June 11, 2015
Every contact center has them: high achievers who are perfectly aligned with their work and demonstrate this through their performance. These people understand customers, empathize with them, know where to find answers, and always keep their cool—even with difficult customers. In many cases, they solve problems that managers aren’t even aware of yet. The reason is that they’re on the phone with customers day in and day out, and often, they understand customers better than company executives, managers, and even data analytics systems.
According to customer service consultant Jeannie Walters, founder of 360Connext Writing for Business2Community, it’s important for contact centers to recognize these employees who go above and beyond, even if that’s not what they’re looking for.
“Often, they aren’t seeking glory or recognition; they’re simply doing their jobs the only way they know how,” Walters wrote. “By actively seeking out your superstars, the rest of the experience can improve thanks to their intuitive skills.”
These individuals are a great source of best practices, case studies to use in training other agents, and mentorship for new employees. In some cases, they can even go beyond technologies such as performance analytics and quality assurance solutions. Walters provides an example in her article:
“One call center representative had taken it upon herself to record the questions from customers who kept asking for the same instructions over and over again. Many of these questions weren’t listed as options in their system, so she wrote them down in her notebook, created the best instructions she could, and brought them to the call center manager. When the manager refused to add them to the system because the ‘numbers didn’t reflect this,’ she shared her instructions with the other call center agents, and as a result, customer satisfaction rates increased. In this case, the call center manager was simply reflecting the company’s data-driven culture. The superstar identified a truly customer-centric solution and implemented it using low-tech methods. This is a superstar who could help the rest of her team learn how to truly listen for the root causes in customer service.”
For this reason, it’s important to involve agents—particularly your most experienced veterans and top performers—in the planning and execution stages of contact center improvements. Are you revamping the IVR menu? Survey your agents to determine if there are any instructions or menu options that customers may not be understanding, or if menu options should be added or removed. Are you improving your knowledge bases to provide information that agents can use to solve customer problems? Your top agents should be one of your primary resources. Is the outside sales team seeking input on new strategies? Your contact center agents understand customers better than anyone else in the organization, and their knowledge should be fully leveraged.
Top agents can be invaluable for many other tasks, such as training and mentoring newer agents (or those struggling with specific challenges), collaborating with less experienced agents, and providing managers with input on day-to-day issues. Just be sure to recognize and reward their good work. After all…you want to keep them.