Agent Empathy Playbook For the New Reality

Agent Empathy Playbook For the New Reality

Enghouse
Published by: Research Desk Released: Feb 14, 2023

It is often said that an organization is only as good as its employees and that they are what makes customers want to do business with your company.

Contact Center agents are your front line and create that first impression, be it good or bad. If they aren’t pleasant to deal with, or offer bad service, the company will quickly fail. Therefore, making sure your agents are well equipped to make the customer’s experience a positive one will go a long way to ensuring your company is well regarded and seen to be a good one to do business with.

That means that while organizations invest in technology, they must equally invest in their staff, their skills and well-being.

When you step back and think about it, this only makes sense – supporting your people helps to ensure that they remain engaged, motivated and focused on making the customer experience a positive one, even in highly contentious problem situations.

Agent well-being should therefore always be a focus, but COVID and the switch to hybrid working has accentuated its importance. While working from home has increased flexibility for staff and opened up new online opportunities for support, it has also heightened stress levels amongst both agents and customers alike and made it more difficult to support remote staff that may be struggling.

Agents may feel isolated, overwhelmed and under enormous pressure. On the positive side, employers increasingly understand the importance of well-being and are implementing programs that better support their people.

This eBook will provide some insight into what can be done by organizations to support their employees, how best to leverage technology, and outline how a supportive culture and flexible processes, can help these programs succeed as we move into the new reality of hybrid work.