*Updated March 2023*
You don’t have to scroll very far on LinkedIn, Forbes, or The Economist to hear about the doom and gloom of The Great Resignation. 74% of full-time employees are planning to quit their jobs in 2022. Companies are struggling to keep their workforce engaged and to keep their service levels at acceptable rates.
The pandemic has changed employee expectations and the rise in remote and hybrid work means that companies need to look more closely at how they’re meeting employee needs. Now more than ever, employees expect rewarding careers that engage rather than frustrate. They seek flexibility and work-life balance.
The Online team recently came back from the Five9 CX Summit in Las Vegas where that same theme reverberated throughout conversations with contact-center organizations in attendance. Hanging on to talent is a major priority as Agent attrition accounts for trillions of dollars lost.
It’s far more expensive to replace and onboard new employees than it is to retain the ones you have. And ultimately, your customers suffer most.
Contact-Center turnover is directly correlated to customer satisfaction – In fact, customer satisfaction increases by 26% when agent turnover is less than 15% per year.
How can technology help?
Technology transforms the agent’s experience – which in turn transforms the customer experience. Agents who have positive experiences with customers find their work far more meaningful. The ability to turn a negative experience into a positive one is deeply gratifying. Agents who are empowered to do this are more likely to stay. And those who stay gain experience and skills that are invaluable to delivering sophisticated customer care experiences – which will be the sole purpose for agents as bots and AI increasingly take over handling repetitive, less complex matters.
Here are three key ways that technology can create a more engaged contact-center workforce:
1. FLEXIBILITY
Cloud-based solutions provide agents the flexibility to work from anywhere. Long commutes, parking fees, the need to wear pants, and less family time are major downsides for agents who are required to show up to an on-premise job. The ability to work from home leads to happier employees with less stress, more focus, and more productivity which ultimately provides a better work/life balance. Not only does this impact the satisfaction of your agents, but it also broadens the talent pool by eliminating regional recruiting specifications.
2. GAMIFICATION
Gamification is a feature on IVA (Intelligent Virtual Agent) platforms like Five9 used to motivate agent behavior, decrease agent turnover and increase customer satisfaction.
72% of employees said that gamification motivates them to work harder. Features include: setting performance goals, encouraging team collaboration, and incentivizing top performers which ultimately increases performance transparency, and motivates agents. KPI’s and incentives can be customized whether you’re looking to improve first contact resolution, handle time, cost per interaction, hold time, or all of the above.
3. REDUCED AGENT WORKLOAD
Intelligent Virtual Agents can offload monotonous tasks to free up your live agents for more rewarding conversations. Rather than answering the same question repeatedly, they can spend time adding value to your customers. IVAs can also provide your agents with key customer information at the right time so they don’t have to put customers on hold while they search for it making their job easier while improving the customer experience. Complex processes and repetitive tasks can be automated which lets agents spend less time focusing on software and more time on customer interactions.
So while IVAs mainly promote how they can improve the customer experience, one of the key benefits of IVA’s is an improved agent experience.
An IVA only costs 10% of what a live agent costs, but an IVA also makes a live agent more valuable to you and your customers. Kind of like a virtual side kick.
If your company needs a team of virtual side kicks for your contact-center, we can help.
Our Customer Engagement team has over 14 years of experience working with contact center partners across the globe and have worked on over 300 successful contact center engagements. Learn more about their approach here.
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