Your company’s approach to handling customer issues in the call center has a significant impact on loyalty and future business, so it’s essential to develop agents wisely. Training them in your company mission, products and “soft skills” is a great foundation to build upon, but you must also ensure the team masters the array of technology that assists them on the job.
Still, multiple disconnected platforms are cumbersome, requiring longer training for agents. The better path to preparing new hires is to integrate the disparate systems and establish a more streamlined technology landscape.
Call center agents need a wide array of tools for every customer encounter
Powerful solutions enable your agents to respond to customer issues efficiently and effectively, thereby maintaining valuable goodwill.
- Customer Relationship Manager (CRM): The primary system for managing your company’s communications, a CRM will also help an agent review a customer’s history and technical support contacts during a call.
- Scripting Tools: These solutions help guide a customer to resolution, as agents must have access to on-screen process flows and compliance statements in certain industries
- Knowledge Base Software: A searchable, logically organized repository of relevant business information is a necessary component of an agent’s desktop. These solutions must also be dynamic to allow for updated information.
Multiple solutions create a new set of challenges
While technology is necessary in the call center, many agents are faced with handling up to 15 different systems to resolve a customer matter. New hires lag far behind their more experienced counterparts due to common scenarios:
- Multiple systems mean numerous log-ins and a cluttered desktop of all the tools necessary to handle various tasks.
- Navigating among all the platforms with operations like ALT-tab, copy-paste is time consuming when switching back and forth among several applications.
- Instead of responding directly to a customer’s inquiries, agents are distracted as they’re trying to recall lessons from training or referring to a manual.
A unified desktop integrates all background applications to streamline the workflow in the call center and gets new hires up to speed quickly. All relevant information is available in real-time, while the process keeps the focus where it belongs: on the customer.
Some of the key features include:
- A single, integrated interface that provides access to all data stores and customer history.
- Process workflows that guide the call center agent through the customer encounter, directing the individual through common tasks while automating others.
- Operations enable agents to enhance customer service skills, including customer care and troubleshooting.
Call center managers know that getting new agents up to speed quickly means giving them the tools and technology they need to manage the customer encounter effectively. This objective is hampered by requiring training on up to 15 unique platforms as necessary to handle customer calls.