Wallboard for Amazon Connect - OMNINGAGE

Competitive Piano Playing – The Secret Of Agent Engagement

Staff turnover and absenteeism

A Contact Babel report stated that average levels of staff turnover in the US were 29%. Meanwhile, Carolyn Blunt of Amber Real Results consultancy mentioned that average absenteeism in the UK was 11%.

Imagine a 200-seat contact centre. 58 agents will leave each year, while 22 agents will be on the payroll but not at their desks.

Where staff turnover and absenteeism are low, engagement is invariably high.

A McKinsey survey stated that only 2% of respondents left contact centre jobs because of technology.

While it may not drive staff turnover, technology can still be a constant irritant and source of stress.

How can we improve agent engagement with technology?

Make life easy

Contact centre work is very repetitive. Agents perform the same tasks 50 to 100 times a day while keeping multiple applications open which operate on different software platforms and connect to different databases while watching their Average Handling Time. This can be very frustrating and stressful.

Advanced call routing through platforms such as Amazon Connect sends the right calls to the right agents. They will have the experience and expertise to handle their customers’ requests.

Modern technology, especially cloud contact centres such as Amazon Connect, enables businesses to bring multiple applications, such as the telephony platform and the CRM system, into one interface. The agent will feel like she is playing a piano with both hands instead of keeping 10 plates spinning in the air.

User Interface (UI) design has matured with the software industry. Modern UIs are easier for agents to learn and master, so reducing training time and increasing agent satisfaction.

Make life fun

Gamification is a technique where aspects of game playing, such as awarding scores, facilitating competition etc. are applied to non-gaming contexts, such as “work”. 

The contact centre industry is driven by statistics. Statistics are used to measure every aspect of agents’ behaviour. They are often published for all staff to see on a dashboard or wallboard application (Wallboard for Amazon Connect) in the contact centre. It’s not a major conceptual leap to turn the statistics you want to see more of into the “score” of a game.

Computer gaming has boomed in the past 20 years because players get instant feedback on what they do, the instant recognition of their success and the chance to achieve mastery.

These principles can be applied to a contact centre even without a gamification solution.

Agents can use their dashboards to track their own performance. They can be given incentives based on productivity and quality KPIs to compete with themselves or their colleagues. Gamification can be applied to training. Knowledge tests can be turned into competitive team-based quizzes.

If technology, such as agent desktops or dashboards for Amazon Connect can be used to make the employee experience less stressful and more rewarding, this will help to give staff more of a reason to stay than to leave.

About OMNINGAGE:

OMNINGAGE provides a modern and cloud-based agent desktop for amazon connect platform which delivers high-quality voice via the user’s web browser. Its user friendly, data-rich interface promotes agent engagement, reduces AHT and boosts productivity for those working in the office or at home.

The platform is available globally via AWS and integrates with a variety of CRM and back-end applications to offer a single-window operation to users.

https://omningage.cloud/the-secret-of-agent-engagement/