According to the 3rd Annual Contact Center Communication and Connection Study, conducted by The Center For Client Retention, the answer is yes. Agents are connected to the brand they represent and enjoy speaking to customers about the company’s products and innovations. However, there is a BUT; the representatives feel left out of any decision-making process involving their communication with customers.
Some other interesting findings from this benchmarking study were:
- Contact center management has done an excellent job of stressing the importance of representatives becoming brand advocates. When consulted, agents have useful suggestions to help to further increase the brand connection:
-Communicate and explain changes made to the products, making sure the representatives are “in the know”
-Give tours of plants, facilities and share brand history
-Connect the representatives with the brand managers to get them more involved in activities and decisions
-Provide samples instead of just showing photos of new products or features
- Over 40% of the representatives want to leave the contact center when they finish college or find a better position. This contributes to higher attrition rates for contact centers in relation to other departments within a company. Communicating with top performing representatives about their short and long-term career goals will establish a dialog where other opportunities within the company can be explored. Working in the contact center affords great experience dealing with customers and management should try to retain that knowledge and expertise within the organization.
- Representatives think their organizations are four times more concerned with call quality than the length of the call. Since this study was first conducted, the agents reporting that management is emphasizing the quality of the call, has increased. This finding was one of the most encouraging signs that companies are stressing the importance of building relationships and providing additional useful information than just responding to the customers’ immediate question or concern.
- The majority of all representatives said they are often asked to communicate statements to customers that are difficult to defend and therefore make their jobs more challenging. Some of these statements include:
-“I cannot transfer you to a supervisor or there are no supervisors that are available”
-“Your ideas are valued and appreciated”
-“I’ll forward your information to the appropriate department and they will look into this”
-“I never heard of that issue before”
For information on participating in TCFCR’s 4th Annual Contact Center Communication & Connection Study please contact us.
