Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin Group, once said, “The way you treat your employees is the way they will treat your customers.”
These past few years’ technological innovations — such as digital transformation, artificial intelligence (AI), and the cloud — helped improve customer engagement over time. The rise of automation helped resolve a caller’s problem quickly and efficiently.
However, as simple queries are being picked up by AI, contact center employees are left to deal with more complex customer problems. This can take a toll on advisors’ mental and emotional well-being.
In the United Kingdom (UK) alone, the average agent attrition across call centers is at 15%. That annual attrition rate costs a 500-seat contact center approaching £1m to recruit and train advisors.
That is why digital customer experience (CX) transformation firm Sabio listed three ways to address this problem:
1. Turn CX innovation inwards. According to Sabio France, Italy, and Morocco Country Manager Herve Racine, turning CX innovation inwards can enable the same powerful technologies that support customers to also help advisors with their complex workloads. With their effectiveness already put to test, there is already an assurance that it would also work for the firm’s employees and it is not an additional financial burden to the company.
2. Mining real caller trends insight. Mining real caller trends insight can give contact center advisors a more granular view of each caller’s intent. It can also improve call routing and create a seamless journey between IVR automation and informed human advisors.
3. Utilizing AI. Even the best employee does not have all the answers. AI systems can give advisors contextual feedback in real-time, so they know the best actions to take, helping them deliver first-class CX to customers every time.
How to measure the effectiveness of these plans
Sabio said that no one knows the contact center job better than your employees. Regular pulse surveys can spot trends before motivation dips. Likewise, asking customers to rate their experiences at every step will help you spot issues in the process.
Do both, and you’ll know if the company has happy employees and even happier customers.