Tips to Balancing Contact Center Automation Costs and Quality
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
Because contact center agents are on the front lines of customer service, even with all the technology available today, they can’t be left out of the automation balancing act either.
No matter how well intentioned the move might be, automation usually makes agents cringe. Their natural inclination is to push back out of fear that technology will eventually threaten their jobs or make them obsolete.
The automation process has to be handled correctly, and expectations must be laid out up front. Agents need to be reassured that rather than threatening their jobs, automation can make their jobs easier and more fulfilling by eliminating some of the tedious tasks that they’ve been required to do in the past.
Jeff Erhardt, CEO of Wise.io, points out that automation can really help agents. “Done properly, automation of the customer service process can be a very pleasant and personalized experience,” he wrote in a recent blog post. “Machine learning, voice recognition technology, response templates, and a number of other pieces of the puzzle combine to create a synergistic automated system that can enhance the productivity of human customer service agents and allow them to deliver better support to more customers.
“Thoughtful organizations aren’t using automation to eliminate staff; rather, they are using a spectrum of intelligent automation to make people more effective,” he continued, and that needs to be conveyed to the employees who will be affected.
And then, because no technology can operate in a vacuum, companies today can add automation far outside the contact center and still reap the benefits inside it. By bringing automation to knowledge management and FAQs, for example, companies “can still get the benefits of automation without losing the human factor,” Herriman says.
FOOLS RUSH IN
The last element to consider in the automation equation is time. In the quest to start raking in the savings as quickly as possible, there is a real risk of acting too hastily. In the past, that has led companies to overinvest in automation or invest in the wrong technologies, Anadkat explains. In the process, these companies often wound up spending way more money for systems and maintenance than they needed to, with little to no impact on the customer experience.
Automation, Anadkat maintains, should be “an iterative process,” whereby companies start funneling their most routine calls and tasks to self-service slowly.
“You can always start small and add as you move on,” Herriman adds.
Senior News Editor Leonard Klie can be reached at lklie@infotoday.com.