As emerging technologies evolve and social expectations change, a new kind of modern contact center is needed
From healthcare to banking to retail and beyond, businesses depend on contact centers to meet — and exceed — customer and employee experiences day in, day out. In the age of online portals and apps, virtual chat, social media and SMS texting, the contact center is the central point in an organization from which customers are engaged. Creating the right experience can help brands build customer loyalty and advocacy.
This has never been more true as technological and cultural demands rapidly change. Often organizations don’t focus enough on the employee experience which is foundational to providing better customer experience. And according to the Contact Centers in a New Age of Workforce Dynamics white paper, as turnover rates of Gen Z and Millennial employees hovers around 30% to 40%, contact centers need to consider the needs of these groups when improving the employee experience.
Shifting demographics and the COVID-19 pandemic, among other global forces, have fundamentally reshaped contact center operations and expectations. To stay competitive, businesses must understand these shifting workforce dynamics and industry trends to ensure that they can retain talent.
Powerful forces unlock new opportunities
The pandemic caused a surge in connecting customers and employees through digital channels. As many companies repopulate their offices and contact centers with agents, a Frost & Sullivan survey of 1,129 employers found that 83% expected at least a quarter of their workforce to remain remote- to full-time in the coming years.
At the same time, a new report by Frost & Sullivan, “Modern Contact Centers Drive the Evolution of Customer — and Employee — Experiences,” shows that as Gen X employees retire, Millennials and Generation Z (Gen Z) will become an overwhelming 74% of the workforce by 2030.
Compared to previous generations, Millennials and Gen Z tend to have higher levels of education, greater diversity, and different work expectations. To stay relevant and meet future business growth for these age groups, it’s time to evolve the contact center with the changing times.
This means implementing new operational strategies and leveraging advanced technologies to better fulfill and exceed changing customer expectations, and developing new strategies to empower employees. Contact centers can improve operations and the customer experience in three ways: optimizing how time is spent by both agents and customers, improving how agents are managed and coached, and leveraging subject matter experts (SMEs) and agent specialization.
A renewed focus on the employee experience
With workforce engagement tools, contact centers seeking to optimize engagement and productivity of both new and current employees should first evaluate which aspects of current workforce strategies still apply and understand the best ways to engage this changing landscape.
Businesses can start by augmenting traditional workforce optimization (WFO) processes with advanced workforce engagement management (WEM) solutions, which can improve the employee experience in contact centers through reduced costs, lower churn rates and improved customer satisfaction.
Using WEM solutions, employers can provide their workforce with important features such as agent personalization, a need for connection, and the ability to be mobile, flexible, and self-sufficient. Millennial and Gen Z priorities have already shifted, so providing benefits that expand employee agent experience, add customizable technologies and allow flexible scheduling are growing in importance.
Advanced tools to boost efficiency
The quest to shrink average handle time, increase agent productivity, lower hold times and improve the customer experience by minimizing unnecessary interactions is never ending. With advanced contact center tools that use omnichannel routing, these goals are more achievable because they help agents to connect seamlessly and coalesce information from different channels into a complete customer profile.
Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)-based tools, businesses can also employ natural language processing and learning to improve the accuracy of virtual agents. With data analytics, contact centers can even create customer profiles that capture past purchases, service tickets and interactions conducted across any channel for a more robust view.
With automation, guided assistance, extensive knowledge management, and robotic process automation (RPA) combined, agents can also access important information quickly while also reducing the need for the client to repeat their issue with every new interaction.
Benefits for customers and employees
For the customer, this could mean advanced tools that can anticipate follow up needs to intelligently route calls and predict the best self-service options. For agents, it means intelligent summaries of a customer’s issues and journey to date, reducing the time needed to track down important information.
Basing productivity primarily on legacy cost metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) can fall short of optimizing business performance. That’s why new productivity metrics such as higher first-call/contract resolution marks, enhanced retention rates and higher customer satisfaction scores can be more closely tied to business outcomes and to different workplace scenarios in person, remotely or hybrid work environments.
Putting it all together: Workforce engagement management
No matter the industry, the contact center is at a crossroads and savvy businesses must be ready for rapid change or risk falling behind. Contact centers that are leading the way are partnering with an advanced WEM partner to make implementation seamless and successful.
An advanced WEM partner can provide a cloud-based solution, tools, and metrics that are secure and easy to access, regardless of where the agent is located. Furthermore, look for a WEM solution provider with a comprehensive platform that can cover agent departments across the organization and streamline IT activities. A cloud-based platform and applications can also help ensure IT costs scale with use while being more secure and reliable.
Today, achieving optimal contact center agent productivity is a balancing act between meeting increasing customer expectations and controlling costs. Understanding and then separating issues best addressed via automation as opposed to functions that require human input can reduce costs and enhance the customer experience.
One thing is clear: a trusted WEM partner is key. Look for a provider with products that can centralize data, generate insights, automate tasks and direct the appropriate interactions through self-service wherever possible. The result is a secure cloud-based solution that can scale with business needs and ultimately move contact centers from just being “efficient” to becoming highly effective.
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