3 Ways to Prioritize Your Agents for a Better Customer Experience

A great customer experience isn’t coincidental. It’s carefully crafted, highly intentional and, most importantly, it’s hard.

A mere 8 percent of customers think they’re receiving an awesome customer experience, according to a study from Bain & Company. And of those who have a really great experience, 68 percent of them attribute it to a pleasant agent, according to another study from American Express. Furthermore, 62 percent said the agents’ knowledge and resourcefulness was key to their positive experience.

You know knowledgeable and empowered agents provide a better customer experience, yet you’re still plagued by insane turnover rates, frustrated workers, inefficient workflows and misaligned processes in the contact center. Why?! And what can you do to fix it?

Start prioritizing your agent experience.

Think about it, when your agents feel they’re working well – when they’re efficient, effective and aligned – they work harder. They know what your expectations are and how they’re impacting the greater vision of your company. Agents that are motivated, engaged, and empowered are happier and more satisfied with their jobs. And, they’ll provide better customer care.  They can see how their actions impact a real, live human by creating a better customer experience.

But if they’re stuck in a broken process, fumbling through outdated technology paired with a manager that has too much on their plate, their ability to drive positive experiences flounders into a sea of nothingness. And if they’re frustrated, the results on your team morale are toxic.

You’re searching high and low for coachable moments, without any time to actually coach, amplifying the negativity. And to top it off, the outdated tech stack your center’s using is mismatched with what your customers are using. For instance, your customers (and your agents, for that matter) are used to texting, sending pictures or videos, chatting on a live chat or using social media to communicate, switching from one place to another without losing context.

But your business is not.

It’s time for contact centers to put agents’ success at the top of the priority list. Start building your agents’ confidence and empowerment. But what exactly does agent success look like? Here are five ways to prioritize your agents and improve their (and your) success.

Three Ways to Prioritize Your Agents

1. Start (and continue) coaching

The single most important thing you can do as a contact center manager is coach your team. But managers are struggling to train their people well. On average, managers are spending 53 percent of their week looking for coachable moments rather than actually coaching. Yet, studies show frequent touchpoints, with specific examples increase employee satisfaction, engagement and performance. And, it creates a culture of trust company-wide.

2. Use the right tools

Efficient tools and processes increase agent productivity and satisfaction. Think about it: If your agents have to fumble through a messy process, touch eight different tools in under three minutes, just to find a clue to answer the customer’s problem, they’re going to get a little flustered. But offering up the right tools (with coachable moments built in), with processes meant to enhance the workflow, not stifle it, creates more effective and efficient agents – and happier customers.

3. Empower them

Empowered agents work with more autonomy. They see more first contact resolutions and have clarity in where they’re impacting your company’s vision. Workers place a high value on employee empowerment, whether they’re in a contact center or somewhere else in the company. It’s simple, they want to feel supported and respected. They’re hungry to perform at or above your customers’ expectations, but they need the right tools to be successful and effective.

Sharpen has created a solution designed to remove the inefficiencies that are plaguing your agents, their quality of life and their ability to provide a positive customer experience every time. Join their webcast as they talk about key trends driving new opportunities for agent empowerment and how contact centers can take advantage ASAP to improve their agents’ experience.

Trends in Agent Empowerment

Although businesses highlight the importance of customer service and retention, customer service managers continue to report an overwhelming amount of issues. Alarming turnover rates, frustrated workers, inefficiency and inadequacy are some of the issues plaguing contact centers today. The root of the problem? Agent success, or lack thereof.

Think about it – when employees feel they are working efficiently, effectively, and with constant support from supervisors, they work harder. In contact centers today, agents feel frustrated. Too often, contact centers will use outdated software, leading agents to become frustrated and be less efficient with their time. The lack of support from supervisors is apparent, while agents rarely have any means to track their progress, leaving the agent confused and directionless. To top it off, outdated technology used by most contact centers is mismatched with the technology used by the general public today including SMS & MMS text, live chat (not with a robot), social media, and way more.

It is time for contact centers to put their agents’ success first in their line of priorities. In order to do this, they must focus on empowering their agents. What exactly does agent empowerment look like? Empowered agents have access to the tools they need to do an excellent job, are fully supported by their supervisors, are capable of making decisions for themselves, and are well respected by their colleagues.

Millennials entering the workforce place a high value on employee empowerment whether in the contact center, or in another industry. It’s simple – they want to feel supported, respected, and feel as though they have the tools they need to be successful and effective. These tools include a way to track progress, up-to-date technology, effective training programs and constant feedback.

Sharpen has developed a holistic solution designed to eliminate common inefficiencies that ultimately impact the agent, their quality of life, and their ability to provide a perfect customer experience. Check out their webcast on August 2 as they discuss key trends driving new opportunities for agent empowerment, and how contact centers can take advantage ASAP to improve their agents’ experience.

Why Happy Agents Make Happy Customers

Guest Blog From Bright Pattern

Customer service agents are often the primary point of contact with your customers. It makes sense that you want your customer-facing employees to be helpful, enthusiastic, and happy to be doing their jobs. After all, your company’s reputation, satisfaction ratings, and profitability are at stake.

So how do you create a contact center environment that motivates agents?

Live by the Agent Empowerment Model

Through a recent survey of contact center decision makers, Bright Pattern identified the top three strategies for creating engaged agents.

Of our survey respondents,

• 70% said to improve agent training
• 64% said to provide agents with better tools
• 49% said to offer better self-service

At Bright Pattern, we believe in the agent empowerment model, which means providing agents with the tools and technology they need to succeed. This model aligns with our survey results, and it’s been driving our roadmap since the beginning.

Here’s what the agent empowerment model looks like in practice:

• Declutter the agent desktop with an innovative UI.
• Give agents easy-to-use technology for automatic customer recognition.
• Eliminate mundane transactions with AI and provide agents with AI Assist.
• Automate workflows.
• Limit downtime with active-active technology.

How Everyone Benefits

Here’s a breakdown of the benefits you can expect when your contact center operations revolve around the agent empowerment model.

Higher Customer Ratings and Sales

According to Gallup, highly engaged teams achieve, on average, a 10% increase in customer ratings and a 20% increase in sales.

Faster, More Efficient Problem Resolution

Agents who feel more valued by their employers are more motivated to resolve calls satisfactorily, find creative solutions, and improve their own knowledge and customer relationship skills.

 

They have access to a knowledge base and can, at any time, reach out to subject matter experts to resolve customer problems faster and more accurately.

 

Less Employee Turnover

The costs of replacing and retraining agents can be a tremendous drawdown on operational budgets, and the loss of institutional knowledge when an experienced agent walks out the door also impacts customer service center performance.

Using AI to automate frequent requests and routine tasks makes the agents’ work less transactional. This increases agent satisfaction because agents can focus on helping people.

Higher Customer Experience

Empowered agents also have the right tools to provide a consistent customer experience and resolve issues fast, on any channel, any time. They depend on a single, integrated application combining unified communication tools, access to information, knowledge bases, and customer data in context of the moment, all of which ultimately improve customer satisfaction.

Get Started

By making some smart investments, you can vastly improve agents’ attitude, abilities, job commitment, and engagement levels—all of which have proven positive impacts on how they serve your customers.

3 Tips for Creating a Captivating Employee Culture

Employee culture has an enormous impact on the success of your company. When you’re able to create a stellar employee culture, your agents aren’t the only ones who will notice ­– your customers will love what they see, too, which will drive sales and business success.

Startups have it a bit easier because they can create their employee culture from the very beginning. If you have an established brand, it may be trickier to shake things up. It is possible, though. Here’s how:

Create a culture that reflects you.

You are your brand, and your brand is you. The elements that drove you to create your company are the same ones you should mark as most important for your company culture. Are you incredibly creative and innovative? Do you appreciate people who work hard and then play hard? Do you think that a relaxed workspace, where people are calm and centered, is the best way to accomplish tasks? Do you believe that collaboration is the best way to advance your company? Think about those questions when you’re hiring employees.

Take the lessons from the past and apply them now.

No matter where you are in your corporate journey ­– a first-time founder of a brand new startup or a seasoned entrepreneur in the middle of her tenth venture ­– you’ve learned something in the past that you can apply here. If you’ve only ever been an employee, think about what did and did not work for you at your previous jobs. If you’ve managed others in the past, think about the reactions you got when you launched new programs or instated certain rules.

Get everyone on board.

In order for an employee culture to truly permeate the entire company, everyone needs to be on board. Take a tip from JetBlue for getting everyone off on the right foot. When they hire new team members, they’re invited, along with their spouses, to orientation. Yes, they watch brand videos during orientation, but they also get to fly simulators and indulge in delicious meals. JetBlue introduces everyone to a specific, brand-centric culture, which sets the tone for their entire work experience.

Employee culture is the base for how everything functions in your company, from interactions between employees to customer service. No matter how long you’ve been in business, you can create and evolve your company culture starting now.

Is Gamification Right for Your Contact Center?

Gamification might be a contact center buzzword right now, but the fact that it’s trendy doesn’t make it right for your agents. In order for gamification to be successful, you have to have analytics, agents and management all on the same page, and your team members’ personalities have to be more cohesive than contrasting. Here are five factors to determine whether or not gamification is a good choice for you.

First Things First: What is Gamification?

Gamification refers to game mechanics in the contact center that are used to motivate employees. Agents compete to finish objectives before others. Competition can be based on practically anything, but should focus on the areas that need the most improvement. These could include hours worked, average speed to answer, first call resolution, total talk time, after-call work time, or percentage of calls segmented by type. Rewards are doled out, ranging from leaderboard ranking to badges, trophies and other physical prizes.

5 Gamification Considerations

1. Everyone will have to see each other’s scores in order to benchmark their own score and spur on the competition. Agents will then know that the winner was fairly chosen, which instills confidence and trust in management. To do this, though, you’ll need a robust, reliable reporting system that includes the metrics you want to track.
2. Several agents must participate, not just a select few, and they have to be agents who are able to engage in healthy rivalry. You may want to create a team building program before deciding if gamification is right for your contact center.
3. You’ll need a system setup to detect and report cheating. Some agents may try to make it look like they’re doing more just for the sake of winning.
4. New hires do well with gamification because it can help them learn faster and retain information better. However, they might be at the bottom of the scoreboard when learning because they’re competing against seasoned agents, and that could inhibit their confidence. Carefully choose the competitions that new hires are included in, and consider having them only compete against other new hires, which will level the playing field.
5. Gamification usually requires some amount of supervision. Consider how realistic it is for management to get involved based on their availability.

Have you setup gamification in your contact center? We want to hear about your experience!

 

How Can Your Business Relate to the Millennial Community?

Millennials are arguably the most rapidly-evolving and flippant consumer base in the industry. It is a challenge in itself to understand what they desire in a product, and even moreso how to please them in the aspect of customer service.

In reality, millennials just want what everyone wants. All people generally tend to want to do the right thing, belong to a group, and avoid conflict. The difference between this generation and others is not their access to a plethora of information, but their reliance on that access of information. They rely on their online community just as much as we rely on our immediate neighborhood community.

Think of the neighborhood community you grew up in. Not so long ago, neighbors relied on each other for borrowing spices, taking care of pets, and generally looking after one another. Millennials look to devices, which many of them have grown up using, as their own community. Just as your neighbors would, these devices recommend bars & restaurants, barbers, dog walkers, carpools, and most importantly, connect them with like-minded people.

What a successful business looks like in the millennial community:

Then: Strong values. Now: Progressive values, and being able to exemplify each one.

Gusto, a payroll software company based out of San Francisco and Denver, is an excellent example of a company that makes their progressive values clear, and leads by example to see them through. Co-founder Tomer London took a two-month paternity leave after his daughter was born. In writing, any business can value a “work-life balance”, yet pressure their employees to work 12-hour work days. London takes it upon himself to set the example in his company, and follow through with the values he sets in place.

These types of stories circulate in the millennial community. In the click of a button, millennials can find exactly what people are saying about your business, whether these people are customers or employees. They rely very heavily on these reviews and take them very seriously: they will not be your customer if they don’t like what they see.

Then: Strong, ethical leaders. Now: Strong ethical leaders, and being able to connect with them.

Speaking of leading by example, executives of businesses can be reviewed just as much, if not more, than the business itself. Glassdoor is one of the most prominent resources when it comes to researching businesses and jobs. In the snapshot below, you can see how employees review Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, and actually read through each review.

To millennials, the ability to connect with the leaders of a business is crucial. For the millennial employees in a company, feeling ethically and morally aligned with the person they are working for drives productivity and purpose. The same goes for consumers. With business leaders under a constant spotlight, it is easier for consumers to decide with whom they’d like to do business. After Uber’s many PR disasters, and CEO Travis Kalanick’s inability to mend them, the hashtag #DeleteUber went viral, causing about 500,000 users to reportedly delete their accounts.

The force of the online millennial community is strong. Your business is under a spotlight, but that doesn’t have to be frightening. There is no secret code to learning what millennials like and what they don’t like. Your business does not have to look like Hillary Clinton trying to appeal to young voters through cringe-worthy and outdated slang. In fact, a majority of the Democratic millennials who did not vote for Hillary simply felt that she was untrustworthy.

The millennial generation holds businesses to a higher, more personal standard. If they feel comfortable doing business with you and trust you, chances are they will let their online “neighbors” know. On the other hand, if you’re deemed untrustworthy or unpleasant to do business with, they will certainly make sure their online “neighbors” know to never do business with you.

Fortifying the Career Path of the Contact Center Agent

Employers are experiencing a serious talent shortage, according to a 2016-2017 report from ManpowerGroup. Part of this could be because more and more employees want to work for an employer who will help them advance their career, and they’re happy to leave an employer who prevents them from doing so.

At the same time, contact centers are harnessing the power of AI and chatbots, eliminating the need for agents to perform repetitious, monotonous tasks. As a result, the agent’s role is becoming elevated. Customers want more adept service, too – when they have a complex issue, they want customized service from a knowledgeable, human agent who can creatively problem-solve and who is empowered to make important decisions. This circles right back to benefiting the contact center, because the way to stand out from the competition is to offer top-notch customer service.

Due to the changing workforce, smart contact centers are giving agents the opportunity to advance in their role as well as their career. As management puts trust and faith in their employees, agents feel that their long-term success is important to the company, which improves their performance and loyalty. Even if customer service agents move out of their current job and into a higher position, they bring with them in-depth customer knowledge that they gleaned during their time as an agent.

Even if an agent isn’t yet ready to move up and out of their position, they can become more essential to the contact center and more helpful to the customer by become an SME, or a subject matter expert. SMEs are the go-to agents who have deep understanding of a specific process or product. The SME can help train agents in the same field, deal with escalating calls, and enrich the self-service knowledge base. They may also be asked to work closely with other departments at the contact center, like marketing or product design.

If you’re unsure of where to start when it comes to elevating your workforce, start by asking agents what they’re most interested in. Let your employees shadow parts of the business that they want to know more about, then hold a meeting with the employee to learn about their experience. If your employee shows a strong interest in a different or more advanced area, speak with management to find out how to best accommodate the agent.

 

 

 

 

Dos and Don’ts of Contact Center Forecasting

 

Forecasting may just be the cornerstone of contact center success. The accuracy of forecasting can affect service level, average speed of answer (ASA) time and occupancy. Though contact center forecasting varies by industry, there are some core principles that just about every organization should follow.

3 Dos of Contact Center Forecasting

Do start with a historical baseline.

Your historical data is what you’ll use to predict the future. You’ll get an idea of what your forecast is going to look like. Then, you can start adding in changes as needed, like as you track productivity changes. By starting with a solid basis, you’ll have a better view of how every change impacts the forecast.

Do use forecasting technology.

The old school way of handling contact center forecasting just won’t work anymore – spreadsheets, no matter how detailed, aren’t smart enough to record and manipulate data. The more inputs you have that affect the forecast, the more you’ll need to rely on modern, smart technology that will communicate results in a way that you can act on.

Do understand that accuracy will change with time.

The farther out you forecast, the less accurate your forecast is going to be. A forecast for the next 30 days is going to be more accurate than a forecast for the next 90 days. Accepting that this is a reality and being transparent about it when discussing forecasting with management will give you credibility.

2 Don’ts of Contact Center Forecasting

Don’t create a target based on a blanket statistic.

If an executive says something along the lines of, “At my last contact center, we had 95% accuracy – let’s aim for that,” it’s important to know why that won’t translate to your contact center. A sweeping statistic like that doesn’t account for details like the specific metric measured or the frequency at which it was measured.

Don’t get hung up on averages.

Averages can be misleading because they can make things seem more placid than they are. Forecasting requires information that will help management make real decisions, not information that’s been watered down so that it’s easier to understand.

Contact center forecasting combines science with creativity. Processing data is the easy part. Figuring out how to add subjective changes requires more creative thinking. Knowing what to expect and what to avoid from the get-go is the best place to start.

How to Motivate Contact Center Agents

There are several reasons to motivate contact center agents: hiring new staff can get expensive; training new hires means there’s lag time between when they’re hired and when they can start working; and company morale can decrease if there’s a high rate of turnover. Here are 5 ways to motivate contact center agents.

1. Provide agents with the necessary tools for the job.

All of the tools your agents use, from software to hardware, should work flawlessly. Faulty technology makes it impossible for agents to be efficient. One necessary type of tool are those that reduce customer frustration. Agents can get frazzled after speaking with one angry customer after the other. Software that allows for queue callback or voicemail can make customers happy, which in turn delivers agents fewer frustrating inquiries.

2. Setup seamless automation.

Quality contact center software will automate manual tasks so that agents don’t have to perform them with every single call or chat. Data should also be synced across all customer service tools. When their workload is streamlined, agents have more time and energy to handle more pressing issues.

3. Help agents hone their specialties.

Instead of having all of your agents trained in every area, figure out the strengths of your individual agents and help them specialize. Some agents may excel at handling agitated customers while others will have in-depth knowledge of your products. When you have agents who are experts in certain areas, they’ll be able to answer queries and solve problems more quickly than if they only had limited knowledge of the niche.

4. Open the lines of communication.

Your contact center agents are the closest people to your customers. It’s important that your agents know they can speak with you openly. Not only will you hear great ideas you haven’t thought of before, but agents who feel valued and needed are more likely to perform well in their job.

5. Use analytics to acknowledge excellence.

With call center reporting, you can see how agents are performing. When you find an agent who spends a short time on calls and has a high FCR rate, for example, you can reward them for their performance. You can also see which agents have positive customer reviews and reward them accordingly.

When your agents are motivated and happy, they’re better able to deliver the sort of customer experience you expect.

Why Your Contact Center Should Be Multilingual

While many contact centers have English-speaking support agents, customers often need multilingual services. Customers that come from various locations around the world look to brands that can offer help in their native language. Here’s why contact centers should consider being multilingual.

1. English isn’t 100% comprehensible to everyone.

Even customers who speak English as a second language may have difficulty understanding complex sentences and ideas. The more in-depth their support query, the more likely it is that they’re going to have trouble communicating with an English-speaking agent. This can also cause problems when it comes to understanding things like terms of agreement or the ordering process.

2. Multilingual support gives contact centers a competitive edge.

In a market where many contact centers are not multilingual, offering support in different languages can give your business an edge. Having multilingual live agents, both on the phone and via chat, as well as a website that can be viewed in different languages are excellent marketing to

3. Speaking the customer’s first language enhances personalization.

Today’s customers want personalized, one-on-one support experiences. By being able to communicate with them in their primarily language, they’ll feel important and catered to. When a customer knows they’ll receive customized support, they’re more likely to reach out to an agent if they have a problem or question.

4. Communication will improve, which increases the chance of success.

It’s easier to cooperate with a customer if communication is clear. The customer will be able to understand that the support agent is working on their behalf and both parties will understand the other’s point of view. Fluently speaking the customer’s language decreases the chance of misunderstandings and, in turn, can help support agents increase the rate of first call resolution.

5. You’ll have a chance to analyze your market.

To decide which languages your contact center should support, you’ll need to analyze your market, possibly in a different way than you’ve done in the past. Determine the geographical areas that make up your target audience, then figure out which additional languages are needed to accommodate those customers. In addition to language, features like dialects and location-specific customs should be considered.

How to Deliver Multilingual Support

Knowing why you should offer multilingual support doesn’t necessarily mean you know how to setup your contact center to meet those needs. The first step is to recruit agents who have advanced language skills – knowing which languages you most need to support will help you narrow down your options. Offer help materials, like FAQ website pages and product support documentation, in a variety of languages. Utilize translation software for when multilingual agents aren’t available to serve a customer or to help agents communicate in languages that aren’t supported yet by the contact center. To track performance, add location- and language-specific questions to post-support surveys, such as, “What is your primary language?”

Brands that reach customers globally or that are looking to expand should prioritize multilingual customer support. Optimized customer support has a better chance of meeting customer needs, which promotes brand loyalty and credibility.