Contact centers and customer service teams have a lot of challenges to deal with in today’s world.
Technology is evolving, customer expectations are growing, and the channels businesses use to interact with clients are increasing. However, perhaps the most significant challenge is retaining service staff.
The average turnover rate for call center agents has always been notoriously high (26 percent compared to the national average of 15 percent).
Yet, in recent years, employee churn is becoming even more of a problem. In the remote working realm, where people can work anywhere, at any time, and for anyone, the rise of the “Great Resignation” continues, pushing people to leave their jobs in search of the ideal workplace.
Moreover, the world of hybrid work, in general, is adding more complexity to many jobs. According to the Washington Post, many find the modern landscape “messy and exhausting”.
Once branded as the toolset to replace human workers in the contact center, AI has emerged as the ultimate knight in shining armor for retention issues.
Indeed, by incorporating AI into an agent-based cx strategy, contact centers can improve agent retention.
Below lies lots of advice to do that and overcome four critical retention challenges.
Challenge 1: Rising Stress and Burnout
Burnout and stress have become commonplace issues for all employees in today’s fast-paced and demanding world.
In the contact center, chaotic schedules, conflicting management expectations, and emotional customers often magnify the problem.
Shockingly, one report finds that 74 percent of agents are at risk of burnout.
As such, many companies need to act fast to ensure they can protect the well-being of their staff.
Fortunately, analytics tools offer a solution. Harnessing natural language processing (NLP) technology, these efficiently detect sentiment in both customer and agent voices.
If an agent’s sentiment appears increasingly negative across multiple calls, an AI system can alert a supervisor, who then steps in to offer support and guidance.
Challenge 2: Sub-Par Coaching and Development
65% of customers say they consider a positive experience with a brand to be more influential than good advertising strategies - according to the PWC. However, delivering a positive experience at a time when customer expectations are rising is tricky – especially when left in the hands of agents.
As such, a forward-thinking coaching strategy, which helps to manage expectations, is perhaps more essential than ever,
Yet, many businesses still struggle to find the time to deliver the proper training. Moreover, without a clear view of agent performance, they fail to offer the targeted coaching that keeps agents engaged.
AI-infused quality management systems can help with this. These tools help to automate much of the agent call scoring process, uncovering crucial agent trends. Such a capability streamlines the evaluation process and provides agents with consistent, targeted feedback at scale.
These solutions can also spotlight information on the strengths and weaknesses of each agent, adding insight that helps personalize the coaching process.
In addition, as these tools highlight where employees excel, contact centers may spot remote agents doing good things and show recognition. Doing so is an act of positive reinforcement that refuels the desire of agents to deliver excellent customer service.
