One of the critical differentiators for managing the customer experience in the current economy is how well your center can leverage your frontline agents and their core skills. In the past few years, a number of factors have been converging to create a situation that is transforming the agent’s role within the center and the enterprise (e.g., globalization, virtual contact centers, outsourcing, technology). With this changing landscape come new challenges.

The average contact center agent’s job is evolving into a higher-skilled position requiring a more advanced level of IT knowledge, as well as business and communication abilities, according to research by contact center analysis firm Con¬tactBabel. We found this to be true in a recent ICMI study on agent empowerment, as well.

A majority of the participants (78.4 percent) are increasingly relying on input from contact center agents to improve the customer experience — from seeking agents’ feedback during team meetings to getting them involved in the content and design of customer satisfaction surveys. Two-thirds of the contact centers responding to the survey also actively involve agents in improving the tools and applications used to provide a positive customer experience.

The payoff is significant: 86.4 percent of centers say that the impact of agent involvement and empowerment has had a positive impact on customer satisfaction. Last month, I touched on the challenges managers are facing in attracting and retaining qualified candidates. The articles in this month’s CMI delve into trends, issues and practices that further illustrate the need to adjust agents’ job descriptions, activities, skill sets, and hiring and training processes to meet the requirements of a shifting economy.

In our industry, it’s really true that it’s the people who make the difference. Contact center leaders will need to contend with market demands by reevaluating their agents’ function, and consider ways to move beyond the traditional job role to a position that helps the enterprise to maintain growth targets and increase customer and shareholder value. Source: Susan Hash, ICMI