POINT OF VIEW: Contact Center Leaders on the Agent Experience
How important is the agent experience (AX) and how does it affect the bottom line?
The importance of agents to a contact centers’ success cannot be understated; they are literally the voice of the company. Agents’ attitude and abilities directly affect how customers feel about the company, and they influence desired outcomes such as satisfaction, loyalty, referrals, and share of wallet. Most of all, agents yearn to help customers to the best of their ability.
Unfortunately, it’s all too easy for companies to stand in agents’ way without even realizing it. Inefficient processes, tools that are difficult to use, or policies that create arguments with customers prevent agents from doing what they love most. Not only are these shortcomings apparent to customers, service will become progressively worse over time as agents are emotionally exhausted by surface acting.
In this study contact center leaders from different industry sectors were interviewed in order to gain insights into the causes, effects, and measurement of agent experience in outbound call centers.
You will learn about:
- The value of AX and the communication of that value
- Specific causes of frustration and disengagement among agents
- The contagious effects of disengagement
- Keeping remote agents engaged