Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
Is it Possible to Match Customer and Agent Personalities?
While contact center managers train all their agents equally – usually, “one size fits all” when it comes to training – eventually, agents will show skills for certain tasks. Once upon a time, all agents largely did the same work, and while this made scheduling simpler, it wasn’t necessarily the best approach for customers. Why have your agent who is most knowledgeable about returns on a different phone call, while an agent who isn’t as knowledgeable gives a customer a less-than-satisfactory customer experience?
Speech analytics can help match the agent with the best skill to the customer. But the technology has another purpose: it can also match agents to customers based on personality, which can improve the quality of each interaction, according to a recent blog post by Chuck Ciarlo, CEO of workforce optimization solutions provider Monet Software (News - Alert).
“We all have different traits as people and usually we gravitate toward others who share those traits,” he wrote. “This works in business as well. People who are more quiet and contemplative are not going to be as receptive to a loud, aggressive salesperson. Such traits are obvious in a retail environment, but over the phone finding the right match requires the type of insight that only speech analytics can provide.”
Is your customer chatty, friendly and upbeat? It’s probably a better idea to match him with an agent who is similar. Is the customer business-like, no-nonsense and to the point? She’s probably not going to respond as well to a super-friendly and talkative agent.
To enable this technology to work, however, it’s important you first identify your agents by their personality types. Chances are, you’ve got all types in the contact center already. It’s not necessary that you give each agent a Briggs-Meyer personality test, but you will need some criteria to match them against.
“Hopefully, a good mix will occur naturally – some will be more outgoing and friendly; others will be more reserved and ‘all-business,’” wrote Ciarlo. “You don’t want to have too many gradations here – start with simple introvert and extrovert classifications.”
Next, of course, you’ll need a call routing solution that’s smart enough to take a number of complex factors – such as personality – into consideration. Workforce optimization solutions can help here.
“With call recording you can review past engagements and gather enough insight into each customer to place them in one of these behavioral categories,” wrote Ciarlo. “Then, the next time he or she calls, you’ll know which agents have a better chance of making them happy. The improved likelihood of a rapport between agent and customer may result in faster calls, high call resolution and more sales.”
With customer expectations on the rise, any technology that can give your company an “edge” in improving the customer experience will quickly pay for itself. Customers who leave a transaction satisfied and impressed will likely remain customers for a long time to come. They’re also more receptive to cross-selling and upselling efforts, which means more revenue for your organization in the long run.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi