All businesses understand the value of employee engagement and retention. However, not many organisations understand how to keep employees engaged. At first, the key to employee happiness may seem simple; by buying a table tennis table and bean bag chairs, or offering free snacks and beer.
In reality, improving employee engagement and retention also means removing something – namely, repetitive tasks. Too many mundane jobs makes employees restless and unengaged, particularly in call centres. The best solution? Robotic Process Automation (RPA).
The end of tedious tasks
RPA can come in the form of a simple piece of software that captures and interprets data input, helping to mimic tasks like mnual copying and pasting. The benefits of eliminating these steps from a contact centre agent’s day-to-day are many.
By abolishing manual, tedious tasks that regularly result in errors and complaints, agents will be more empowered, engaged and even ready to play an important role in your business strategy. Customers can tell when the agent is preoccupied with admin duties rather than being focused on them, and the consequences of bad customer service are obvious.
Plus, when agents feel like their work is useful and efficient, in this case, having empathetic conversations with minimum disruption, they are more likely to report higher levels of job satisfaction. High job satisfaction tends to improve engagement and the likelihood of staff wanting to stay in the company.
When agents spend more time having meaningful conversations with customers than alt-tabbing to switch between panes and applications, great things happen. They suddenly become the guardian of insights into the customer’s pain points and needs; valuable information for any business. This information can be translated into strategic processes and projects, with the potential to ultimately help grow revenues.
The next generation of workers
For a new breed of employees, being engaged is crucial for workplace happiness. According to research by NICE, millennials and entry-level workers report higher levels of boredom than other groups and are more likely to leave a company if they feel that their work isn’t meaningful. This is a generation that has grown accustomed to Alexa and Siri-style intelligence, together with intuitive and responsive apps. All businesses need to reconsider their day-to-day operations to attract and retain this workforce. RPA caters to millennials in two ways; firstly, by creating a working environment that matches the technology they are used to at home, and secondly, by removing the mundane tasks that will ultimately drive them away.
The ‘rise of the robots’
By removing tedious jobs that employees don’t want to do, RPA becomes an opportunity instead of a controversy. Sensationalist ideas about the ‘rise of the robots’ and the displacement of human workers have soured the public’s perception of automation. However, while robotics may prove a disruptive force in business, it is an unhelpful analogy for the contact centre environment. Automation is not a zero-sum game. It works best when it is designed not to replace workers, but to improve their service.
By enhancing agents’ service abilities with RPA, the business can only benefit. Contact centres are often places of unecessary frustration, for both the customer and employee. By empowering agents with freed up time and more rewarding tasks, engagement and retention rates will rise, and these savvy agents will be able to spend more time focusing on the customer.
Guest Blog by Chris Cox, product innovation lead at KCOM
KCOM is a new kind of systems integrator that helps private and public sector organisations prepare for an unpredictable future. As UK boardrooms take stock of rapidly evolving digital technologies and changing customer expectations, we’re on hand to provide a creative perspective through a partnership that will help you navigate through disruption and realise your strategic transformation ambitions.
