Looking at agent idle time in a contact centre, it is tempting to try and route available minutes (which cumulatively make up several hours across the day) to productive activity. For example, if the average idle time between two calls is 6 minutes, totalling 120 minutes if the agent handles 20 calls a day, how can you make use of these 2 available hours?
This is where channel blending comes into play. Blending emails with phone calls to fill those inevitable gaps can help boost agent productivity while cementing your multi-channel footprint. But there’s also a downside to this tactic.
Let us discuss the pros and cons of blending emails with phone calls, in more detail.
The Business Case for Blending Emails with Phone Calls
In the last few years, there has been a definite push towards voiceless customer interactions. Gartner reports that 85% of a customer’s relationship with an enterprise will soon take place without interacting with a human being, and the first step towards this is weaning off voice calls.
While voice calls remain the most popular customer service channel (74%), email isn’t too far behind. 62% of customers prefer to contact their favourite brands via email, so it makes sense to invest in your email response times, service quality, and agent availability.
Apart from customer demand, there is also the productivity factor, as we mentioned. As self-service adoption grows, your agents will have increasingly more idle time on their hands. Using these spare minutes to clear to the email queue would maximise agent availability while improving CX.
Blending emails with phone calls also provides agents with hands-on omnichannel training, gradually upskilling them for blended advisor roles, which pay better and are also higher up on the contact centre career trajectory. Finally, it prevents agents from becoming disengaged during seasonal downtimes, when voice calls are at an all-time low.