How To Provide Great Agent Interactions

Call centers need to have qualified and well-trained agents on their team in order to offer good customer service that results in satisfactory CX. Therefore, agents play a key role in interactions with users.

Thus, recent studies by international consultancies such as Bain & Company or McKinsey show that 59% of customers prefer to resolve their problems without contacting a customer service representative, but only 13% of them manage to resolve their query with self-service. Thus, when interactions are escalated to an agent, it is imperative that they are prepared and able to meet or exceed customer expectations.

How To Provide Great Agent Interactions

1) Artificial Intelligence (AI) Available To Agents

Even the savviest agent can benefit from AI-powered tools that help deliver smooth, seamless CX by simplifying and speeding up every interaction. Customer service agents are the last stop on the CX journey. When an interaction is escalated to an agent, the agent must have the right tools. This way, they can see the interaction journey to see the customer’s history and they don’t need to repeat any relevant information back to them.

Agents need a complete picture of the customer journey to have available answers to any customer query. They can quickly become frustrated when answers are hard to find and queries hard to close. But streamlining processes and systems allows them to quickly serve potentially discouraged customers.

In a recent study by Twilio, 57% of agents surveyed indicate that they routinely switch between seven or more solutions to handle a single customer interaction.

Also, customer expectations are at a high level at this point, so it’s very important to provide agents with a set of tools to deliver immediate gratification. The right CX tools enable agents to offer better service and can create greater customer satisfaction and loyalty.

2) Empathy

As AI tools drive greater efficiencies to better serve customers at scale, the need to treat each customer as an individual has never been more important.

As many communication channels lose the “human element”, personalized customer interactions are even more valuable. Providing a personal touch can help businesses stand out and build customer loyalty. In fact, according to Accenture, 42% of clients agree that the most valued characteristic of a contact center agent is empathy. And emphasizing this quality will also make the job more rewarding for agents, as it helps them feel that their work is important to clients.

Automation, AI, and real-time guidance help agents identify areas where they can improve their empathy with every interaction. Soft skills, such as empathy or active listening, are difficult to master and traditionally not easily identified. But, for agents, having these tools helps identify warning signs to be more empathetic when necessary.

3) Constant Training

In most cases, agent evaluations take place after an interaction ends. But training tools powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) provide immediate guidance and offer training to agents. Teaching in the moment helps create positive behavior change right away.

The introduction of AI tools that provide clear and actionable feedback on every interaction can help accelerate growth, agent training, and improve agent performance.

Accurate data, collaborative training with two-way feedback, and a training plan drive accountability and increase agent performance. This strategy helps to identify weak points and allows the exceptional performance of agents to be modeled and used to train others in solving certain more complex queries.

Therefore, impartial and constructive feedback and training are tangible solutions that can increase the confidence and skill set of agents. This level of training and attention from agents also makes them feel more valued, which ultimately leads to happier employees.

4) Right Tools at the Right Time

As customer expectations rise, agents are expected to be professional, agile, and empathetic during every interaction.

By incorporating AI-powered tools, building agent empathy, and offering training, you will empower them, leading to loyal and engaged employees. This can make a huge financial difference. According to Gallup, companies with engage workers have 23% higher profits, while unengaged workers cost the world $7.8 trillion in lost productivity.

In conclusion, having the right tools at the right time to help agents become more skilled, empathetic, and trainable helps achieve the ABC’s of delivering great agent interactions.