Workforce Management Featured Article
Boost Agent Performance in the Contact Center by Returning to Basics
The contact center is a complex place today. We have so many channels, so many solutions, so many screens and so many processes, that agents – once customer ambassadors on the telephone – are now called on to be IT operations whizzes, expert multitaskers, records clerks and customer counselors. We expect ever more out of agents while giving them less time and more resources. It’s not hard to figure out why many companies are having a crisis of high agent turnover, low engagement and poor performance.
Consider Going Back to Basics
While it may seem intuitive to become more complex, in reality, agents have lost the message about what it means to be an agent. Do your agents understand what their goals are? Do they understand what your organization expects of them? Do they know which are the important metrics to meet?
Experts recommend that managers build a basic framework for agents to build their performance around. This framework will be composed of multiple parts, including a purpose and goals, expectations, the right tools for the job, and courtesy and empathy.
Purpose and goals. Many agents probably aren’t sure why they’re there. Are they there to reinforce a “customer is always right” message? Or are they there to earn a maximum amount of profit for their employer? (These two goals are often contradictory.) Ensure that agents understand what you expect of them (and you need to mean it, not just pay lip-service to it) and what their order of priorities should be.
Expectations. What’s a successful performance for agents? Is it to bring down average handle time? Upsell a max number of customers? Get good reports on customer surveys? What’s going to earn them a good job performance report? If agents don’t know this, they can’t achieve what’s expected of them.
The right tools. Are your call center agents comfortable with and knowledgeable about the systems they use for customer support and administrative tasks. (Before you say, “Yes,” have you asked them?) Ask them what’s working and what isn’t and find ways you can consolidate complex processes or minimize the number of screens they need to toggle between. If a large number of agents are telling you there are problems, take those problems seriously.
Agent feedback. Finally – and once again -- it’s important that you listen to your agents. They’re the ones on the front lines with customers, so they’re in a great position to spot problems, trends and opportunities. Have a suggestion box or a message board to collect agent ideas and solutions.
Edited by Maurice Nagle
