eGain has announced that its knowledge management system is now available through the Five9 marketplace.
After certifying the eGain solution, Five9 enables its cloud customers to provide an additional support tool to their teams.
Of course, contact centres could employ a knowledge base as a separate application. Yet, this integrated solution streamlines the agent experience, as they access fewer solutions.
In the current environment, simplifying the agent role is a critical aim. As Walt Rossi, Vice President of Business Development at Five9, says:
It’s important for contact centres to have the right tools in place to support their agents, especially as businesses have indicated that they will continue with a work-from-home or hybrid model.
As this trend continues, remote agents lose the ability to walk over to a colleague and ask for their thoughts. That on-hand support is no longer available.
The plot thickens further when factoring in the acceleration of digital transformation programmes. By adding more self-service and automation technologies to the contact centre mix, agents handle fewer simple contacts. Facing complex call after complex call, there is little space for a breather.
Handling times increase, causing occupancy to rise, and before the contact centre knows it, agents suffer from much higher stress levels. Indeed, as Jeff Toister – a thought leader across the customer service industry – reports, 74% of contact centre agents are at risk of burnout.
Rising attrition levels and absenteeism are additional consequences of this unsettling trend. Yet, by turning to a knowledge base – which is well managed and often updated – contact centres can provide a vital pool of information for agents to fall back on.
What’s more, the eGain model contains a couple of nifty features, which set it apart from many of its competitors. For example, it delivers knowledge proactively to agents, using analytics technology to track the conversation in real-time and present related knowledge articles.
Such a use case stops agents from manually searching the system, reducing handling times and enabling a seamless service experience.
The omnichannel solution also slashes time to proficiency, lowering the coaching requirement for agents and enabling them to start handling customer queries quicker. As such, the solution cuts costs and complements resource planning.
However, perhaps most pertinently, a knowledge solution helps to connect the enterprise. If every department can search for information, the contact centre can help drive the Voice of the Customer (VoC) across the company. Doing so enables the organization to meet customer needs.
One of these needs is for self-service. As Forrester report: “Customers prefer self-service for simpler customer service inquiries and voice for escalations and dispute resolution.”
Fortunately, the eGain knowledge base has both an agent and a customer view. Businesses may, therefore, answer more queries through their website, reducing contact volumes and better meeting customer preferences.
With this Five9 link-up, more cloud contact centres will access the eGain Knowledge Hub and capture these capabilities. In doing so, they pave the way for boosting both customer and agent experiences.
As Mike Taylor, VP of Business Development at eGain, says:
Knowledge modernization has emerged as the top 2022 strategy to get customer and agent experiences out of the rut they have been in.
“We look forward to delivering our top-rated knowledge solution via the Five9 CX Marketplace,” he concludes.
