The Importance of Empowering Your Contact Center Agents

Your agents ARE your customer experience. It’s as simple as that. For customers, the agent helping them often makes or breaks their customer experience. In fact, 68 percent¹ of customers report that a pleasant representative was key to their recent positive service experience, and 62 percent said that a representative’s knowledge or resourcefulness was key. Agents have an incredible influence in shaping customer experience and loyalty.

But it’s not easy for agents. The nature of customer service work is emotionally and physiologically stressful. Being an agent can easily be boring or overwhelming. On top of that, outdated or inefficient technology can compound the already challenging nature of dealing with customers who are often irritated, annoyed, or downright angry by the time they speak to an agent. The introduction of new channels such as email, chat, and social over the past few years only intensifies the problem.

Additionally, expectations for agents are often unclear and, in many organizations, measurement of those objectives isn’t directly possible with the information systems in place.

Sad to say, better training can not overcome the innate frustrations that result from having to work with technology systems that feel clunky, fail to provide the level of data an agent needs to a support a customer, or require multiple systems to do simple tasks.

Today’s agents are tech savvy and know it could be done better.

It turns out, agents have the same digital customer experience expectations of employers as your customers have of your customer experience. After all, they are today’s consumers, too. They expect to be able to use the same advanced technology that they use within their personal lives.

Agents who have positive experiences with the technology they are using are more likely to bring that positivity to the customers. That positivity can turn a negative experience into a positive experience which is deeply gratifying. This leads agents to find their work more meaningful. 

This compounds further. Agents who find their work more meaningful are more likely to stay. Those who stay gain experience and skills that make them more efficient, more effective, and invaluable to delivering sophisticated customer care experiences.

To learn more, download our 4 Ways to Empower Agents to Deliver Great Customer Experience.



1.  American Express, https://about.americanexpress.com/press-release/wellactually-americans-say- customer-service-better-ever