Call Center Management Featured Article
New Survey Reveals Causes of Poor Customer Service
Recently, eGain conducted two surveys to discover the biggest problems contact center agents experience on a daily basis. With only 1 percent of companies delivering “excellent” customer service, according to Forrester’s (News - Alert) recent CX consumer research, it’s more important than ever for call center management to assess the needs of their agents and work to solve their problems quickly and efficiently.
eGain first asked agents what their biggest problems were when dealing with a customer on the line. Twenty-five percent of respondents stated that answers to questions vary in different systems, 26 percent said finding the right answers was difficult, 20 percent cited switching between multiple apps/windows as a problem, 14 percent found keeping up with new or changed information to be difficult and 15 percent has other grievances.
With so many issues occurring while agents are on the phone with customers, it’s no wonder that satisfaction rates are so low. In fact, when eGain surveyed 5,000 consumers in an attempt to identity their biggest pain points, 34 percent stated that customer service agents didn’t know the answers to their questions. This is a direct reflection of how agents feel, which means that there’s a serious issue here that needs to be addressed by call center management.
According to eGain, it really comes down to poor management, bad systems and stress. eGain broached the topic of a new type of technology with agents: a “Solve Button.” The company asked agents: “Imagine you had a ‘Solve’ button on your desktop that gets you quickly to answers or starts guiding your conversation or service process with the customer step by step? At the same time, the button would reduce the need to access multiple systems to do your job. How would you rate the value of such a button on your desktop?”
An overwhelming number of agents (51 percent) said that a “Solve Button” would help significantly, while 35 percent said it would make the job easier. Only 9 percent of respondents believed that the button would not help, and 6 percent replied with an “other” option.
Clearly, a button that provides agents with step by step instructions, or helps them quickly find answers, would be a welcome addition to the contact center. Agents are undoubtedly overwhelmed by high call volumes and difficult questions, and that is showing in the quality of customer service.
While not all contact centers have access to a magic button that will take care of these problems, all organizations do have call center management in place. Therefore, managers need to pay closer attention to the needs of their agents and act to make work more enjoyable and bearable for staff.
Edited by Maurice Nagle