Twenty-twenty ushered in a whole slew of new challenges for contact center agents like working remote for the first time and higher call volumes from equally stressed-out customers. Well before that though, contact centers experienced 30-45% turnover per year, which is double the average for all other occupations. It deserves attention and in this blog we examine agent turnover, including the hard and soft costs to your company, and how to use technology to support your agents to decrease the agent attrition rate in your contact center.

What Agent Burnout Does to Your Contact Center

The year 2020 will forever be known as the year of stress. Everyone has felt stress on all fronts – both in their personal and professional lives. Agents are no exception.

The pandemic has brought on heightened levels of stress with unprecedented call volumes and ever-growing demands. Disconnecting from that stress is even harder now that many companies are working from home and can’t leave work at work. Increased pressure on call center agents to continue to be empathetic while managing a spike in calls from emotionally charged customers causes immense amounts of stress that ultimately leads to burnout.

According to the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), employee burnout is a “syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” It’s characterized by three distinct outcomes:

• Feelings of exhaustion or lack of energy.
• Feelings of negativity or cynicism related to the workplace, or a feeling of increased mental distance from one’s job.
• Reduced efficiency in the workplace.

According to Gallup research employees who say they very often or always experiencing burnout at work are:

• 63% more likely to take a sick day
• 13% less confident in their work performance
• 6 times more likely to leave their employer

On average, 74% of your agents are at risk of burnout. It’s unsettling to consider how much of your contact center workforce teeters on the edge of being overwhelmed to the point of quitting.

The Cost of Agent Burnout

A certain amount of turnover should be expected. Employees will come and go, get promoted, or make lateral moves to other departments where their experience can add value to the organization. No matter what, attrition costs your contact center.

Agent turnover costs more than just the time and training required to backfill the position. There’s the operational cost of recruiting, interviewing, and onboarding. Then there’s the productivity costs of ramping up the new agent to reach the productivity of more seasoned agents.

It’s important that the true financial impact of attrition isn’t undervalued. From the point that an agent leaves the company to the point that the resulting empty seat is filled and fully productive can cost thousands of dollars per employee.

Why Digital Engagement Reduces Stress

There’s just no way to sugar coat it. Working in a call center is a stressful job. The majority of your agent’s time is spent engaging with customers and it takes a lot of emotional labor. The work is fast-past, results-driven, monitored, and as mentioned above, things have only gotten worse since the pandemic. It’s no wonder that companies are looking for more ways to optimize agent workflows to reduce work related stress and improve agent retention.

Many companies are solving this problem by adding digital channels such as SMS/text, web chat, Apple Business Chat, Google’s Business Messages, and social media direct messages. Contrary to what you might think, adding these to your channel mix can actually help reduce agent stress and workload.

Here’s how digital engagement improves your agent’s experience:

Minimizes emotional drain

It’s much easier to get yelled at in text. A message in all capital letters or containing profanity doesn’t have the same emotional drain as being on the phone with a screaming customer. Empathy is required by text and phone agents, but showing empathy is much easier when you’re not being verbally abused.

Keeps the conversation on task

Compared to a phone call, messaging is concise and to the point. There’s no chatter about how your day is going and the weather like there is on a phone call. Messaging allows an agent to avoid the chit chat and get down the business of solving the customer’s issue without a lot of irrelevant conversation.

Avoids awkward silence

Since messaging is asynchronous, agents have more time to think, do research, and respond. If an agent is on the phone the customer expects a response immediately. If the agent needs to consult a manual to get the answer, there’s an awkward silence and the agent is under pressure because the customer is sitting on the phone waiting. In messaging, customers can go on with their daily lives, allowing the agent more time to respond.

Affords agents more relaxed support

When an agent is on a phone call and needs help they have to put the customer on hold. In messaging, agents can collaborate with their manager and other team members to get advice without the customer being aware that the agent is struggling to solve the issue.

Reduces repetitive tasks

Answering frequently asked questions can simply become monotonous and repetitive which adds to agent stress levels. Digital channels enable companies to create pre-built responses for common questions with snippets. This reduces agents typing time with keyboard shortcuts to make repetitive responses fast.

A lot of these questions, such as “what’s my order status?” don’t necessarily need human agents to intervene. Contact centers that use bots and agents to manage their messaging channels realize even better results. Bots help customers get answers to questions like “How do I reset my password?” or “Where’s my order?” without waiting for an available agent.  For more complex situations human agents can provide the knowledge, expertise, and creativity that only they can deliver. When call center reps feel that their labor, knowledge, and time is respected, they will be less likely to burn out.

Takes some of the surprise out of speaking to the customer

One of the reasons phone calls can be so stressful for agents is that they never know what they’re walking into. Is the customer angry or just in a rush and frustrated that they had to sit on hold?

With messaging, you can collect intel on the nature of the customer’s inquiry prior to transferring it over to a human agent. Whether you use a bot or a form to understand the customer’s intent, you can arm the agent with information they need to quickly resolve the inquiry.

Digital engagement also allows you to use sentiment analysis to monitor conversations. Agents can easily detect shifts in customer attitudes and behaviors during conversations. Quiq’s visual sentiment analysis feature helps agents and managers understand which messaging conversations may need extra attention.

Support Agents with Digital Engagement

Agent turnover is expensive, especially within a functional area that heavily relies on human labor. As unpleasant as it is, attrition is a workplace reality no matter where you work and regardless of the function. But that doesn’t mean you should ignore the causes or costs associated with high levels of agent turnover

Adding Messaging to the list of channels you already have is an investment in the agent experience. So much of contact center efficiency and agent productivity hinges on equipping agents with the right technology. Quiq Messaging gives your employees what they need to access information and solutions quickly in one simplified platform. Ready to support your agents and contact center with digital engagement? Schedule some time with one of Quiq’s conversation experts to get started.

Guest post written by Marciela Ross, Sr. Manager, Content Marketing Marketing at Quiq

As you set off to undertake projects with the intent of being more customer centric, think of the technology that your customers use to connect and engage with your brand. Quiq helps brands present their customers with consistently jaw-dropping customer experiences across SMS/text messaging, rich messaging, web chat, and social channels. With Quiq’s Conversational Engagement Platform, companies can easily orchestrate commerce and service conversations involving both bots and humans.

If you’re ready to get started, schedule some time with one of Quiq’s conversation experts. We welcome the opportunity to discuss how your business can use messaging and bots to provide customers with a seamless digital engagement focused on delivering a world-class customer experience.

To learn more about digital transformation go to: www.quiq.com.

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The Coffee Talk conversations were hosted via a video chat format, with all participants able to chime in and add their own perspective. Coffee Talks reached max capacity prior to the event date and were not recorded to preserve and promote open conversation within the session. If you didn’t get a chance to join in a live Coffee Talk session, we’ve gathered together some of our biggest takeaways to come out of the discussions.

Below is a snapshot of insights that capture the essence of each of the five Coffee Talk discussions that took place on October 5, during Execs In The Know’s Virtual CRS.

Is Your Customer Experience Strategy Immune to the Next Crisis?

Hosted by: Interactions

1) Business continuity planning is about more than people and locations

The COVID-19 crisis exposed exactly how valuable business contingency planning could be if well-conceived. The companies that had the easiest time of it planned beyond people and locations, taking into account many of the elements that laid the groundwork for a quick pivot to work-from-home. Things like regional infrastructure, office equipment supply chains, communication and change management in a crisis, flexibility in hiring and training, and technology to enable a remote workforce were all key considerations, and remain so in preparation for the next crisis.

2) Transparency is critical in midst of a crisis

No one could have predicted 2020. How could they? It’s difficult for planners to plan for the unimaginable, but the good ones always have a plan on how they’ll react to any scenario, and it starts with a solid, proactive communication plan. The brands that weathered the onset of the COVID-19 crisis best were those that remained in constant, clear communication with their workforce and customer base. Change was occurring rapidly, and so were shifts in expectations. Keeping employees up to speed on future plans helped reduce stress and improve work performance, while informed customers were more understanding and less likely to drive up unnecessary contacts.

Stay Secure & Compliant in the New Work-At-Home Reality

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3) There are several key considerations in making a permanent shift to Work-From-Home

If your company is considering making WFH a permanent part of the plan, it’s not alone. But what should be the top considerations for CX leaders? The following were some of the top considerations mentioned in a discussion about making the recent shift to WAH a permanent arrangement: safety and security, financial (cost, tax implications, etc.), performance (CSAT), productivity, cultural impact, and employee well-being.

4) A good process can sometimes bridge the technology gap

The COVID-19 crisis was a good lesson in, “You don’t know what you don’t know.” Case in point — technology. Many organizations were caught wanting when it came to the technology needed to not only shift to WFH, but then manage and maximize operations. Even though this was the case, many were able to overcome the technological shortfalls with a combination of smartly designed processes, as well as improvising with, and maximizing, existing technology.

The New Rules of Customer Service Messaging

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5) Most brands are already using messaging as a customer service solution

And for those that aren’t, many have launched pilot programs or are deep into investigating the technology. The philosophy behind incorporating messaging into the contact center in most aligned with the idea of “Being Where Our Customer Is,” but messaging also carries some cost advantages and can improve CX if done correctly.

6) Messaging can be used in a variety of ways, but excels at certain tasks

Messaging excels at handling transactional types of engagements, things like order tracking, verification or status updates, etc. Messaging can also be paired with a bot at the frontend to make sure customers get where they need to go for help, and messaging also carries the advantage of preserving the conversation … something that chat struggles to achieve.

Rethinking Technology to Empower CX – CTO Insights

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7) The best kind of CX technology is the kind that improves the experience

When a new technology makes its way into the contact center, especially one that can have a positive impact on both the customer and employee experience, it can be a game changer. Although technology is all about solving problems, one of the best ways to solve problems in the contact center is to create greater ease. When that’s done, the result is almost always improved CSAT and ESAT scores.

8) Getting buy in from the C-suite is a critical first step toward success when implementing a new technology

Getting buy-in from leadership in order to implement a new technology often necessitates development of a thorough plan, one detailing out the why, how, and expected outcomes. Taking such an approach lends itself to defining clear expectations and success measures, while at the same time building organizational backing and support.

Intentional Service Design in The Face of Unprecedented Global Change

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9) A crisis situation can magnify existing challenges and shortcomings, and prompt solutions

The good news is when an issue is magnified, it often attracts the focus and resources necessary for meaningful change. COVID-19 exposed organizational vulnerabilities in an entirely new way, which helped guide organizational priorities. Suddenly, bothersome problems became showstoppers, and the giant, unplanned stress test called COVID-19 acted as a clarion call to recenter on the customer, and fix or redesign broken processes and tools as a part of wider, sweeping change.

10) Necessity is the mother of all invention, especially in a global pandemic

While the pandemic laid bare many operational opportunities, it also created an environment accepting of experimentation and testing. Earlier in the year, the situation evolved quick and called for a lot of out-of-the-box thinking, thinking that could be bound by the typical layers and layers of red tape. At many organizations, this opened the door for a “can do” culture, one that often times led to new ideas and innovations that might have been otherwise unapproachable.

Execs In The Know’s Customer Response Summit is held twice annually. The next event, which is also scheduled to be held virtually, will be taking place in April 2021. Be sure to keep an eye on the Execs In The Know Event Page for more details as they unfold.

The post Five Coffee Talks. 10 Powerful CX Insights. appeared first on Execs In The Know.

The Virtual CRS agenda is packed with some of the industry’s best and brightest, representing an impressive array of brands and industries. Keynote speakers include Vicki Perryman from Humana, Marbue Brown from JPMorgan Chase & Co., Travis Hester from General Motors, Corey Flournoy from Groupon, and Brett Frazer from Sun Basket. In addition to this all-star cast, many other CX-leading brands will be participating in a variety of panels, case studies and discussion groups, including the likes of Target, Comcast NBCUniversal, Progressive, Uber, Choice Hotels, and many others.

“We are thrilled to be able to transition our flagship event, Customer Response Summit, to an online environment,” said Chad McDaniel, President and Co-Founder of Execs In The Know. “Now more than ever, the industry needs the strength and connectivity of community — a space for encouragement, inspiration, and the cultivation of innovation. We’ve designed Virtual CRS to be this, and much more.”

In addition to an all-star cast of keynote speakers, Virtual CRS will showcase Braindate, a unique engagement platform designed exclusively for corporate attendees. Braindate gives corporate attendees the ability to connect with peers in an entirely new way via
1-to-1 and small group video and voice sessions, all based on discussion topics generated by platform participants. Corporate attendees will be able to post topics they are interested in discussing, browse topics of interest to others, and book sessions with each other — all on a simple-to-use, intuitive online platform.

In addition to live event coverage October 5–7, Virtual CRS registrants will also gain access to on-demand streams of each and every session, available within moments of their completion. In other words, registrants don’t have to miss a minute of the action, having the ability to jump in and out of the live event as their schedule allows. On-demand recording will also be made available to registrants for several weeks following the event, providing ample opportunity to listen, evaluate, and improve.

Virtual CRS is fast approaching. Early registration is highly recommended as this is an event not to be missed. Participants will not only plug into a world-class CX event, they’ll also have the opportunity to get familiar with the Execs In The Know community — a thriving, highly-engage group of CX advocates and enthusiasts.

About Execs In The Know

Execs In The Know is a global community of customer experience (CX) professionals focused on excellence in customer experience. Execs In The Know gives brands a platform to share and gain insights, benchmark their brand, stay on top of the latest trends in CX, and create lasting relationships with their peers – “Leaders Learning From Leaders.” Execs In The Know holds numerous live events each year including Customer Response Summit, Subject Matter Briefings, Lunch & Learns, and Leadership Dinners. They also offer industry content and thought leadership through their webinars, reports, Know It All online community, and various other social media groups. To learn more about Execs In The Know visit: https://execsintheknow.com/

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