Like anyone, you've had a whole variety of experiences in your dealing with contact centers. Some nightmares, some great, with the majority falling somewhere in between. If you run or manage a contact center, chances are you're always looking to put your finger on what makes a great customer experience, and it may have occurred to you in the past that sometimes a perfect match-up between customer and agent occurs, and the synergy between the two is what produces a great rapport, and a great customer experience. In a series entitled, “Generational Hiring for the Optimal Customer Experience” FurstPerson's Brent Holland ( http://www.furstperson.com/blog/) examines whether generational groups produce a different customer experience.

Contact centers today are focused on driving the optimal customer experience. An oft-repeated question concerns whether agents in certain generational groups, such as Baby Boomers, “Gen X” and “Gen Y” deliver a higher quality customer experience.

To start, FurstPerson conducted research to find out what the average age of the contact center agent is. Based on data from more than 156,000 call center applicants, the actual percentage of candidates who are 40 years of age or older is 22 percent across both brick-and-mortar and at-home environments. The percentage of 40 and over applicants applying to brick-and-mortar centers is only 18 percent, fewer than 1 in 5 people. However, nearly one-third of at-home applicants are 40 years or older. This suggests that home centers tend to see a more mature applicant pool than traditional brick and mortar centers.

So how does it all affect the customer experience in the contact center?

FurstPerson research uncovered some interesting statistics when it came to the staying power of older workers – those in the Baby Boomer age range. Most notably, that more mature contact center workers had:

·         Nine percent longer overall tenure than Gen Xers and 11 percent more than Gen Yers;

·         Twenty-eight percent longer tenure before terminating than Gen X, and 44 percent more than Gen Y; and

·         Nineteen percent lower 0 to 90 day attrition rate than Gen Y and a 28 percent lower rate than Gen X

From these stats, it's not hard to extrapolate that more mature people do indeed make for more reliable contact center workers than younger age groups. However, notes Brent Holland, this is only half the equation. Longevity doesn't necessarily translate to quality. “An equally important issue concerns whether generational groups produce an equivalent customer experience. Employees who do not turnover and produce a poor quality customer experience may be more costly to a company than employees who turnover quickly. This phenomenon — where poor performers do not leave a company — is something we call 'The Dark Side of Retention' and many call centers are plagued by this very issue,” wrote Holland.

In their research to determine the quality side of the experiment, FurstPerson qualified the customer experience via Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) scores. The company found the results somewhat surprising: there were no statistically significant differences between CSAT scores across generational groups. This finding held true regardless of tenure; and though not statistically significant, there are trends that suggest Gen Yers may be able to produce better CSAT scores in more technical jobs.

In other words, while mature workers may have more staying power, they are generally no better in providing an excellent customer experience (though they are no worse) than younger workers. Writes Holland, “These results suggest the belief that mature workers produce a better customer experience is a myth. It is important that call center that not fall victim to the belief that mature workers will drive better performance on average – they will stay longer, but they may not necessarily produce a better customer experience, particularly in more technical jobs.”

For the last installment in the series, which will cover recruiting and sourcing different generational groups, visit http://www.furstperson.com/blog/