![\"Team](\"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/team4.jpg\")
\nThis first article outlines the key triggers for agents, supervisors and senior managers and shows why it pays to take a comprehensive approach to organisational wellbeing<\/p>\n
The impact of the past few years has been wide-reaching and traumatic.\u00a0 Flexible working practices, growing customer demands and a fast-changing competitive landscape are all taking their toll.\u00a0 And these stressors are affecting everyone in the contact centre and beyond.<\/p>\n
Let’s start with frontline staff<\/b><\/p>\n
Stress levels among agents are rising sharply with 96% claiming to feel stressed at least once a week, while 33% of agents are stressed multiple times a week \u2013 up from 25% in 2017. Is it any wonder, given that they are dealing with 14.4 additional omnichannel interactions per day?[i]<\/span><\/a>\u00a0 At the same time, many people are still adapting psychologically to an often disorienting ‘work from anywhere’ culture while faced with the practicalities of juggling home and work life.<\/p>\n Agent stress has a knock-on effect on supervisors and customer experience (CX)<\/b><\/p>\n A recent study revealed that 60% of respondents agreed that staff attrition and absence, while initially pandemic-related, is still causing CX issues.[ii]<\/span><\/a>\u00a0 Just how do those running the show (aka the operations of the contact centre) juggle agent schedules and skills throughout the day while planning for future recruitment, coaching and training, as cost-effectively as possible?\u00a0 Contact centre leaders also need to understand the bigger picture, such as why staff are leaving for the competition or why customer churn rates are higher than usual.\u00a0 The pressure is on contact centre operations to manage agent stress while at the same time dealing with hybrid working and increased numbers of digital communication channels.\u00a0 Add to this the need to optimise performance, keep teams connected and meet ever increasing customer expectations.\u00a0 It’s all created a perfect storm for anxiety and stress that threatens the wellbeing of employees and the long-term prosperity of their organisations.\u00a0 What can be done to reverse the trend?<\/p>\n Three ways to improve wellbeing<\/b><\/p>\n Wellbeing translates into agents who are empowered, taking control of their working lives and the customer experience; where supervisors support the business with a motivated workforce that surpasses key metrics and service levels and where executives strike a fine balance between cost control, innovation and business expansion.\u00a0 Here are three ideas for inspiration:<\/p>\n 1. Take an all-round approach<\/b> \u2013 find out what is working and what isn’t \u2013 for your agents, supervisors and senior managers.\u00a0 Look beyond the contact centre and think about involving other parts of the organisation, including subject matter experts, to improve knowledge, boost contact centre performance and enhance wellbeing.\u00a0 What processes are in place to share best-practice CX learning so that all departments are encouraged to do better and increase their own sense of wellbeing?<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0 Make the most of data<\/b> \u2013 with customer and employee loyalty in flux during the pandemic, companies need deep, relevant insights inside and outside the organisation to help protect and grow customer relationships while keeping staff from straying to the competition.\u00a0 All too often however, valuable information gets trapped inside the contact centre.\u00a0 Essentially, many organisations are sitting on a goldmine of intelligence that isn’t used effectively \u2013 are you being held back by data silos or clunky IT systems?<\/p>\n 3. Follow the leaders<\/b>\u00a0\u2013 success depends on gaining control over data using data-driven technologies.\u00a0 For example, Thomson Reuters wanted to understand\u00a0how the introduction of remote agent onboarding and training, due to COVID-19, was affecting its business.\u00a0 Using the latest analytics, the company identified calls with long and multiple hold times, then worked to establish the reasons why this was happening.\u00a0 The goal was to eliminate putting calls on hold.\u00a0 As a result of the analytics programme the company enjoyed significant benefits with a wide-ranging impact on organisational wellbeing.\u00a0 For example, the Tax & Accounting Professionals Business Unit potentially saved up to 3% of its contact centre’s annual operating budget.\u00a0 Meanwhile, average call times reduced by more than 90 seconds, call holds per call dropped one-and-a-half times and there was a 6.4% increase in customer satisfaction.<\/p>\n Success depends on removing stress at all levels of the organisation.\u00a0 In our next article, discover how modern Workforce Engagement Management (WEM) solutions including AI-infused analytics are the answer to wellbeing.\u00a0 We will also look at how technology can be integral to enhancing staff engagement, optimising contact centre performance and boosting profitability.\u00a0 Head to\u00a0the new\u00a0<\/span>“Workforce Wellbeing Recovery Kit”<\/a>\u00a0to gain hints and tips for three key stakeholders, with the main stressors to target, checklists to process change and tech buyer’s guides.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n About the Author<\/strong><\/p>\n Ross Daniels is Chief Marketing Officer at\u00a0Calabrio.<\/a><\/strong><\/b><\/p>\n In a new three-part series Ross Daniels introduces\u00a0Calabrio’s\u00a0campaign to support improvements for people, processes and technology\u00a0to enable greater wellbeing across contact centre organisations.\u00a0.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":541,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[186,172],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32441"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/541"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32441"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32449,"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32441\/revisions\/32449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Ross](\"https:\/\/www.customerservicemanager.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/ross-daniels-calabrio.jpg\")
Calabrio is the customer experience intelligence company that empowers organisations to enrich human interactions. The scalability of our cloud platform allows for quick deployment of remote work models\u2014and it gives our customers precise control over both operating costs and customer satisfaction levels. Our AI-driven analytics tools make it easy for contact centres to uncover customer sentiment and share compelling insights with other parts of the organisation. Customers choose Calabrio because we understand their needs and provide a best-in-class experience, from implementation to ongoing support. Find more at calabrio.com\/<\/a>\u00a0and follow\u00a0@Calabrio<\/a>\u00a0on Twitter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"