Make 2023 the Year of Happy Agents

How happy agents can help improve your customer service experience – Contact Center trends you should start, stop and continue this year.

As it’s tradition, every New Year you sit down and write down your New Year's resolution. And as we are already in February, you realize that throughout the year you have to assess what’s working and then decide which ones to stick to and which ones you stop altogether.

When it comes to your contact center and your customer support teams we got some ideas about what to start, what to stop and what to continue to keep your agents happy. After all, they are key to providing a great customer service experience in 2023 and beyond.

Start to trust and empower your agents more. Why should you do this? Well, agents are your front of house, they are the direct link to your customers and they represent your business with every customer interaction. Your agents know and understand your customers, they provide the much needed context and are critical in providing faster contact resolution. Your agents are trusted with the most important asset in your business – the customers. 

To ensure that your agents are empowered to provide a good customer service experience, it is crucial to involve them in relevant projects and decision processes that impact the way they work and the tools they are trusted to use. You expect them to solve your customers' problems as fast as possible, so they should be enabled to do so. Without the right – and by that I mean easy to use, contextually driven and integrated agent interfaces – tools such as Twilio Flex, they will lose valuable time to resolve these issues and requests.

According to CCW Digital research, 45% of companies are setting the goal of improving agent engagement and workplace culture in 2023. Additionally, 47% are aiming to unify systems and tools to reduce agent effort.

By involving agents in improved processes and efficient workflows, companies can empower their frontline employees to deliver better outcomes and as a result also improve the customer service experiences. By enhancing agent engagement, organizations will also establish greater expertise as retention increases.

Stop waiting for issues in your processes or customer journey to arise and for your customers to contact you to tell you where you have gaps. Try to think and plan ahead. Validate your user journeys to ensure a smooth transition and understand why customers are contacting you. This will allow your agents to proactively send messages and updates to your customers before problems arise. By planning ahead and stop being reactive, you can help your agents decrease their workload and ensure they focus on what they are meant to do – creating a unique customer experience.

When it comes to your communications channel strategy, it is important that you stop integrating every channel out there but rather integrate only those channels that create tangible value for your customers and your business. Offering communication channels that do not meet your use case or company’s strategy take up time and budget that can be used elsewhere. Be ruthless and only support the communication channels that provide added value and allow your agents to solve problems.

This year, your business should continue to invest in training and development of agents. After years of saying happy agents create happy customers, companies are finally at a stage to understand the true value of their agents. Going beyond superficial perks, organizations became dedicated to delivering an experience that keeps agents engaged and invested in their growth within the role. You need to continuously train and empower your agents and give them the tools to resolve issues in one go.

In addition, it is important to understand all your customer journeys and the reasons why customers may want to contact you. Analyzing and assessing all data points at your disposal is crucial for redefining and improving your overall customer experience and loyalty. 

If you want to learn more about how you can start, stop or continue with those trends this year, stop by the Twilio booth (hall 2 booth C16/D15) at CCW Berlin to talk to our experts and see some demos. 

Schedule a meeting with Twilio at CCW Berlin and join us for our masterclass to find out how to design your channel strategy.