I recently read an article about the decline of available contact center agents.  One key takeaway was that contact center agents don’t feel they have the tools and systems needed to be effective at solving customer problems. This got me thinking about how we often focus on the impact of technology on business problems, but we rarely consider its effect on employee morale.

When agents feel like everyone is measuring their performance but making it difficult for them to do their best, it can feel like internal sabotage. As a result, more and more agents are leaving the customer service field and new agents are becoming harder to find. 

What can you do to make sure that your agents feel successful in their jobs?

Create hybrid jobs

First, create jobs that are hybrid-enabled from the start. Creating jobs that are flexible with the option to work remotely will help attract more people into this field.  Being able to work from home or take time off when you need it is a huge motivator and enlarges the job pool. This also enables you to search for candidates that live outside your geographic area.  Cloud-based contact centers make this easy.

Reduce applications

Another way to help agents succeed is to reduce the number of applications needed to do their jobs.  On average, agents need 9 applications to get all the data they need in order to fulfill a customer inquiry.  That is way too many.  Data has to be consolidated into fewer applications. 

Callers may doubt the accuracy of information they receive from agents if they think that it takes too long to find or if the information conflicts with other sources. Often the caller has access to different information than the agent, leaving both the caller and the agent frustrated.  While agents are being measured on how many calls they can handle per hour, they have their hands tied behind their backs as they try to dig through various applications to find answers.

Use artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can help agents find answers more quickly. It can be a bridge between multiple data sources to save time finding information, like having Google for all your internal apps and data. This takes effort to install and maintain, but the benefits are significant for both your agents and customers.

Use better metrics

There are a lot of different ways to measure success, but the most important thing is that your agents are making your customers happy. The go-to metric is number of calls handled per hour. It's better to take the pressure off how quickly the call was handled and instead measure  how satisfied the customer was with the call.

Business managers will argue that some agents will use this to their advantage so as not to be as productive. Yes, that may happen. But the majority of agents want to do their job well. We can't let a few bad apples poison the whole team. The ability to have long term success with your agents is to create an environment where they can consistently succeed.

When agents can focus on helping customers instead of rushing through calls, your customers will feel like they matter. This increases their chances of doing business with your brand again.

Add more digital channels

Lastly, having more digital channels available for communication is good for both the agent and the customer.  Something as simple as ‘chat’ creates a line of communication that's faster and gives the agent a little more time to find answers.  The agent feels good about their response, and the customer feels like they were helped quickly and not stuck on hold.

Conclusion

It's important to consider how your agents are realizing success in their jobs. If all they get are calls from angry customers, or calls that frustrate both the customer and themselves, they’re not going to last long.  Nobody wants to come to work every day and face those same issues day in and day out. 

These problems can be solved with newer contact center solutions, allowing you to keep your agents (& customers!) happy.

This post was contributed by Lance Reid, our CEO. Lance has worked in the technology industry for over 25 years. He became a Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert (CCIE) in Collaboration in 2005 and has been serving on Cisco's SMB Advisory Board since 2013.

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