Contact Centers Need Problem-Solving Professionals

If you think today’s contact centers are staffed exclusively by people who couldn’t find any other work and have little in the way of education and skills, think again.

I personally know a call center professional who is highly dynamic, college-educated, and fluent in three languages. Reports indicate that having people like this aboard can be a real differentiator for businesses and contribute significantly to their customer service and outreach efforts.

A college degree and foreign language fluency aren’t requirements for most contact center positions, of course, although they don’t hurt. The point is that businesses and customers benefit when they can work with educated, professional individuals who are empathetic, able to solve problems, and have specialized skills that map to the job at hand. And this type of individual will become even more important as businesses move forward with the adoption of artificial intelligence-based solutions and automation and with digital transformation at large.

As McKinsey & Co. notes “as transactional calls move to digital channels, interactions that are more complex will account for the largest share of volume in traditional call centers.” The research and consulting firm adds that nine of 10 executives it surveyed “see a shift in talent required in their call centers through a mix of training and acquiring new talent.”

McKinsey also says more customer service workers now telecommute, more and more contact centers are allowing for flexible shifts and part-time work, and being able to interact with customers in multiple languages adds complexity but is sometimes a service-level requirement. Allowing customer service workers to telecommute or work flexible shifts may have the added benefit of allowing for a more diverse workforce. And that’s a good thing too.

“Diversity gives you access to a greater range of talent, not just the talent that belongs to a particular world-view or ethnicity or some other restricting definition,” writes Meir Shemla of RSM. “It helps provide insight into the needs and motivations of all of your client or customer base, rather than just a small part of it. And, potentially…it makes your organization more effective, more successful, more profitable.”

Edited by Maurice Nagle