The reporting requirements for contact centers are increasingly evolving with the available data. Actionable agent information that used to take weeks to put together can now be at your fingertips immediately. Despite consumers claiming to prefer a self-service option, 95.5 percent say they still want the ability to speak to a live person if they wish to.
The Dramatic Contact Center Evolution
The Great Attrition brought about the need to be agile and flexible in the contact center world. This opened up where you were looking for talent but also made reporting and remote management just as effective. The contact center formula, in the past, was only available to the largest corporations, but with the availability of affordable technology, any size business can run their operations like contact centers of the past with the flexibility and scalability of hosted systems of the present.
Avoid These Remote Contact Center Pitfalls
There is a common misconception that being remote means you do what you want when you want to, but luckily, for remote contact center operators, that isn’t the case. With the latest tools, collaboration is up, customer service scores are higher, and productivity has risen considerably. Regardless of location, hard-to-manage employees will come along, and by avoiding these common pitfalls, it will be just as easy to keep track of everyone as if they were sitting in cubicles right in front of you.
Work Status
Presence, wrap up, follow up, available no ACD, the list goes on; depending on the company, the terminology may differ, but they all mean the same thing: Does the employee’s current status reflect the proper status to be in?
Back in the day of only on-site contact centers, you could walk the floor and see/hear what people were up to, but now, with remote contact centers, that may seem impossible, but in fact, it is far from the truth. Remote contact center managers have live presence or status reporting to ensure all agents can maintain the proper status based on call volume, breaks, and internal and outbound meetings, all from the application on their screen.
Customer Experience
The simple fact is that most employees working in the preferred location are happier with their jobs and are more likely to pass that enjoyment onto customers through their interactions. As much as 20 percent of companies invest in empathy and compassion training. With the ability to live listen to an active call, use recorded calls as training opportunities, and collaborative sessions via video conferencing, you can ensure positive customer interactions.
Connectivity Concerns
Internet and hardware issues happen to everyone from time to time. According to Freshworks, 51 percent of employees are frustrated with speeds related to work equipment. This is not unique to remote contact center employees, but a plan needs to be in place to make the appropriate tests and next steps if there is an outage for a time.
Interaction Tracking
When it comes to interaction data, a balance needs to be established. As with all data, it can be inadvertently skewed one way or another if standardized methods aren’t established. Context is everything, and to ensure that all remote contact center employees are treated fairly, this needs to be monitored and revised frequently.
Team Collaboration
Proper team collaboration can make or break a working experience for remote employees. One remarkable aspect is the integration with different CRMs and communications tools, like chat and video capabilities. You may be physically remote but having the technology needed to successfully interact with your organization is a recipe for success for everyone involved.
The Contact Center of Tomorrow Requires Technology That Scales to Meet Customer’s Needs; Rytel is Here to Meet the Challenge
It’s important to remember that new technology or organizational advancements are complex to manage initially, but once the opportunities are fully realized, the positives outweigh the perceived negatives. Remote contact centers are at the positive tipping point. Contact Rytel today to discuss how we can provide a solution to meet your contact center needs.
