Being the frontline voice of an organization means that contact centers have to be ready to adapt at pace when things change in the wider business. Operating in this constantly reactive state is challenging with leaders and agents feeling perpetually on the back foot.
When changes need to be implemented immediately, there usually have to be interim, clunky workarounds while waiting for systems to be updated. This has a knock-on impact of increasing average handling times and confusing agents, which leads to a poor customer experience.
Working in this reactive state inevitably leads to stress, a perception that the contact center is inefficient, employee dissatisfaction, and ultimately higher turnover of agents and leaders.
Contact centers need greater control over the pace and implementation of changes to avoid negatively impacting call results and to reduce stress for agents and line managers.
In this article, we explore how this can be achieved.
The challenges facing reactive contact centers
Uncontrollable changes at unreasonable timescales
Contact centers often receive change requests from other business areas with very little notice, meaning there’s insufficient time to adapt their systems and call-handling processes. This lack of control often leads to operational chaos, with agents and leaders confused about what they’re supposed to be doing and when.
Impact on customer service
When contact centers have to implement unexpected and last-minute changes, their ability to deliver exceptional customer experiences is compromised. Customers experience increased handling times, a rise in incorrect information being relayed, and inconsistent service quality.
Low morale and engagement levels
Working in a constantly reactive environment takes a toll on employee morale. Agents and managers feel undervalued, unprepared, and overburdened. This way of working is unsustainable, which means more employees feel burned out, stressed, and disengaged.
Decline in productivity and efficiency
Making changes at pace when underprepared means agents spend more time dealing with unexpected issues and less time focusing on the customer. Leaders’ time is taken up with trying to answer agent queries, analyzing call volume impact, and liaising with other business areas to get up to speed with changes.
Employee turnover
Employees will vote with their feet and leave if the reactive environment isn’t transformed. Talented employees are more likely to leave for more stable work environments, leading to a loss of expertise. This has a resulting impact of increased recruitment, onboarding, and training costs.
The empowered contact center
Imagine a contact center where:
- Leaders have the data they need to make informed decisions
- Agents can confidently handle calls even when processes change
- System updates are easy to deploy
- Training is streamlined
- Issues can be flagged and resolved quickly
That’s what can be achieved when a reactive contact center is transformed. Let’s dive into more detail about the empowered contact center environment.
You have the right data to make the right decisions
Having access to real-time, insightful, and accurate data is crucial for making informed decisions and anticipating potential issues during times of change. Empowered contact centers have robust data analytics and reporting tools that give them the valuable insights they need for performance metrics, customer sentiment, and to spot any bottlenecks.
With powerful data, empowered contact centers can analyze call volumes, customer queries, and agent performance to identify trends and patterns. They can use this information to anticipate potential issues before they escalate. Data can improve proactive planning and resource allocation to support any incoming changes that are likely to drain agent availability.
Process changes are easy to deploy
With the right real-time guidance platform, deploying process changes in an empowered contact center is easy. Updates can be made instantly without waiting for days, weeks, or even months for an IT team to implement them.
Agents can relax into each call, confident that they have the right information at their fingertips even when changes are still being rolled out. The ease and speed of implementing changes reduces inaccuracies and maintains efficiency, leading to a better experience for agents and customers.
A more engaging learning experience
Agents don’t need to spend excessive training time learning complicated, new processes because the platform guides them through each process in real-time. They only have to learn how to use the guidance software.
When processes change, updates are made directly and immediately in the platform, meaning agents are guided automatically through new procedures without the need to go back into the learning environment. Agents can spend more of their learning time on soft skills and career development activities. Employees feel valued as they have more time dedicated to their professional growth leading to higher motivation, loyalty, and engagement.
Improved issue resolution
In an empowered contact center, any issues that come up as a result of process changes can be quickly identified through powerful insights.
Using data, meaningful feedback can be given to the wider business, detailing how changes are impacting operations and customers. This real-time visibility can flag adjustments that need to be made, minimizing disruptions and maintaining service levels.
How to transform into an empowered contact center
The right combination of training and technology is how agents feel fully informed and confident in their interactions, even through challenging change and the contact center moves from reactive to empowered.
Even when change needs to be implemented at pace, real-time agent guidance software uses AI to analyze the customer’s intent and direct the agent through the appropriate workflow. This gives them the right resources and enables them to focus their full attention on the customer.
This software helps agents get familiar with new processes and product information quickly so they can successfully troubleshoot complex issues and help customers without memorizing the entire company knowledge base.
Similarly, AI-powered conversation intelligence software can inform managers’ and contact center leaders’ understanding of what’s happening in customer conversations as a result of implemented change.
Deploying Creovai’s contact center platform drives faster, more efficient change and means empowered contact centers can also:
- Listen to their customer conversations at scale.
- Understand what’s happening in these conversations and which factors the contact center and agents can control.
- Act on the opportunities for improvements they find in these conversations.
Empowered contact centers listen
Creovai's AI-powered software makes it possible for contact centers to listen to 100% of their customer conversations. They can decrease the time they spend on manual QA, instead checking that new processes have been implemented correctly and focusing on supporting their agents.
Empowered contact centers understand
Through times of change, leaders must be able to access the data they need to understand how everything is landing. That’s why Creovai provides powerful insights both during and after the interaction. Agents understand the customer’s intent and the best ways to assist them in line with the new, implemented changes. Post-interaction, leaders understand what went well, what could be improved on, and how to best support their agents and customers moving forward.
Empowered contact centers act
Once leaders listen to conversations at scale and understand the challenges customers and agents face as a result of change, swift action can be taken.
Trends in contact center conversations can reveal where new processes are breaking down or new bottlenecks are emerging. AI-powered software from Creovai enables leaders to look at both the volume and rate of specific process issues to prioritize fixes and provide insightful feedback to the wider business.
