By Matt McConnell
The coronavirus pandemic affects employees across every industry. This has forced frontline workers to drastically adapt their work styles to adhere to social distancing, while many typical on-premise office staff have shifted to a work-from-home model. For most employees, this move to teleworking doesn’t call for much more than a Zoom account and a stable internet connection.
Transitioning contact center agents, however, to work from home can present problems, especially if their company isn’t prepared for remote operations. They might lack the infrastructure and processes to effectively make the shift. This opens the door to challenges that will plague agents and managers alike. Fortunately, there are solutions to ease remote contact center operations and supplement the roles of agents and managers.
Understanding the Issue
This rapid transition to remote work has made routine tasks such as agent training, managing adherence, and maintaining engagement more difficult for operations than in a physical contact center. With a tethered contact center model, where agents work remotely but live near the contact center, in-person training and coaching may be more manageable. But managing adherence and ensuring engagement will be a challenge.
A natural progression for contact centers to flow from physical to tethered and eventually to remote models might have been more helpful in the transition. But what happens now that circumstances have removed these first two options? Companies, forced to leapfrog the tethered model, move directly to the remote operations. But without the right systems in place, this can put added stress on agents and managers, as well as lead to a dip in efficiency across the board.
Many contact centers report record levels of call volume since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. They need to maintain peak efficiency despite the challenge thrown their way. Workforce automation (WFA) can alleviate many of these issues, allowing agents and managers to execute their roles from home just as they would in a physical contact center.
Empowering Agents
Data-driven automation is essential in managing a contact center with a remote workforce. Specifically, a platform can use real-time insights to ensure an engaged and connected workforce—this is despite agents and managers being miles apart. Even with surging call volume, in-the-moment data can keep agents on track to hit key performance indicators, while automatically updating schedules to account for breaks, training, and coaching. Real-time notifications can go directly to agents at the opportune time to share company-wide updates, inquire if they need help, prompt breaks, offer overtime, or supply more training.
For many agents this will be the first time they have worked from home. This change of scenery could present a challenge. Stress is at an all-time high for contact center agents, and a combination of increased volume, potentially upset customers, and adapting to new remote processes can lead to increased burnout and poor performance. In fact, 52 percent of contact center staff believe their company isn’t doing enough to prevent teams from burning out.
Managers can help to improve staff morale by increasing the frequency of communication to ensure multiple daily interactions with agents. Despite today’s unexpected circumstances, using automation to boost interaction and engagement can enable agents to succeed.
Driving Value
Workforce automation is also a vital tool to push cost-savings to the bottom line during this pandemic. The crisis has forced companies to shift agents remotely—with the need to ensure that, despite the isolated nature of their new environment, there was no lag in productivity. With well-established WFA software, managers can know that handle times are in check and agents are logging on for their remote shifts. WFA monitors call volume in real-time. Any adjustments to staffing can occur automatically without manager intervention due to predetermined rules.
Automation supports the role of the manager, which frees them to focus on more strategic initiatives. They can prioritize the well-being of the agent and concentrate on coaching and engagement. This is a sustainable option to ensure consistent performance and productivity, regardless of external variables.
Many companies have been late to make these needed adjustments. They are playing catch-up in terms of their contact centers in the face of coronavirus concerns. But it isn’t too late to adopt workforce automation to combat the uncertainties of the pandemic and supplement the work of agents and managers.
A survey revealed that 55 percent of industry professionals believe a remote workforce will become permanent within the contact center operations. This means that organizations should view the current operational landscape as the inflection point toward a future of remote work and look to automation as a catalyst for enhanced operations and happier agents.
Matt McConnell is the chairman, president, and CEO of Intradiem.