTrain comes in. With SymTrain’s AI simulation coaching, agents are able to receive personalized simulations based on their individual needs and skill gaps, which are way more effective than large training sessions. With just 5 minutes of practice a day, you will start seeing results in under a week.
Coaching Should Be Continuous
For most contact centers, coaching only happens during onboarding or when there are big software or platform updates. But in reality, performance improvement is an ongoing cycle:
With AI, managers can continuously address individual needs instead of waiting for the next training cycle, creating sustained behavior change.
But the challenge isn’t just having more technology. According to Deloitte, 72% of contact center leaders cited integrating technology, systems, and tools as a top challenge in 2026. When data is spread across disconnected platforms, it becomes harder to turn insights into timely, personalized coaching and to move from insight to action. With Connected Coach, easily integrate SymTrain with your existing tools (QA, speech analytics, WFM) to find those coaching moments and act on them when it matters, helping your agents succeed.
Takeaways
- The coaching opportunity is already there. The challenge is finding it among thousands of customer conversations.
- AI can surface coaching opportunities at scale, helping managers spend less time searching through recordings and more time coaching.
- Finding the insight is only the beginning. Effective coaching turns that insight into targeted action and practice.
- Great coaching isn’t only about fixing mistakes. Successful interactions can reveal behaviors worth replicating across the team.
- Behavior change requires continuous reinforcement. Coaching, practice, and feedback need to happen consistently.
