AGENT PERFORMANCE
ILLUSTRATION PROVIDED BY NAUM ADOBE STOCK
AVOIDING AGENT UNDERHIRING AND UNDERTRAINING HOW JOB MISSPECIFICATIONS UNDERMINE WORKER WELLBEING AND CONTACT CENTER PERFORMANCE .
BY BRENT HOLLAND , INTELLIANTE
My first professional exposure to contact centers came in 2005 , and it didn ’ t take long to fall in love with the industry . The pace , challenges , and mission piqued my curiosity and inspired me to design solutions for some of the industry ’ s most pressing challenges , such as agent retention and performance .
Over the last 17 years , I have studied the cultures of thousands of centers and the skills of hundreds of thousands of agents worldwide .
My research exposed a pivotal talent-related problem plaguing the global contact center industry . And that is the tendency to underhire and undertrain while expecting extraordinary results .
Unfortunately , this practice leads to a misalignment between agent recruiting and training with contact center performance goals .
32 CONTACT CENTER PIPELINE
Should this state of affairs continue , some senior executives will understandably question the value of investing in contact centers at the current level if they consistently underdeliver the promised results .
Contact centers connect customers with company representatives efficiently across multiple channels . Agents support customers using sophisticated dashboards to access account details and information necessary to answer questions and solve problems .
The jobs tend to be fast-paced , complicated , change frequently , and require agents to complete multiple tasks concurrently while managing a cornucopia of customers ’ moods or emotions .
The mixture of job complexity , pressure to perform quickly , and a never-ending stream of customers creates a demanding environment that quickly exposes and exacerbates an agent ’ s skill and socio-emotional deficits .
Mismatches between jobs , people , and goals frequently lead to cultural dysfunction , high attrition , and poor performance . This article discusses the ways contact centers inadvertently normalize misalignment , its consequences , and the steps centers can take to course-correct .
... SOME SENIOR EXECUTIVES WILL UNDERSTANDABLY QUESTION THE VALUE OF INVESTING IN CONTACT CENTERS AT THE CURRENT LEVEL ...