Over the past year, 90 percent of contact centres across the globe spent more time and attention focusing on agent experience, according to a new Five9 survey.
In the 2022 International Customer Service Index (CSI) Business Decision Makers Survey, the CCaaS vendor identified key trends in customer engagement and the contact centre workplace.
Surveying businesses across 17 different industries in North America and Europe, the vendor points out considerable changes in the role of customer service representatives.
A worrying example is increasing call volumes adding to agent workloads, which is seemingly accelerating agent turnover.
Indeed, despite self-service being on the rise, 86 percent of respondents reported an enormous increase in call volumes.
In addition, 43 percent said agent calls are longer and more complex.
Another worrying statistic is that 53 percent of contact centres reported the need for more emotional intelligence during customer interactions, suggesting a lack of contact centre empathy.
These changes have likely influenced 90 percent of business decision-makers who are now focusing more on agent experiences.
Scott Kolman, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Five9, said: “AI technologies are now part of the overall contact center arsenal, providing assistance to agents, customers, and contact center operations.
“By embracing collaborative intelligence, where AI and agents work together to enhance each other’s strengths, organizations can improve both customer and agent satisfaction, leading to better business outcomes.”
When it comes to the tools businesses implemented to enhance agent experiences and engagement, 61 percent have introduced support channels to SMEs via a unified desktop, while 47 percent invested in AI-driven agent assistance.
Moreover, 73 percent of contact centres now use AI, with the biggest adopters being Italy (87%) and the lowest Canada (63%) of all countries surveyed.
By harnessing these technologies, contact centres will hope to stop the rot of agent turnover, which – as previously suggested – is an increasing issue.
Indeed, turnover rates have soared over the past year with 72 percent of European and 75 percent of North American contact centres experiencing spikes in the metric.
The most common reasons for agent turnover include compensation (40%), complex customer issues (37%), and a no remote work policy (33%).
Elsewhere, Five9 recently partnered with Kyndryl to offer cloud-based service desk capabilities to customers.
