The vital call center challenge of today is to deal with the increased interactions across the multiple channels and at the same time recognize the nature of interactions.
Often we find that social media networks, online review sites, online forums, and price comparison websites make customers stay more informative than the customer reps over the phone. Still the customers expect to receive top-notch service and responsiveness, and this situation is going to intensify rather wont cease.
Old call center mantra suggests that ‘Customer Is Always Right.’ Well, that is posing a daunting challenge today. Customers of today are right, but to the power of ten. Now the contact center can no longer take a call dictated by their scripts or blinding customers with spin. Customers of today are more tech-savvy and make the reps stay engaged in a complex interaction to make a sale.
This problem is equally true to all service departments where you need to converse with your customer. When a customer calls to complain, they are not alone, others too have encountered a similar situation.
They may have tried out few solutions, so online help cannot fob them, and if they want to wait in the call queue for telephone support, they will not like greetings from an agent who is not familiar with their product or the issue.
For the frontline employees, this is a dispiriting experience. At Fusion CX, we keep on evaluating our call center challenges and make out ways to deal with complex, emotionally charged, or technical encounters.
We at Fusion CX felt the need of conventional agents getting a revamp or they must reincarnate into next-generation representative. Well, how a customer rep will get more informative?
– In order to become the agent of tomorrow they must have the ability to do multiple tasks, should be multi-skilled, a quick problem solver, a project manager, and a psychologist.
Next-Generation Frontline Staffs: What’s in & what’s out?
Role of a frontline staff keeps on changing better to say its take leaps and bounds within a day, from a problem-solver into a market analyst
In that same interaction, they need to employ their psychological skills and turn empathetic to customer and finally turn into a project manager to close the deal making profits.
With conventional agents, it is difficult to handle the complex customers of today. Your customer might agree to wait for a couple of hours, giving your agent the space to research on the issue and comeback with a specific solution, but they cannot wait for the agent to take a day off and attend a course on the particular problem.
Fusion CX used to face this massive challenge, but we overcame it. How did we do it? How did we help Fusion CXites learn the knowledge to respond efficiently and enhance the customer experience without compromising productivity?
Learning and development (L&D) programs helped Fusion CXites to attain a solution. We introduced desktop with shared interface where agents can access information or learning opportunities in a timely way to meet the demands of the millennial.
Next-Gen Agents and Their Evolving Roles
Today’s staff needs apt tools and resources to build their knowledge at a recognizable speed in response to their needs such as an online information, eLearning materials, access to in-company experts, etc.
It allows the agents to check the accuracy of the customer’s claim, compare prices, deals, and finally understand the technical features to increase the number of satisfied customers.
Fusion CX installed change in their customer service reps by turning them adaptive to the cultural changes. To upgrade their skills they might have to stay away from the frontline for few minutes, but that can help us to close a lead with profitable sales or help the customer spend their money in beneficial deals.
Talking about the change in role, this uplift in the roles of customer service reps is rewarding. Becoming a problem-solver is far more satisfying than being helpless to a complaint. Today’s agent shows huge interest in resolving the issue, to complete a sale, to build their knowledge and interact with other parts of the organization.
As a result, contact centers can witness increased agent retention and will be able to bag motivated employees who can take sole responsibility of their own development.
Who Benefits With This Reincarnation?
Agents
- Can do away with the feeling of under-appreciation
- Feels motivated, trusted, and empowered
- Keep pace and serves customer randomly to meet their expectations
Managers
- Still can retain control irrespective of the employee undergoing changes
- Can easily handle the peak season with a highly skilled team
Customers
- Better on-time solutions, prompt feedbacks and can do away with the fear of long call-holding time
- Informative agents leading them to trusted investments
Tech-Savvy Millennial Are Out There…
With the change in the customer landscape, there is a huge upsurge demanding the change in the frontline customer reps. Savvy customers have forced the frontline staff to become dynamic and knowledgeable to maintain customer trust and satisfaction.
Keeping pace with the time and customer demands, at Fusion CX we empower our people to gather knowledge and build their skills. We have realized that traditional call center methods cannot cope up with the tech-savvy customers of today. Rather we need to give a boost and optimize the performance of our agents, so that it becomes easy for them to address the challenges.
