Whether they’re working on outbound campaigns or handling inbound calls, the success of your contact centre is largely down to the performance of your agents. But how can you keep your agents motivated in a challenging and fast-paced environment?
In part, the answer is using a range of conventional methods like rewards, incentives and truly understanding the challenges your agents face. But in a multi-channel contact centre, the right technology can make implementing these methods easier while opening up new ways to motivate your workforce.
Get started with these six big ways to keep your agents motivated – and your performance at its best.
1. Understand your agents with increased visibility
An effective multi-channel contact centre solution will empower you with real-time reporting so you can understand how your agents are working, ideally with web-based access that allows you to monitor them remotely.
It’s also important to regularly listen to agents both live and through call recording, which should also be available directly in your web browser – not in a complicated separate interface.
2. Share, recognise and reward team success
While it’s vital that call centre managers understand agent performance, the same data can also be used to keep teams inspired throughout the day. A wallboard can display key campaign metrics like call wait times, total sales, and sales per agent, giving everyone a clear target to work towards with up-to-the-minute updates on progress.
The information on a wallboard could also become a cost-effective way to recognise agent success as soon as it happens. While financial incentives are highly effective, the power of positive reinforcement and recognition from management shouldn’t be underestimated.
3. Let your agents use their talents by reducing admin
There’s nothing less inspiring than time-consuming follow-up that doesn’t make the most of your skills and expertise. With CRM system integration, you can automate these repetitive workflows through your hosted dialler and let agents spend more time on what they do best.
Workflow automation could take care of a range of admin tasks based on call dispositions – everything from updating leads in the CRM system to sending SMS messages and emails. As a result, your agents can focus their attention on the type of work that is more rewarding, whether that’s making sales or delivering outstanding customer service.
4. Equip agents with the essential information they need
The better your agents are performing, the more motivated they’ll feel to keep going. That’s why it’s so important to set a foundation for success by giving agents everything they need to thrive.
In a multi-channel contact centre, you can boost agent confidence with call scripting. Scripts offer a step-by-step way to navigate through a conversation, handle objections, get to the root of customer issues, and then resolve problems or close deals quickly. As a result, agents can always stay on-topic and know what to say next.
If your multi-channel contact centre solution is integrated with your CRM system, even something as simple as screen pop can feed into agent confidence. When customer records instantly appear on-screen, your agents can feel in control and one step ahead of the conversation before it even begins.
5. Put agents where they’re most successful
In a multi-channel contact centre, it’s easy for agents to feel overwhelmed by your varied communication channels. In the worst-case scenario, an agent who is not comfortable and capable on a certain channel dreads the moment a lead comes through.
You can help by intelligently routeing leads to the agents that are best-equipped to deal with them, whether that’s through availability, special training, or a natural aptitude. The right technology can automatically connect customers to agents based on weighted abilities for voice, SMS, email, web chat, and social media.
6. Make life easier with dialler interface customisation
Finally, the interface your agents spend all day using should be a place where they feel comfortable, professional, and where everything they need is close at hand. With help from your service provider, you should be able to customise every aspect of your dialler interface, ensuring it is tailored to the way your agent's work.
In addition, don’t underestimate the power of branding your dialler interface to match the feel, values, and style of your contact centre. Branding can help agents to feel professional, confident, and part of the team – all essential aspects of motivation.
Find out how Hostcomm multi-channel contact centre solutions can keep your teams motivated.
