5 Ways to Spread Love to Your Contact Center Agents This Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine’s Day! On this day of love, we often think about ways we can show love and appreciation to the important people in our lives. But while it may not be your first thought, today is also a great opportunity to think about how we can show love on a larger scale.

Consider what you can do to help people out, make them feel cared for, and make their lives better in some small way. For example, you can help the agents in your contact center by providing them with tools to make their jobs a little easier, a little less stressful, and a little more engaging. Read on to learn 5 ways to achieve that.

• Provide Helpful Tips with AI-Powered Agent Assistance – Artificial intelligence (AI) has many potential applications in a contact center. One such application is automated agent assistance. AI could, for example, suggest informational resources related to a customer’s questions in real time, or suggest de-escalation strategies when a customer seems to be getting upset. Everyone could use a little extra help sometimes and integrating AI into the contact center is one way to instantly provide agents with additional support when needed.
• Add a CRM Integration to Save Agents’ Time – Integrating a CRM system with your contact center can provide multiple ways to save agents’ time. For example, a CRM integration can screen pop important information about a customer – like purchase history, case details, and more – to an agent as soon as an interaction comes in. This means agents can spend less time gathering identification information and context, allowing them to dive into a customer’s reason for reaching out right away. CRM integrations can also automatically insert activity records about the interaction into the CRM system with details like date, time, and links to recordings if applicable. This means agents don’t have to spend as much time wrapping up each call and manually recording details about the interaction.
• Empower Agents to Conveniently Manage Their Schedules with a WFM Integration – Adding a workforce management (WFM) integration to your contact center can also benefit agents in multiple ways. Firstly, a WFM integration can automate agent schedule creation based on forecasted demand. This ensures that the number of agents scheduled matches the number of agents that are likely needed, preventing agents from being underworked and bored or overworked and stressed. A WFM integration also provides a platform for agents to request time off, trade shifts with each other, and more, giving them the power to adjust their schedule to meet their needs.
• Use Skill-Based Routing to Encourage Growth Without Overwhelming Agents – With skill-based routing, agents are assigned skill levels in different areas – like a specific language, topic, or customer status – and interactions are routed to them based on their skill level in the area that the interaction requires. Implementing this routing method ensures that agents are never overwhelmed by an interaction that they don’t have the required skills to handle. Meanwhile, their skill levels can be adjusted as they learn, allowing them to grow and build confidence as they slowly earn qualifications to handle more interactions.
• Increase Agent Engagement Through Gamification – Incorporating gamification into your contact center helps keep agents engaged through the addition of incentives, leaderboards, and friendly competition. More engaged agents are happier agents.

For more ideas on how you can spread love on a wider scale, check out 6 ways to spread love to your customers. Happy Valentine’s Day!