Contact centers spend a lot of time and money trying to improve customer satisfaction (CSAT). And they should! CSAT drives customer loyalty and their bottom line.
Some are investing in ACD routing, IVR and even speech recognition software to deliver a better customer experience. But what if I told you that you might be overlooking one of the most effective tools you have for improving CSAT?
Want a hint?
It’s someone you work with every day, and someone your customers deal with every time they contact you.
You guessed it—it’s your agents!
According to a recent Gartner Survey, 86% of customer experience executives cite Agent Experience (AX) as the single factor that has the most impact on CSAT.
Yet, Strategic Contact’s 5th Annual “Challenges and Priorities Survey” revealed that only 15% of contact center leaders rank AX (also referred to as Agent Satisfaction or ASAT) as their number one priority.
So, why is there such a disconnect? And what can you do about it?
In “The State of Agent Experience and Engagement in Today’s Contact Centers”—our recent joint research with ICMI—agents told us inadequate/hard-to-use systems is the top challenge they face in providing customer service.
We've all heard it—agents have too many tools to use, too many things to navigate, too many places to dig up or type in information. This multitude of disparate systems causes unnecessary frustration for both customers and agents.
So how do you fix that?
Give your agents a single, unified interface that puts all the tools they need right at their fingertips. An interface that automatically pulls in CRM data so the agent sees the customer’s complete history before the interaction even starts. Not only will your agents be less stressed, they’ll also be able to respond faster and serve your customers better.
Help your agents help your customers
Who gets time for training anymore? It's certainly not at the top of many lists. And agents are no exception. Studies show that providing immediate feedback is the most effective approach to improving future interactions. This feedback takes just a few minutes, yet it’s still hard to fit in given our occupancy targets and SLA objectives.
At the same time, customers expect that agents have the skills, knowledge and ability to handle their issues quickly and easily. But without training, you get exactly what no one wants—more transfers, more escalations, and lower CSAT.
To help your agents improve your first call resolution rate, agents need time-sensitive feedback and targeted training so they can start serving customers better on the next call—not three weeks later.
Want more details on how improving your agent experience can improve your CSAT?
Register for our upcoming TMCNet webinar “CSAT stagnant? Improve agent satisfaction!” on March 19. I’ll share more ideas on how to improve your contact center agent experience so you can boost your customer satisfaction!
