8 Skills That Every Agent Of A Call Center Should Have

The excellent agents of a call center are unique in many ways. The desired skill sets are often distinct and distinguishable, as they face many different scenarios day after day that require many different responses. For example, they need calm behavior and unlimited patience to manage frustrated users, but they must also show assertive efficacy to confidently answer difficult questions.

While the ideal contact center agents have always been a unique combination of qualities, they now face broader and more complex responsibilities thanks to today’s modern multi-channel call centers. As a result, although many of the same qualities that have always defined the most successful agents remain critical, today’s ideal agent requires a synergistic combination of skills to handle rapidly evolving dynamic demands.

8 Skills That Every Agent Of A Call Center Should Have

1) Excellent Telephone And Writing Skills

Exceptional telephone skills, from speaking clearly to actively listening and solving problems, to understanding the nuances of voice tones, remain a fundamental requirement, as traditional telephone calls still constitute the majority of most call center interactions.

But users currently use an average of three different communication channels during a single interaction, and expect each person’s experience, and through them, to be fluid. That means agents must be able to move smoothly from voice calls to emails and chats, as well as master the nuances of written communications and technologies that allow these new channels.

2) Efficient And Complete

In addition to customer satisfaction, agent efficiency is a key factor for above-average operating metrics in the call center. In the era of instant gratification, users expect resolutions faster than ever, and at first contact whenever possible. Agents must be able to quickly process information, react in real time and make good decisions on the go.

But, rising expectations have led users to expect a five-star experience with each interaction, so efficiency in itself is not enough. Great agents must be efficient, but they must also look for opportunities to offer exceptional experiences: go beyond just giving an answer to a problem, and solving a problem to add value to the user.

3) Detail Oriented And Creative

Working in a contact center can be a monotonous job: answering questions and handling similar complaints every day. But laziness never carries great agents away. They remain focused on the details, but they also notice the little things that make each user’s situation unique.

Innovative self-service technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven chatbots increasingly eliminate agents from the burden of handling tedious and redundant tasks such as frequently asked questions. However, that does not mean there is less work for the agent. With the chatbots that handle user queries easier to answer, today’s agents have the task of solving the most complex problems, which require more reflection and effort to solve them. The ideal agent needs deeper and more creative problem solving skills, in order to solve more difficult problems and offer the customized and convenient solutions that users expect.

4) Autonomous And Collaborative

Call center jobs require agents to spend a large part of their time working independently. The great agents are extremely autonomous: they can navigate through complicated problems, find the information they need and formulate solutions quickly, without overloading other colleagues or supervisors. And as more contact centers employ remote workers, the ability to work autonomously while obtaining superior results becomes increasingly important.

At the same time, as interactions with users become more complex, problems that arise often require the participation or assistance of other teams, such as sales, billing or technical services. As a result, agents must possess the social and diplomatic skills to work effectively with colleagues throughout the organization.

5) Reliable And Flexible

In the most basic sense, the agent’s job is quite simple: answer user queries. Reliable agents, those who are always where they should be, constantly help the call center to face this challenge. As at any time and in any place, expectations extend the contact center to the 24/7 service, so that constant attendance and compliance with schedules become even more important.

Fortunately, the new technologies make it easier for the analyst to make real-time decisions, turn-by-turn bidding and allow remote agents to have capabilities to respond to real-time personnel changes, make the call center more agile and better able to comply with user expectations 24/7.

6) With Learning Ability And Motivated

Changes happen quickly and constantly in the call center: new products and services, new user problems, new scripts to memorize and new compliance requirements. As a result, great agents have a great capacity for learning and are trained to quickly adapt new knowledge to their daily work.

7) Self-confident and Confident About The Company

Trust is a sound that we all recognize. The assertive tones used by the great agents inspire tranquility and assure users that they will receive a quick and effective resolution.

But agents must also believe in the company they represent because that trusts, or lack thereof, is manifested in their communications with users. And millennials, who now make up the bulk of the call center agents workforce, want to work for organizations they believe in. They need to connect with the company’s mission and believe in the value that the company offers its users and society in general.

8) Proud Of Customer Satisfaction In The Call Center And In Business Success

The traditional role of a call center agent is to solve user problems to keep them happy and retain them as customers. The best agents thrive thanks to the pride they feel for the solutions and satisfaction they offer each user, every day.

Increasingly, organizations recognize how the contact center drives not only customer satisfaction and retention, but also brand image, sales and revenue.

Finding excellent call center agents was not an easy task when only one-dimensional skill sets were sought. Today’s call centers take advantage of innovative strategies and technologies to identify and reward high-performance agents, train low-performance agents, ignite their competitive spirit, allow programming flexibility and provide a balance between working life and personal.