Real Questions and Answers with CX Agents

Watch the full podcast here:

Or click here to just listen to the audio.

Welcome to the show! Today we’re diving right in with two real life customer service calls we recently had in our personal lives as customers. Let’s talk about what makes a a helpful and seamless experience versus a frustrating experience. Let’s talk about tools, policies and responsiveness.

Focusing now on the voice of the agent:

[ 9:55 – 11:21 ] The results are in and 65 percent of CX agents don’t think of CX as their career, and 40 percent want to leave CX as soon as humanly possible. Unfortunately, we see the self fulfilling cycle of turnover that our friend Leslie Oflehaven calls “the lasagna of stupid.” We don’t invest in our agents as much as we could because they don’t stick around. And they don’t stick around because we didn’t invest in them enough.

[ 12:40 – 14;03 ] The agents who do see CX as their career are most happy with the ability to work from home.

[ 14:03 – 16:35 ] People are taking stock of 2022. Is work what drives you? How is your overall well being as a person? Working from home is fitting into their life. The ability to work from home is actually more important than pay. Be careful about the push to return to the office.

[ 21:42 – 24:27 ] There are some great lessons and opportunities for discussion in the book The Customer Rules by Lee Cockerell. One point to highlight is that we should become an expert at creating experts. Another lesson is to surround yourself with smart and confident people. Let those people be equipped and freed up to thrive in their role.

[ 26:25 – 28:00 ] Don’t give responsibility without authority. Giving responsibility without authority sets your center up to have a high rate of escalations because you’re not letting the agent resolve the customers’ issues on their own. All of those escalations are going to increase your costs.

To listen to a recording of this and other episodes, visit vistio.io/podcasts. And to join our show live each week, go to vistio.io/cxlive.

Read more

Strategies For Doing CX (and AX) Right!

Agents are working in the front lines just as much as your sales team, so it’s important that they are being treated right. This starts with the leaders and the empowerment that the leaders give to their agents to do their job properly. Business will thrive when they put focus on their agents and their experience.

Read More

The Best Qualities That Will Lead Your Agents to Contact Center Success

Any given contact center can take upwards of 1,000+ calls a day. Whether you're a part of a BPO, an auto dealer, or in telecommunications, how exactly can you retain a mighty workforce to handle that kind of workload?

Read More

The Agent Metrics Obsession That’s Killing Customer Experience

Today we’re analyzing actual stories and case studies of the unintended consequences of performance management systems with our guest Dave Seaton.

Read More
Customer Contact Central