How to Improve Agent Engagement in the Contact Centre
Changes over time, combined with economic uncertainty, customers are placing greater importance on trust and ease of doing business with an organization. However, it is key for advisors to form and emotional connection with customers to be true, authentic brand ambassadors.
Most research suggests that a customer’s attitude towards an organisation, their experience of doing business with them and their buying choices, are significantly influenced by the encounters and experiences they have with the employees. If an employee is disengaged and doesn’t have a quality employee experience you can be sure that will come through in their interactions with your customers.
Customer relationship management
It’s the emotional connections between employees and customers that create memorable service delivery – for good and bad.
SEE ALSO: How to Deliver an Exceptional Customer Service
The Changing Role of Advisors
Contact centres are becoming increasingly complex, fast-paced and diverse. With higher customer expectations and a changing landscape of contact methods and technologies, along with the growth of self-serve options, the role of the customer service advisor is changing.
It is crucial that a great advisor is an effective communicator and an excellent problem solver, with a broad spectrum of knowledge and expertise. This is essential, as by the time a customer gets to them, they have already tried all of the available self-serve options and they want someone who is able to engage with them, understand them and offer effective and efficient service.
Nowadays, it is much harder to portray that positive experience over the phone than it is face to face. Add to that a disengaged advisor, and it becomes almost impossible for customers to have a genuinely great experience with your organisation.
Add Value and Allow Feedback
With average attrition in UK contact centres running at between 20 and 25 per cent a year, what does it take to successfully drive high levels of engagement in contact centre teams?
Firstly, it needs the sustained effort and authentic commitment of senior leaders. The values on the wall have to be more than just a poster; there can be no gap between what’s said and what’s done in the organisation.
For example, reward and recognition based behaviours that reflect value, instead of being based purely on financial results, really help to reinforce the strategic narrative of the organisation.
A big purge just ahead of an annual employee survey breeds distrust and disbelief in your motives. It’s much better to have a quarterly tracker or pulse approach to understand engagement and check the temperature of engagement in the organisation. It should be completely anonymous, short but relevant in terms of questions, give the opportunity for comments, and focuses on getting input from advisors on what and how to improve.
Transparency is also key, whatever the results. Share the feedback with the entire team and get their assistance in designing the improvement actions. Creating opportunities for the employee voice to be heard throughout the enterprise will thus create a feeling of connection and engagement when it comes to enterprise selections and alternate management.
The Role of the Team Manager
Big cultural turnarounds are successful when people feel like they are no longer feel as though they are just the cogs in a machine, but as individuals with a part to play in the collective success of the business. It’s vital, therefore, that advisors understand the role they have in delivering the business goals; how their piece of the jigsaw completes the picture.
This is where team managers come in. Great team managers are the cornerstone of success in any contact centre environment, get the right people in these roles and it goes a long way to making advisors feel connected, valued and engaged. Great team managers will know what engages each person on their team at a personal level, whether it’s public recognition, empowerment and responsibility, development opportunities, being asked for involvement/input in a project or initiative, or the chance to be heard.
Contact centres are community environments. Allowing your team to participate in community projects, fun days out, and competitions will always go down well. They create magnificent opportunities to build up positive energy as well as as engaging advisors on an individual level. Creating possibilities for the group to work together is integral, particularly as the nature of their roles and the strong focus on KPIs can frequently create stress and tension that can, unintentionally, lead to a poor customer experience.
What Lies Ahead?
What of the future? Employee engagement strategies need to be reviewed regularly for relevance and completeness.
By 2025 millennials will make up 75 per cent of the workforce (US Bureau of Labour Statistics), so the strategies, communication methods and tactics for increasing engagement need to reflect the changes in the workforce. No one is suggesting you turn your entire approach to engagement into a game, but with the rising popularity of gamification it will certainly have an increasing part to play in driving higher engagement in organisations in the future.
Conclusion
An engaged advisor is a productive one. Their productivity is higher, they are true brand ambassadors, aligned to the strategic direction of the business, and they deliver great customer experiences.
Happier customers are more loyal customers to your organisation, willing to recommend you to others. There really is no reason not to have employee engagement at the top of your priority list.
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