Call center agents, the true musicians of contact centers
March 8, 2022
Contact centers continue to grow exponentially. One of the key factors behind this phenomenon is the emergence of an accelerated society, marked by a culture of immediacy in which the consumer, hurried and versatile, is considered King. Today, these are no longer simply companies, but complete models of tightly-knit organization. Nevertheless, staff retention is a major problem for these structures. Agents and teleconsultants don't see themselves as part of the team, believing the tasks to be unattractive and time-consuming. They quickly realize that the work is monotonous, almost mind-numbing, and that career prospects are limited, leading to a strong sense of despair and intense stress!
And yet, the call center agent is the first point of contact in the customer journey. More than that, he's the guarantor of a successful customer relationship. A fine blend of human qualities and professional skills, the teleconsultant's DNA is rich and complex. Let's find out more about this versatile profession, essential to a company's development.
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Sales make the thief: really?
Courtesy, patience, a flair for sales, resistance to stress... the skills of a "good" teleconsultant are many and varied. When you, like me, call a customer service department for help, you expect a prompt and efficient response. These days, the advisor doesn't just take orders. They advise, propose additional purchases, suggest promotions... In short, they sell! However, selling requires knowledge of products and services, as well as of contact center operations. What's more, the agent must be able to handle difficult situations, regularly changing procedures, and customer interactions that are often emotionally charged and stressful (irritation, hesitation, misunderstanding...), all the more so in the current crisis context. But they must also embody the company's culture, acting as a strategic messenger, delivering high value-added services. These are the skills that will ensure customer satisfaction and company performance!
Development prospects that are often complex, but attainable!
In contact centers, opportunities for career development are -very- limited. Agents complain about the repetitive nature of their tasks. High staff turnover demands rapid training. As a result, the job is often simplified and devoid of creative tasks to quickly pass the torch. The only possible hierarchical progression is to supervisor, who in turn ensures the smooth running of operations and the daily monitoring of productivity targets. To achieve this significant evolution, a long-term projection is necessary. However, due to the temporary contracts, the pressure generated and the strong feeling of stress, this projection is limited by their desire to eventually leave the organization. The result: high costs and performance losses that are often overlooked.
To overcome this problem, the overall aim is to change management methods based on mistrust and control, generating difficult working environments. The result is a clear deficit: employees are seen as easily replaceable, and little effort is devoted to dialogue and achieving win-win results. If we want to improve contact center performance, we need to increase agent involvement and reduce turnover. To achieve this, efficient tools for call center agents and supervisors mean they can concentrate on their core business: customer relations. That's why system stability is crucial!
ViaDialog, your best ally for successful customer relations
ViaDialog's ViaSpeech and ViaFlow solutions cover all your customer relationship management needs. We are convinced that one of the key factors in contact center performance is the use of AI to support agents and customers alike. This revolutionary technology has prompted us to develop innovative solutions for automating the customer journey and improving working conditions for call center agents, such as emotion detection during customer calls.
ViaSpeech offers a complete solution for automating the customer journey in natural language, with tools for creating voicebots, callbots and voice assistants that can be integrated directly into your servers. And for a touch of omnichannel, ViaDialog has developed ViaFlow, a natively omnichannel customer interaction management platform embedding our latest AI technologies. At ViaDialog, we've been working on these topics for years, to offer supervisors and agents alike ever greater convenience.
