Every call center’s success ultimately comes down to one factor: its agents. The better an agent performs, the more satisfied the customers will be. Unfortunately, ensuring consistent agent performance is not an easy goal to achieve. And a big contributor to that problem is agent churn.
Agent churn, otherwise known as agent turnover or agent attrition, is a significant problem for many call centers. There seems to be a constant cycle of trained agents leaving and new agents coming in, having to start the training cycle all over again. Not only does this cost an exorbitant amount of money, but it also often leads to a poor customer experience.
However, there are many tools out there to help solve this issue. Here are a few ways to use conversation analytics to address agent churn in call centers.
Empower Agents with Knowledge
Many call center agents receive very basic training during onboarding, and then they are pretty much thrown into the deep end of the pool. Any training after that is rare, if not nonexistent. As a result, agents are often frustrated because they don’t know how they are performing, or how best to handle unexpected customer interactions.
Conversation intelligence tools, such as automated scorecards, make it easy for both managers and agents to see where an agent’s strengths lie, and where they may need improvement. And call transcripts give agents demonstrable evidence of best practices for a variety of situations. This knowledge gives agents the confidence they need to be successful.
Help Agents Grow
Once agents know how to improve, it’s important not to abandon further training. Agents want to know that they are on the right path. Otherwise, it’s easy for them to fall back into old patterns. Creating attainable milestones for agents is a great way for call center managers to help keep agents on track.
Conversation intelligence software provides managers with the data they need to monitor each agent’s progress. When an agent appears to be deviating off course, managers can steer agents in the right direction using any number of tools from CI software. And agent milestones can be adjusted as customer expectations change, helping agents evolve, as well.
Offer Agents Fun Incentives
Knowing they are performing exceptionally well makes any call center agent happy. But there’s nothing wrong with sweetening the pot every now and then. Managers further motivate agents with extra incentives, such as friendly contests (whether with themselves or other agents) and prizes.
For instance, any type of conversation intelligence software lets managers evaluate audio recordings, which they can use to quiz individual agents. Or they can see which agent teams have the highest sentiment scores, or use silence and overtalk detection to hone in on listening skills.
Conversation intelligence makes agents more effective and improves the agent experience. This leads to less agent burnout and overall happier agents, which leads to reduced agent churn. And reduced agent churn is better for everybody.
