Empowering your agents is a continuous process of providing them comprehensive training, resources, motivation, encouragement and the right tools. This practice shows your agents you trust them. Giving them the confidence and tools to find customer solutions will allow them to take that power and deliver on providing a remarkable customer experience.
The agent is the first impression the customer will have of your business so this agent’s ability to effectively help the customer could have a much larger impact than what it may first appear. Customer’s satisfaction, or dissatisfaction, has a ripple effect so it is imperative to make sure your agent’s are properly prepared with the right tools.
Poor customer experience is normally because of an agent who is not well equipped to meet the customers’ needs. To mitigate this, your agents need the right tools to get the job done well. Here are some necessary tools for your contact center agents:-
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Automated Caller Identity Pop Up
Call center software that provides the agent with the caller information such as name, location, address, phone number, company, etc. plays a huge role in helping the agent start of the interaction with a boost of confidence. Knowing this basic information allows the agent to already have some basis on the customer which makes the building rapport phase more natural.
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Call Conferencing
One of the most agitating events is having your call transferred to another department and essentially having to start the whole process over again. This can be eliminated by call conferencing whereby you connect the other agent who can resolve the issue immediately without transferring the caller. The customer will be much more pleased to have his issue addressed with one simple phone call thus leading towards a positive customer experience.
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Interactive Voice Response
Superior customer service begins the moment a customer makes a call, not when the agent responds. Interactive voice response technology engages the customer in pre-recorded messages that help identify the right agent to handle the customer. For example, if the customer speaks Russian, then he will be routed to an agent who can speak Russian.
This saves the time spent in resolving customer issues resulting in a higher customer satisfaction level. It also helps the agent to be proficient in his service delivery because he handles the appropriate customer.
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Call Monitoring and Whisper Coaching
Equipping your Managers or Sales leader with the ability to monitor their agents will drastically help increase your metrics. This practice allows your Managers to actively pick up on key areas of opportunities for their agents and allows them to provide the most accurate and timely feedback to their agents.
Another tactic is the manager can train the agent on the job by whisper coaching. This is where the manager guides the agent on how to respond to the customer without the customer hearing it. Both of these practices leads to improved quality assurance and top down customer support.
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Historic and real time recording
An agent answers to so many customer on a daily basis, providing them with historic recording that reminds them of previous interaction with the customer and real time recording of what is ahead of them improves their productivity.
On the customers end, they are able to see the number of people ahead of them and the average hold up time. They are both no flying blind but this crucial data helps in managing their expectations.
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Call Recording
The fact of the matter is, managers don’t have the time to monitor all of the interactions handled in a particular day by their agents. The solution to this dilemma is making sure you have all of your interactions recorded. Giving your agents and managers the ability to go and pull particular interactions, will allow your agents and coaches to have specific, one on one coaching opportunities that will result in the most effective coaching time. If a agent realizes that he or she could’ve improved on a particular call or chat, having the option to go and pull that interaction and go over it with their respective coach or manager will allow them to review the interaction and learn for the next time that an opportunity such as that arises.
In conclusion, empowered agents will be more creative in their solution thinking, enjoy high levels of job satisfaction, make faster decisions for the customer, and create a remarkable customer experience for your customers. Without these tools, the agents will feel ill-equipped and it will become evident in the interaction with the customer, resulting in a lower customer satisfaction score.
As Marissa Mayer at Yahoo quoted, “In technology, it’s the people. Getting the best people, retaining them, nurturing a creative environment and helping to find a way to innovate.”
