3 strategies to enhance contact center and agent experiences for better CX

Industry experts are reporting the biggest jump in technology investment in decades. From customer relationship management (CRM) advancements to case management software to customer service applications, companies have made smart investments in solutions to help them adapt to the dramatic acceleration of AI-enabled digital transformation. Despite these investments, many businesses are still struggling to deliver a frictionless customer and agent experience across every channel.

With so much robust technology readily available, why are so many brands failing to deliver cohesive, end-to-end customer experiences? The answer often lies within your contact center: service is the heart of experience delivery, and your contact center and agents are the brains behind the service experience.

To optimize experiences delivered through your contact center, you need to build solutions and design strategies that streamline operations and empower agents with the right information, training, and technology innovations.

Here are three ways to level up the performance of your contact center and agents.

#1: Strategic orchestration

To permanently fix the dreaded “curse of the sticky notes,” you need to support your agents with hyper-automated, integrated, and, most importantly, simplified contact center operations. Technology selection, of course, plays a key role in delivering these improved operations. But before onboarding any new tools or processes, you must take a step back to think about how all new and preexisting orchestration elements — people, processes, and tools — will impact the end-to-end agent experience.

In other words, you must first determine what is and isn’t working in your contact center operations and agent experience strategies, and only then bring in new tools to orchestrate an improved experience for your agents and customers.

This means considering solutions such as:

• Operational modernizations, like Interactive Voice Response (IVR), that give your team immediate and clear ways to improve interactions, enable processes, and amplify the total experience.
• Process automation like robotic automation (RDA/RPA), workforce intelligence, or similar innovations that cut back on repeatable, manual tasks, freeing up your agents to do their most important work.
• Cloud technology for more flexibility, leaner operations, and greater efficiency.

To help take the guesswork out of strategic orchestration, take the 4 Step Contact Center Technology Ecosystem Assessment.

#2: Proactive innovations

Strong contact center operations and agent experiences are powered by proactive data strategies that predict, inform, and improve interactions at every turn. This does not mean delivering more records as an answer to solving customer engagement challenges. It means using the information you have in a smarter and more efficient manner, resulting in more purposeful, valuable interaction experiences for both agents and customers.

A proactive, strategic approach to data and AI will empower a more curated, valuable interaction experience delivery, while at the same time enabling your agents to make smarter, more informed decisions at every touchpoint. Rather than a “find and fix” mentality, your organization and agents will be empowered to deliver white-glove service, solving problems quickly as they arise, while also being able to proactively make suggestions and apply resolutions before they become an issue.

This is possible with modern data innovations, such as:

• Data analytics and machine learning tools that automate the delivery of quicker, more personalized interactions.
• Visualization and reporting solutions that translate data into actionable insights about each customer.
• Conversational AI and intelligent automation capabilities that convert interaction data into real-time insights, enabling the delivery of the right information at the right time.

#3 Training and development programs

Agents’ jobs, technologies, work environments, and customer interaction continue to evolve. Well-planned training and development opportunities are needed to help ensure your agents have the skills and support needed to remain successful - no matter how their roles change. Whether there be shifts in contact center operations, service expectations, or interaction journeys, developing learning and performance programs for your agents is essential to helping your agents — and your business — manage these changes more effectively.

Agent training and performance strategies should incorporate the following:

• Clear, timely training of new tools and processes.
• Proper success metrics and goal tracking.
• Recognition of strong agent performance and goal achievement.
• Leadership and upskilling opportunities for agents at every level.
• Employee listening programs, like Voice of the Employee (VoE), to uncover strengths and pitfalls in the agent experience.

Next steps

Finding the right technology for your environment requires thoughtful discovery, design that combines transformation and orchestration, and making the right technology decisions. TTEC Digital offers the technology solutions and the expertise to help your business create the best agent experiences aimed at boosting contact center efficiency. The TTEC Digital approach results in a more unified, consistent, and relevant experience for every customer.