CRM - August 2008 - (Page 22)

BY CHRISTOPHER MUSICO eeping employees motivated is important in any environment, whether it be in a roundtable discussion with executives, among battle-weary troops, or on the court with an underperforming basketball team. If you can’t get your employees or coworkers excited about working for you or with you, many of those uninspired workers are going to leave to find happiness (and a paycheck) elsewhere. Nowhere is this more evident than in the contact center industry, where there has been an absolute exodus of agents in the past decade. New research from Dimension Data compares results from the first and 10th years of its Contact Center Benchmarking Report—and the results are staggering: The annual agentattrition rate, which was just 14 percent in 1997, had catapulted by 2007 to a rate of 27 percent, marking a striking 93 percent increase. Even among the agents who aren’t leaving, the absenteeism rate for them and their supervisors has also exploded over the past 10 years. In 1997, absenteeism hovered at 5 percent, while last year the rate was 11 percent—a staggering 120 percent increase. These statistics prompt Stephen Loring, business development manager for Dimension Data Americas, to declare that “the most disconcerting statistics for contact centers revolve around agent attrition and absenteeism.” What’s at stake for companies that claim to pride themselves on quality customer service but can’t keep their own employees satisfied? Simple: losing cus- K tomers made unhappy by a constant stream of inexperienced new agents. Happy employees are essential to creating a domino effect that spreads down to the customer, insists Darlene Harbeson, supervisor of network operations for reservation sales at Alaska Airlines. “You need to put your best customer service skills forward,” she begins, adding that happy employees tend to behave happily during customer calls.“Investing your energies in happy and satisfied employees just radiates out to your customers.” Given just how critical those customerfacing interactions are, there’s no sugarcoating the fact that agents have a difficult task. Ashu Roy, chief executive officer of eGain Communications, a provider of multichannel customer service and knowledge management software, stresses that “it’s a very, very high pressure job that agents undertake.” Motivating these agents can require a variety of tactics, but just throwing parties and instituting casual Fridays won’t be enough, according to Paul Stockford, chief analyst at Saddletree Research. While it isn’t an exact science, a healthy mix of empowerment, technology, and strong work relationships can help to stem this tide of contact center agents unplugging their headsets, leaving their seats, and walking out the door—and out of your contact center forever. KNOWLEDGE IS POWER Most people dialing into a customer service contact center expect the person on the other end of the line to be capable of fixing the problem. New research suggests that this is simply not the case. According to the Customer Experience Management global benchmark study from the Strativity Group, a researching and consulting firm, only 29 percent of respondents indicated that their employees have the tools and authority to solve customer problems. To Lior Arussy, Strativity’s president (and a CRM columnist), this is absolutely unacceptable. “We’re talking about 71 percent of employees in customer service and sales showing up to the customer with nothing more than a smile on their faces,” he laments. Jerome Brown, solutions marketing manager for Verint Systems, a provider of workforce optimization solutions, agrees with Arussy. “Empowerment can go all the way up to giving [agents] the power to actually solve a customer’s problem,” he says.“This way, they’re not just somebody taking a number and transferring [the call] to a manager.” Brown suggests that providing targeted training to agents is an important way to boost their morale, because knowing what the problem is and getting input on how to correct it allows them to be more successful in their work. Training can also boost call-handling confidence. “If the company can provide [agents] with training mechanisms—relevant training that is directed at improving job skills in an area where they have proven deficiencies—the center can accurately track and monitor [each] agent’s skill set through interactions they have on a daily basis with customers,” he says. “[Supervisors] can then make sure they www.destinationCRM.com 22 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | AUGUST 2008 http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - August 2008

CRM - August 2008 Contents Front Office Feedback Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point Maximum Security A Code Win Doesn’t Blow Forming the Platform CRM on Twitter CRM Class Is in Session Making CRM Mandatory for University Administration Required Reading Cover Story: Calling it Quits Wouldja Look at That? 8 Enterprise Strategies That Stick CRM Searches for Search All Lines Are Not Busy UC: As Easy as A-B-C Even Contact Centers Have Room for Improvement Money Lying Around? Secret of My Success Re:Tooling Scouting Report Pint of View

CRM - August 2008

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