Demand and customer expectations are on the rise across all industries and those in the contact center industry can feel it. For an industry already facing labor challenges and the need to evolve the pandemic accelerated the need to overcome those challenges.
Customers, with no other choice than to contact companies in any fashion other than face-to-face, found new ways to engage with businesses. Companies responded by making a hasty shift toward cloud solutions prioritizing rapid decision-making and deployment. There wasn’t much time to consider how this affected the contact center, strategy, or much else.
So, what makes for a healthy contact center? One that is performing, optimized, and has become a customer engagement hub? Here are some considerations: a checklist to determine how well your contact center is performing.
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Reconcile Current Needs with Recent Changes Made
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Evaluate Alignment of People, Process, and Technology with Today’s Objectives
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Consider Performance Differently
Reconcile Current Contact Center Needs with Recent Changes Made During Covid
There is no looking back, your company was forced to make decisions that normally take months or quarters to evaluate in days or weeks at a maximum. You made the right choice at the time, now you need to make it work for your needs today.
The reality is that with the fluidity of cloud solutions, you can retrofit your platform for today’s needs in weeks rather than months. With integrations available and app marketplaces the norm there is no need to worry if meeting your needs is possible. Simply put, with AI, machine learning, and cloud innovation in the contact center, it is possible.
So, ask yourself this, what is it that you need to address? Customer satisfaction, customer experience, automation, longer than acceptable hold times, call abandonment, or possibly all of the above? Address the problem you are facing because there is a solution to all of the above-mentioned issues.
Evaluate Alignment of People, Process, and Technology with Today’s Objectives
It is very safe to say that everyone in all industries is looking at their labor force, technology, and processes differently than a few years ago. Technology and automation can solve some of the labor shortages and agent attrition, however, it does not solve all the issues. It is a great start to an overall solution.
The challenge of agents leaving for other companies and verticals means looking at other solutions than simply hiring more agents. The burden on your training, HR team, leadership, and loyal agents can seem overwhelming. Re-evaluating your agents’ location is a good step toward outsourcing some of the workflows. Having a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) to fill in during peak times or handle some of your lower-tiered calls can relieve stress within your contact center.
This brings us to process efficiency and how to maximize the time of your agents and operations team. Asking yourself if your current processes & escalation procedures make sense for your business today is a good start. Agent enablement and self-sufficiency with tools to automatically note accounts with a transcribed conversation can also maximize your agent’s productivity. The tools are there to supplement processes and are easy to implement.
Consider Contact Center Performance Differently
When considering your contact center and its performance there are four key areas to consider:
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Customer Experience & Engagement: What does your customer experience look like from your customer’s point of view? Not average handling time or other internal metrics. Is the customer able to find the resolution quickly and efficiently? If there are multiple transfers, long wait times with an agent, or other barriers then you know the answer. Smooth, efficient & friendly is what customers expect.
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Agent Experience & Enablement: Are your agents equipped with the right tools to handle your customer’s needs? Solutions like Knowledge Management, CRM integration, agent assistance and so much more help with both their experience and enablement. A great customer experience starts with a great agent experience.
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Workforce Alignment & Optimization: Being able to have the right resource in place at the right time goes beyond workforce management. Taking time to map the journey your customer has taken to arrive at the right resolution is something that can be done through automation. Yes, an agent handled the call, however, would a self-service solution work better? Those are some of the many questions that lead to a fully optimized contact center.
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Contact Center Effectiveness & Efficiency: Balancing the optimal handle time without the agent or customer feeling rushed is an ongoing equation that needs constant evaluation. Looking at metrics like CSAT and AHT should be viewed together. Deploying tools to help agents become more effective and engaged while still handling customer concerns can help.
