93% of customers are likely to make repeat purchases with companies that offer excellent customer service, according to research.
In order to deliver excellent customer service, agents need to be equipped with the right technology and trained to use the tools efficiently.
Yet, 60 percent of contact centre agents report their organisations do not always provide the right technology to do the job properly and meet changing customer expectations.
In this situation, agents are suffering on two fronts: when they are using incorrect tools and not being able to deliver a seamless experience because of them, and when dealing with frustrated customers, partially due to not having the right tools at hand.
What can organisations do to turn the tide and make agents’ jobs easier and ultimately, improve their overall CX?
Agent Experience: Why Is It Important?
Great customer experiences can be described as effortless, frictionless, and personalised. Why would agent experience be any different? Considering that the two are intrinsically connected, meeting the agents’ needs is the first step towards long-term customer relationships.
Agents spend the majority of their time looking at their desktops. Naturally, a streamlined desktop that contains all the necessary tools would make agents’ jobs easier, boosting productivity and saving time.
One of the main struggles agents face is switching between too many apps. This can be easily remedied by providing a unified collaboration platform that contains tools for chat, video, file sharing, and task management. Workstream collaboration does just that.
The all-in-one collaboration platform lets customer service staff collaborate with anyone in the business through a virtual workspace, whether they are in the office or working remotely.
Now let’s look at the benefits of such a solution. When an agent requires expert assistance with a complex customer query, they are able to reach out to a supervisor in real-time while the customer is on the line.
Rather than putting the customer on hold or transferring them, the agent is able to assist the customer in real-time, with virtually no wait time.
What’s more, the agent can access the chat session with the supervisor long after the call is done, allowing them to refer to it in future cases.
Finally, Workstream Collaboration brings agent-manager communications and sharing to the fore, eliminating any redundant apps.
AI to the Rescue
The applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in customer service are numerous, from self-service and chatbots to virtual assistants and workflow automation.
Virtual agents are perhaps one of the most prominent AI-powered solutions because of their time and cost-efficiency. They are able to handle repetitive questions related to order status, troubleshooting, and billing, which gives agents time to focus on more intricate and time-sensitive queries.
Thanks to machine learning, virtual agents can also “teach” themselves to perform better in future based on previous interactions. In addition, they can access knowledge bases in a fraction of a second and schedule appointments or fill data entries to help agents reduce after-call work.
Conversational AI has recently taken the contact centre industry by storm. People often mistake them for chatbots, but they are much more than that. Conversational AI uses natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning to capture conversations and draw insights from them. Then, agents and decision-makers can implement changes for improved CX and EX, making way for increased customer satisfaction and coaching opportunities.
Conversational AI empowers agents by transcribing phone interactions in real-time, allowing them to have all the information without asking the customer to repeat themselves. Moreover, as the conversation progresses, conversational AI identifies agent sentiment so managers can assess agents’ performance and provide appropriate feedback. The goal of this solution is to support agents in their job and not replace them entirely.
Undoubtedly, customer service workers face challenges in their job on a daily basis. Dealing with frustrated and angry customers and answering repetitive questions multiple times a day soon take a toll on agents’ productivity and well-being.
In order to make agents’ jobs easier, decision-makers need to truly understand what their needs are. Only when business leaders grasp what agents are going through on a daily basis can organisations see positive changes in customer experience and business in general.
