A new wave of technology adoption is closing the gap in contact centre operations and shaping how agents perform on a day-to-day basis. While older, legacy systems are common, many contact centres are adopting new digital strategies to elevate productivity and manage unpredicted surges in call volume. Delivering a personalised customer service experience is also critical to cater to customer preferences which can be achieved much easier by implementing the latest and greatest technology rather than trying to use workarounds in some of the older systems.
Solutions such as IVRs, intelligent automation, Workforce Engagement Management, and the relative ease of implementing cloud-based applications have empowered contact centres to increase efficiency despite the current climate. Various studies have illustrated that companies who were able to excel through the pandemic were those who accelerated their digital transformation strategy and ultimately reaped the rewards.
The market for providing a high-quality customer experience has become increasingly difficult in recent years. Due to the expansive growth of e-commerce and the currently tight Australian labour market, contact centres are receiving more and more workload with a smaller workforce, requiring contact centre agents to work at much higher efficiencies.
The prevalence of Omicron has also highlighted that reduced numbers of agents requires better technology and systems to help cater for the workload when people unexpectedly call in sick.
Greater Flexibility
While restrictions within Australia differ from state-to-state and continuously change, employing flexible workplace management models has proven to be the most effective course of action. Managing people from home or in the office, and keeping rosters up to date can be very challenging. While these workplace arrangements allow the service process to remain uninterrupted through change, the amount of administration required to run such an operation takes managers’ attention away from big-ticket items, such as customer satisfaction scores, and agent engagement.
Technology solutions allow managers to automate much of their administrative tasks and focus on contact centre strategy execution. Tools such as intelligent automation that work with your workforce management solution to process changes as soon as they need to happen are among the more valuable improvements a contact centre can make to their operational efficiency.
Better Support Agents
Growing a workforce at the same rate as the demand for digital customer service is a difficult, if not impossible task, which is why agents are being asked to take on more types of contact and work at higher efficiencies than ever before. By increasing the workload beyond a certain level, burnout becomes inevitable and eventually feeds a growing employee turnover rate. With all agent performance, there is a sustainable level at which agents perform at their best without burning out.
By employing technology solutions that support agents with their workload, contact centres can raise the sustainable threshold without increasing the risk of burnout. Solutions such as IVR systems and Intelligent Automation allow basic tasks to be simplified or handled by a computer. IVRs can handle simple calls and Intelligent automation can be used to help staff immediately they need it and keep their schedules up to date. Effectively delegating this work allows agents to focus on more critical elements of the customer experience rather than simple data entry.
Analyse Customer Service at a Higher Degree
Improving the customer service quality has traditionally been a game of subjective analysis by team leaders or quality analysts. Without the use of technology, a contact centre manager can only analyse the CX performance of one agent at a time, and to the personal preference of that manager. This conventional approach to improving the customer service experience makes improvements stagnant, thereby hindering the ability for companies to grow.
Quality Management software helps agents improve the customer service experience on the go and to the preference of both the customer and the contact centre manager.
By infusing the knowledge of contact centre managers and the quantitative capabilities of software, contact centres can refine their customer service delivery to a much higher degree.
Efficiently Manage Workforces
Ensuring that labour costs do not blow out, break times are optimised, and agents are engaged and managed effectively is hard to achieve on a large scale. A very traditional approach to workforce management involves using excel spreadsheets (particularly in small centres) and only uncovering performance issues reactively rather than proactively.
Technology solutions such as Alvaria WFM allow contact centre managers to analyse performance data and make real-time adjustments as required. Problems can be identified promptly, and changes can be made before they negatively affect the bottom line. This enables workforce managers to fine-tune schedules to provide a more efficient contact centre operation.
Build Workplace Aligned Engagement
Having an engaged workforce is important for contact centres to remain relevant to the current market. Due to the low supply of labour within Australia, contact centres need to base their workforce management strategies around lowering turnover rates. Improving workforce engagement and employee workplace culture are some of the biggest factors affecting turnover rate.
While there are many ways contact centre managers can improve engagement, very few methods channel improvements towards contact centre goals. By incorporating gaming elements into the training process, a task that would once be described as monotonous can now be more interesting. Gamification software is one of the most widely adopted technologies across the industry, allowing agents to enjoy gaming elements throughout their training process and feel engaged at work. This software has played a prominent role in many successful businesses and continues to grow with the expanding demand.
While the market may be challenging for contact centres to navigate, the latest technology solutions provide growth to companies looking to accelerate their performance and an opportunity to sustainably increase agent efficiency and performance. Companies who have ambitious growth targets must look past the up-front costs of new technology adoption and understand the value it can bring to a contact centres’ longevity.
Call Design sources best-in-breed solutions to help contact centres elevate performance through technology adoption. Should you or your contact centre want to know more about how any of our solutions can improve your contact centre, speak to our friendly team today.