The goal of many contact centers is to drive revenue for the business, especially those that focus on sales. These contact centers frequently have monthly quotas to meet, making the agents’ performance a key factor in the company’s success. Some of these employees are willing to go above and beyond their required duties to create a superior experience for the customer, while others are completely apathetic about customer experience (CX). Employee experience (EX) is often the reason for this difference, which makes the investment in EX essential for every contact center.
Businesses have recognized the value of CX for decades, but they’re also beginning to realize the importance of the employee experience as well, both for retention and revenue growth. The process of creating a positive experience for employees generally involves designing workplace practices to focus on specific factors such as company culture, physical space, and technology.
The following strategies can help improve EX in a contact center, and thus positively affect retention rates and company revenue:
- Collect feedback
- Treat employees as individuals
- Implement consumer-grade technologies
- Look at the right metrics
1. Collect feedback
Contact centers need to implement the right tools that employees need in order to work productively. These tools should provide features such as just-in-time content, proactive services, and relevant offers. However, before incorporating these tools, it’s important to understand what your employees want, so you’re providing the resources they actually need.
Collecting feedback regularly on an opt-in basis and making visible changes based on that information tells employees you’re truly interested in their opinion. This process can involve technology, but it can also include simply asking employees how they’re doing. This option is especially helpful for assisting agents who experience a decline in productivity.
2. Treat employees as individuals
Organizations often fail to recognize moments in their employees’ lives that really matter. This problem is often a result of attempting to fit employees into a standard work life-cycle, which includes the stages of recruiting, hiring, training and retaining. All organizations have a similar life cycle, but the increased blurring between personal life and work in a contact center makes it vital to look beyond the worker to see the individual. Creating experiences around important life events can thus become a long-term investment in a contact center’s relationship with its employees.
3. Implement consumer-grade technologies
Contact centers often provide their customers with the latest technologies, but the technology their own agents use often lags behind. This practice can make it more difficult to obtain a positive employee experience in the workplace.
Companies seeking to change this trend include technology leaders like Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, and Uber, who are making strides to provide their employees with cutting-edge technological resources. The contact center workers in these organizations also have the opportunity to use the communication channels and devices of their choice, which can greatly enhance their workplace experience.
4. Look at the right metrics
Corporations have historically used employee tenure as the primary metric for determining success in retaining talent, although this trend is changing. After all, an agent who does a great job and leaves after two years is more valuable to an organization than one who stays for ten years with only mediocre performance.
The capabilities of modern data analytics can make the process of identifying the best metrics to track an overwhelming challenge. But, the right reporting software can be an invaluable tool to avoid doing nothing while measuring everything.
Aceyus specializes in delivering solutions that can increase your revenue by empowering your agents to provide your customers with world-class experiences. And with the right metrics, including, but not limited to queue metrics, call volume metrics, real-time status, and occupancy, your contact center can identify successes and opportunities for improvement, including instances where additional resources may be needed. After all, when a contact center is operating optimally and agents are satisfied, achieving revenue goals becomes much easier.
Contact us today to learn more about how our suite of solutions can help drive revenue and a positive employee experience in your contact center.
