How To Improve The Productivity Of Call Center Agents

High productivity of call center agents is the dream of every call center manager. Not only does it lead to higher profits and lower costs, but it also creates better employee engagement and better customer experiences.

There are many factors that slow down agent productivity, such as high call volumes and staff turnover, both of which are very common in the contact center industry. Managers need to be aware of agent performance to ensure a good customer experience (CX). And this is linked to the productivity of the agents.

Tips and Best Practices To Improve Agent Productivity

Metrics are important for identifying operational and performance issues. Therefore, after observing the data, we must act accordingly. Below we point out some tips to improve agent productivity:

1) Offer Autonomy

Agents play a fundamental role in ensuring customer loyalty and satisfaction. As the first contact with a company, agents are the customer’s first impression of an organisation. Agent performance dictates how likely a customer is to promote a brand, among other things.

You don’t want to micromanage agents, especially if their performance is generally good. On the contrary, it is essential to empower agents by offering them autonomy through self-assessment and analysis, specific modules in the contact center and sharing historical data with them. This information helps agents feel more proud of their work and more in control of their results.

Important Contact Center Agent Performance Metrics Are:

• Give positive and constructive feedback.
• Create a culture in the call center where both managers and agents feel empowered to express their opinions.
• Give agents positive comments in public and constructive criticism in private.
• Providing valuable feedback improves the productivity of call center agents.

2) Invest in Agents

It is advisable to use centralised knowledge bases and provide easily accessible resources for agents to study on their own. Online content is increasingly popular and effective for knowledge transfer within contact centers. You must invest in continuous training for agents and reserve time for personalised training. In short, create learning opportunities for your agents to improve.

3) Offer Opportunities for Professional Growth

We know that call center agents have opportunities for lateral changes to different departments, as well as promotion potential. But it is management’s jobs to make sure agents are aware of those opportunities. For this reason, it is necessary to promote new roles such as supervisors and managers for agents. Professional growth opportunities improve call center agent engagement and productivity.

4) Offer Flexible Schedules

The post-pandemic work era has imposed hybrid remote work models. This is especially true in call centers; where between 60% and 80% of agents have switched to a work-from-home model. Teleworking may seem quite flexible, but it is not always. Each agent has specific programming needs. In addition, hiring a remote team is vital to improve the productivity of call center agents.

Conclusion

Call center agents have difficult jobs. With high call volumes, impatient customers, and learning curves with new technologies, it’s sometimes easy for agent productivity to decline. Using metrics to evaluate agent performance and productivity and addressing that data is key.

Technology is a great tool to improve agent productivity, but the human touch is always necessary. Engaging agents, investing in their careers, and offering them autonomy in their daily work will make it easier to achieve optimal results.