What Skills Do Call Center Agents Need To Have?

Call center agents face many different scenarios day after day that require many different answers. For example, they need a calm attitude and unlimited patience to handle frustrated users, but they must also show assertive efficiency to confidently answer their difficult questions.

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

What Skills Do Call Center Agents Need To Have?

1) Telephone And Writing Skills

Telephone skills, from speaking clearly to actively listening, solving problems and speaking in real time, to understanding the nuances of voice tones, remain a fundamental requirement, since traditional telephone calls still constitute the majority of the interactions of the customer service centers.

But users now use an average of three different communication channels during a single interaction, and expect the experience for everyone, and for everyone, to be perfect. That means that agents must be able to seamlessly transition from voice calls to emails to chats and master the nuances of written communications, as well as the technologies that enable these new channels.

2) Efficiency

In addition to user satisfaction, agent efficiency is a critical factor for operational metrics in the contact center. In the era of instant gratification, users expect resolutions faster than ever and on first contact, whenever possible. Agents must be able to quickly process information, react in real time and make good decisions on the fly.

3) Detail Orientation

Working in a call center can be a monotonous job: answering similar questions and handling similar complaints day after day. But agents must stay focused on details, from schedules and scripts to compliance requirements, but they also notice the little things that make each user’s situation unique.

Innovative self-service technologies such as chatbots driven by artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly minimize the burden of handling redundant agent tasks, such as frequently asked questions. However, ideal agents need deeper and more creative problem solving skills, so they can solve more difficult problems and offer the convenient and personalized solutions that clients expect.

4) Autonomy And Capacity For collaboration

The work in the call center requires that the agents spend a large part of their time working independently: navigating complicated problems, finding the information they need and formulating solutions quickly, without burdening other agents or supervisors. And as more call centers employ remote workers, the ability to work autonomously while obtaining superior results becomes increasingly important.

5) Reliability And Flexibility

In the most basic sense, the agent’s job is quite simple: respond to user queries. Reliable agents, those who are always where they should be, constantly help the call center to face this challenge. Like anytime and anywhere, the always active expectations extend the contact center to the service 24/7/365, so the constant and reliable assistance and the flexibility of schedules take on even more relevance.

6) Learning Capacity

The change occurs quickly and constantly in a call center: new products and services to understand, new user problems to solve, new scripts to memorize and new compliance requirements. As a result, agents must be fast learners who can quickly adapt new knowledge to their daily work.

7) Reliability in oneself and in the company

The assertive tones used by agents inspire confidence and assure users that they will receive a quick and effective resolution. Agents must believe in the company they represent because those trust, or the lack of it, is manifested in their communications with users.

Today’s call centers leverage innovative strategies and technologies to identify and reward high-performing employees, train low-performing employees, ignite the competitive spirit among agents, enable flexible scheduling and offer a balance between work and personal life. They recruit the right talent; they continually get involved, inspire and develop their agents to offer the best possible user experience.