Contact centre agents are under a lot of pressure these days.
Increasingly, to make the customer service environment more efficient, businesses are automating many common interactions. For instance, consumers can speak to a chatbot or use self-service FAQs to answer common questions, which means less pressure placed on today's agents.
However, on the other hand, because the simple work is automated, that means that agents are spending more of their time handling complex queries and in-depth customer issues. Since today's customers expect their service interactions to be more personalised, efficient, and impressive than ever before, agents have a lot to live up to.
Fortunately, for employees that need to be available to delight customers on a multitude of different platforms, there are solutions available in the form of agent augmentation.
Agent augmentation connects your workforce with the latest in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and natural language processing, to help them perform their tasks more effectively.
So, what are the kinds of agent augmentation available?
Type 1: Systems for Reducing Repetitive Work
If you want your agents to spend more of their time focusing on high-value interactions and complex queries, then the first thing you'll need to do is cut down their number of mundane, repetitive tasks. One of the best ways to do this, is with chatbots.
Chatbots are a common part of the customer experience narrative today. It's hard to find a consumer that hasn't had at least one conversation with a chatbot or virtual assistant. These tools, when used correctly, can act as a kind of immersive FAQ system, helping customers to serve themselves before they seek assistance from a human agent.
For instance, software brand Autodesk implemented a chatbot called Autodesk to respond to customer questions posed in natural language. This solution is available 24/7, so customer can access the help they need at any time. According to case studies, AVA reduced resolution times for Autodesk customers by 99% and improved customer satisfaction rates by 10 points.
Type 2: Intelligent Call Routing
Another way to augment your agents in today's modern marketplace, is to make sure that they're only dealing with the interactions that are most relevant to their skills and talents. When you're trying to solve customer queries quickly, it may seem like a good idea to push calls through to the first available agent. However, if this agent needs to transfer a call to someone else because they don't have the right specialist knowledge to serve a customer, satisfaction levels decrease.
Customers don't want to be passed around from one employee to the next. Additionally, agents don't want to waste their time addressing issues that aren't suited to their skills. An intelligent routing system will improve the chances that your customers will reach the right agent the first time around. If the correct person isn't available to answer their call, you could even implement an automated "call back" system in your contact centre.
This means that instead of waiting around for someone to answer the phone, your customer can opt to have their number dialled automatically when the right agent becomes available.