What Factors Influence the Employee Retention in a Call Center?

Improving the agent experience (AX) has become a strategic imperative, not only for call centers, but also for the companies they support. Agent empowerment is the key to both maintaining morale and improving agent performance. Supporting them through processes and technology is crucial to achieving First Call Resolution (FCR).

Technology that doesn’t deliver on required functionality is the biggest factor keeping even the most capable and empathetic agent from reaching their potential. In fact, according to an ICMI study, 24% of agents blame outdated technology as the biggest obstacle to success.

Contact centers are often evaluated by KPIs, such as Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), but it is not enough to only care about the needs of your customers. Focusing on your agents might be the best way to improve customer experience (CX).

How To Empower Agents To Offer Frictionless Customer Service

We all know great customer service when we see it. Problems are solved quickly and correctly, users do not feel anxiety and do not need to exert much effort. Self-service plays a key role in providing great service; however, when customers interact with agents, that great service can become exceptional if agents have the right tools.

Technology Upgrade To Improve CX

The customer experience has evolved and today’s service is all about the cloud, digital channels, and Artificial Intelligence (AI). These are the drivers of CX and AX in 2022. These tools are necessary for contact centers to properly support their agents and deliver great CX for every customer and during every interaction.

The call center market now offers cloud-based omnichannel solutions that require integration and orchestration across many silos, such as CRM, Workforce Management (WFM), Business Intelligence (BI), and Unified Communications (UC). The same applies to the various digital channels used to interact with customers: voice, email, SMS, WebChat, Click&Talk or WhatsApp.

Up-to-date technology is also the most important part of giving customers access to smart self-service. This allows them to solve their own problems if possible, reducing the cost per interaction. It also makes agents happy because they can focus on more challenging work instead of repetitive tasks.

With the removal of friction, it becomes much easier to make the CX and agent experience great, thereby boosting employee retention.

How Technology Can Take the Friction Out of the AX and CX

Cloud technology allows contact centers to modernize with ease. Aside from the scalability and flexibility that the cloud provides, the central thinking here is to bridge silos across the organization so that agents can access all the relevant information needed to fully understand the customer journey. When call centers can do this seamlessly, it will improve both agent and customer satisfaction.

Likewise, agents will increase their performance at work when they feel important and feel that they play a crucial role in building brand loyalty with customers. While companies need to focus on how cloud-based technology improves CX, they also need to consider how to make the contact center where the most talented agents want to be. One-way to do this is to “make experiences flow” for agents, removing friction in the customer service process.

Finally, many agents have become comfortable working from home, not only due to the pandemic but also because teleworking offers more flexibility for their lifestyle. Cloud-based technology makes it possible to do that, and given the importance of flexible working for digitally savvy employees, this will increase job satisfaction and give them more reason to see their call center as the place to build their career.