During this COVID-19 pandemic, businesses need to be able to move faster and respond to changing market dynamics. Hence, many organizations in all industries are looking for extreme business agility to compete competitively. And this includes contact centers.
According to Darren Rushworth, NICE president for the Asia Pacific, despite the threat from the contagion will eventually recede, new norms of working are here to stay.
In April 2020, a survey of 797 contact center decision-makers finds 70 percent of them are planning to keep more agents working from home after the outbreak, and 66 percent are planning to accelerate their move to the cloud.
However, this brings to the question of how will they maintain customer experience with a work-from-anywhere workforce. Rushworth further adds that multiple factors influence customer experiences such as consistency, call control, demand spikes, connectivity, training, and responsiveness.
Establish The Foundation
Prepping the agents to work-from-anywhere is crucial before moving on to the next step. The call centers need to ensure that the infrastructure is robust, the agents have the right devices, and that scripts and flows are changed to suit the new reality.
Agent Scheduling
In different parts of delivering customer experience, call centers’ agents have different skill levels like some are excellent at customer retention, while others can sell more effectively.
Call centers need to know that it is vital to match the right customer persona with the agent persona to get the best results. To prevent overwhelming agents with work that does not directly contribute to the consumer experience, streamline procedures such as approvals and meetings where possible.
Furthermore, versatility is essential because it enables agents to concentrate on their core tasks.
Agent Performance
To give agents the coaching and encouragement they need while retaining positivity, keeping a close eye on quality controls is necessary. Real-time dashboards are crucial, enabling team leaders and managers to understand precisely what is going on and who needs assistance.
There have been reports of agents calling themselves from a second phone, then putting the call on hold and leaving their desk for hours at a time, while most agents are eager to perform well. Hence, this will be flagged by the correct instruments, enabling managers to intervene quicker to coach or discipline agents who do the wrong thing.
Communication
Organizations need to interact more than they think they need to with agents. They can use various communication channels such as mobile, instant messaging, and text to ensure that it works for everybody.
Set standards for workplace and efficiency and bring agents on board to offer excellent customer services at any opportunity.
Given the continuing and vital importance of delivering outstanding customer interactions, contact centers need to put in place the right technologies and practices to facilitate this, which requires a comprehensive approach that they can apply with the right solution for cloud contact centers.
