Prioritizing the needs of frontline agents boosts their engagement and performance. That means less agent attrition, greater customer satisfaction, and better business results.

Customer satisfaction is critical to business success, but too often companies overlook the well-being of the people most directly responsible for delivering that satisfaction. In many instances, contact center agents are the primary touchpoint between a brand and its customers. But when agents are over-stressed and under-supported, they struggle to deliver positive experiences. 

It’s time to move beyond the idea that business success and employee well-being are mutually exclusive. Organizations should abandon the short-sighted view of the contact center agent as just another input—to be expanded, contracted, or otherwise manipulated to achieve business objectives. Agents are not inputs. They’re people, with bills to pay and families to feed. Like all of us, agents perform better when they feel valued and respected. Their well-being is fundamental to business success. It should be prioritized.

Agent Challenges

The unprecedented turmoil of recent years has highlighted the vital role of human beings in customer service delivery. Complaints about poorly-prepared agents have been around forever, but many of us learned during the pandemic that being unable to reach a live agent was even worse. While it’s true that technology helped smooth over some of the disruption caused by the massive migration to remote work, technology never could and never will be a satisfying substitute for the human-to-human connection we all crave in those customer service moments of truth. 

If customer service organizations continue to view frontline agents as just another business input, burnout and attrition will continue to disrupt the quality and consistency of customer service delivery. Prioritizing agent well-being can help reverse that negative momentum. Operations should begin by focusing attention on the following challenges: 

High Call Volume: An on-the-clock agent is expected to field an uninterrupted flow of calls and deliver prompt, courteous, and thorough responses to each customer. That’s harder than it sounds, and it also leaves agents with limited opportunities to decompress from the stress it generates. The cumulative effect of this can lead to mental and even physical exhaustion.

Frustrated Customers: Agents regularly face customers who are frustrated by service issues or product problems. Such interactions demand patience, empathy, and problem-solving skills, and managing them tactfully can be emotionally draining. Agents bear the brunt of customer dissatisfaction, which generates feelings of helplessness and stress.

Repetitive Work: Agents address the same customer issues over and over, and internal work processes are also highly repetitive. The accumulated monotony can lead to a sense of stagnation and boredom, and over time, this lack of variety can dull agent motivation and reduce their engagement and satisfaction.

Pressure to Achieve KPIs: Agents are under constant pressure to meet key performance indicators (KPIs) set by their supervisors and organizations. Typical call center metrics include call resolution time, first-call resolution rate, and customer satisfaction scores. Constant scrutiny and fear of falling short of expectations creates a stressful environment.

Limited Autonomy: Agents are often bound by strict scripts or protocols, leaving them feeling disempowered in resolving customer problems. This lack of autonomy can be frustrating, as agents may be aware of potential solutions but are unable to implement them independently, further contributing to their stress.

What can operations managers do to help agents overcome these challenges?

Variety in Tasks: Introducing diversity in job tasks can help alleviate the monotony of contact center work. Alongside phone calls, agents can handle emails, chats, or social media inquiries. This variety will help keep agents engaged and also broadens their skill set, making them more adaptable and resilient in their roles and therefore more valuable to the organization.

Balanced Metrics: Managers should pursue a broader set of metrics that includes both efficiency and satisfaction measures. Overemphasis on quantitative metrics may lead to agents to rush through interactions at the expense of quality. A more holistic approach to performance evaluation will reduce stress associated with rigid targets.

Empowerment: Granting agents more autonomy to make decisions or escalate issues when necessary can boost engagement and reduce stress. When agents feel empowered to take ownership of customer problems, it enhances their sense of control and responsibility, ultimately leading to greater job satisfaction and improved customer service outcomes.

By focusing on these key areas, operations managers can provide their frontline agents with the support they need to excel in their roles and deliver the best possible customer service. That will jumpstart a virtuous cycle of satisfied customers and stronger business outcomes.

Impact of Real-Time Technology 

A certain amount of work-related stress among contact center agents is unavoidable, of course. But cumulative stress—the kind that fuels burnout and attrition—is preventable. Intradiem’s unique real-time contact center automation technology delivers the functional and human support agents require to deliver quality customer service, whether they’re working in a company call center facility or remotely. 

Intradiem’s patented, contact center automation technology integrates with ACD, WFM, and other technology systems and processes their data output in real time. The ability to monitor schedules, call volume, and agent workflows simultaneously allows Intradiem to deliver exceptionally responsive call-handling support and also to uncover opportunities to deliver necessary tasks directly to agents’ desktops within the flow of actual conditions. 

Real-time processing and the ability to deliver time-sensitive tasks at the right moments contributes to agent well-being by enhancing their ability to deal effectively with high-stakes back-to-back calls that are often complex and personal. 

Intradiem Helps Operations:

Leveraging AI to Avert Agent Attrition

Recently Intradiem introduced the first AI-powered solution to quantify agent burnout and predict the risk of eventual attrition. Intradiem’s Agent Burnout Indicator currently delivers 80% accuracy, and refinements and model training now in progress are expected to drive that rate past 90% in 2024.

Intradiem harnesses AI’s predictive power to identify patterns that indicate approaching burnout, such as more frequent absences and lower productivity. Drawing and connecting insights from a broad range of contact center systems’ data, the solution creates a snapshot of each individual agent’s burnout risk. Hourly as well as longer-term performance data are blended to account for seasonality and other expected variations, which helps ensure more accurate assessments. The solution assigns each agent to a burnout risk category (low, moderate, high, or critical), which helps supervisors prioritize remedial actions to support agents who are most at risk. 

Data indicators are updated hourly and agent scores are reaggregated daily. Supervisors can access these insights at a glance in an intuitive and highly visual dashboard. The solution recommends support actions, ranging from one-to-one meetings with supervisors, to schedule and work queue changes, specific training, additional breaks, and others. Filtering options also allow supervisors to investigate attrition risk at various levels of granularity—from individual agents to managers, groups, or business units—so they can quickly assess if specific teams or managers are associated with higher attrition rates. 

Prioritize Agent Well-Being for Better Results

Today more than ever, a business’s ability to deliver consistently strong customer service is critical to its reputation in the market. Contact center agents are on the front lines of that effort, and prioritizing their needs must become an integral part of every organization’s customer service delivery strategy. 

At Intradiem, we believe that every business’s most valuable resource is its people, and that ensuring their well-being is the surest path to success. 

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