Call Center Agent Satisfaction Key To Customer Loyalty

Customer Inter@ction Solutions, Oct 2006 by Schelmetic, Tracey E

Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. has released the eighth study in its Contact Centre Realities series for Australia and New Zealand. Titled Optimising Agent Performance, the latest Genesys study comes at a time when contact centers are under increasing pressure to meet the often conflicting demands of service quality, revenue generation and cost efficiency. Although there are several aspects to address in order to meet these challenges, the Genesys research indicated that leading contact centers recognize that they need to focus on what is both their highest cost and their most valuable asset: agents. The Genesys research revealed that the key determinant of customer loyalty is the quality of the customer experience. Consumers rated customer service as being the number one influence on their loyalty to a company. Additionally, 71 percent of consumers would do business with a company based on a great contact center experience. While remuneration is important to agents, it is not necessarily their biggest driver of motivation, and 75 percent of agents are most motivated by factors that engender a sense of personal satisfaction and achievement in their daily work, although only 52 percent of agents report experiencing this. The biggest agent motivator is feeling or being told that they've helped a customer, and a majority of their job stress relates to customer frustration and the inability to serve customers well.

The survey also revealed that there is significant room for improvement in the engagement and retention of contact center agents. Only six percent of agents want their next role to be that of a contact centre agent. Additionally, 70 percent of managers agree that a tighter labour market has made it significantly more difficult to hire contact center agents.

www.genesyslab.com