Deflection Sounds Bad, But It’s Not! Here are 5 Ways Deflection Can Improve Agent Experience

The word “deflection” tends to have negative connotations, as the intention is to keep something away from someone. The implication being something bad could happen otherwise. 

However, in the contact center vernacular, deflection is about routing routine inquiries away from agents to be managed through self-service channels. These common-place calls are deflected away from agents because they’re not a good use of their time.

As with most business decisions, the driver here is economics. Agent labor is the highest cost input for contact center operations.[i] In fact, live channels such as phone, live chat, and email cost an average of $8.01 per contact. Self-service channels, such as company-run websites and mobile apps cost about $0.10 per contact. That’s quite a difference!

If a customer can resolve a straightforward issue through self-service, yet calls are not deflected, the contact center ends up unnecessarily using expensive resources. Operationally speaking, sending customers with routine questions to an agent limits the valuable resources needed to address complex calls and high-value customers. Business-wise, this is not a good way to run a contact center and might lead to burnout and higher agent turnover.

The rationale for call deflection is clear when one considers how improving self-service can keep those high labor costs down. Not only can self-service automate routine inquiries, but it can do so around the clock with a minimal impact on your cost structure.

This approach makes sense at face value, with the presumption being that self-service tools are, in fact, up to the task. Until recently, that would be a dubious claim, as legacy IVR tended to make CX worse, not better.[ii]

There’s another important presumption underlying this as well—that your contact center solution has enough intelligence to identify which calls are routine and then route them to self-service in real-time to avoid ringing through to an agent. Again, until recently, that capability was limited, with the result that agents must handle too many calls. And that contributes to burnout.

Given that legacy IVR is still the basis for many self-service options, it’s easy to understand why call deflection would have a negative connotation. While simple customer inquiries may be too easy—but also too costly—to have agents handle, they often become problematic for legacy IVR, resulting in a bad customer service experience.

In these scenarios, call deflection is clearly the lesser of two evils. A sensible contact center manager would rather take their chances that IVR or chatbots can do a passable job instead of overwhelming agents with a stream of calls they shouldn’t be touching.

That is not the path to great CX, and my focus here is to flip the script whereby call deflection has a positive connotation and becomes a win-win for both customers and agents. This approach may seem like a leap of faith, especially if your contact center is still using legacy, premises-based technology.[iii]

Organizations that use technology to revamp CX can increase customer satisfaction by 15 to 20%, reduce the cost to service by 20 to 40%, and boost conversion rates and growth by 20%.[iv]

Today’s AI-driven innovation creates new possibilities, and for contact centers, a re-think is in order for the concept of call deflection. Not only can AI-driven self-service lead to improved CX, but to agent experience (AX) as well.[v]

Here are five ways that call deflection can produce positive outcomes and hopefully shift your view from negative to positive.

Improve the overall CX

Ultimately, this is the most important outcome—not cost reduction—and in this context, call deflection is part of a more holistic view of customer service. As we continue in this world full of digital experiences, customers engage with companies and brands across many channels.

In addition to traditional channels like phone and email, customers use digital channels such as webchat and social media. Not only are there more touchpoints for customer engagement, but the mix of using them is highly variable, and contact centers must support them all equally well.

In other words, some forms of customer service are complex and require personalized attention, such as a customer reporting fraudulent purchases on their account. Other scenarios, such as calling about when a subscription will expire, are best handled via self-service, and should never take a spot in the queue for a live agent.

Each of these service needs are handled best by a different channel type, and it’s also true that each customer will, at some point, require all of them. As such, not all customers will engage the same way all the time, and good CX means having the ability to support each customer as each instance dictates.

Remove friction for agents

Just as customers want friction-free service, the same is equally true for those providing that service. For customers, much of what goes into great CX will be transparent. When you “make experiences flow,” there’s a lot of orchestration needed behind the scenes, with AI playing an ever-increasing role.

Agents are very much part of that orchestration, as they will do their best work when tapped to use their top skills—as opposed to getting bogged down by retrieving transactional data from a CRM pop.

This is where call deflection is so valuable, where only the most complex, time-sensitive, and high-stakes inquiries are routed to an agent. Until a call is answered, agents don’t know the nature of the inquiry, and when routine calls get through, friction is added to the AX.

These simple inquiries require some degree of effort from agents but with very little opportunity to add value or delight the customer. Agents know they shouldn’t be handling calls like this, and if systems aren’t well-integrated, the effort level might end up being quite high, causing frustration, friction, and a bad AX.

Invite agents to do more meaningful work

Related to the above, agents want to feel they are making a difference for customers, so again, call deflection allows them to do that for a higher portion of calls. Therefore, deflection can invite agents to feel more inspired at work—and discourage turnover.

Ideally, every agent inquiry should be of this nature, and every routine inquiry should go to self-service—we’re not there yet, but this is the opportunity AI brings with intelligent routing. While there’s no assurance we’ll fully get there, this is how contact center leaders need to be thinking.

The focus on providing meaningful work definitely helps improve CX, but it’s more about driving job satisfaction for agents.[vi] Turnover is an age-old problem for contact centers, and one that cannot be solved by simply raising pay for agents.[vii]

Better remuneration certainly helps, but the best agents derive job satisfaction from helping customers in a meaningful way. To a large extent, this comes from providing personalized service, and there’s not much room for that when handling routine inquiries.

Supports customer preferences

When talking about digital experiences—and digital CX in particular—self-service is central to that conversation. With the advent of cloud, experiences are becoming more consumable and user-driven. Not only are they more accessible this way, but the user often controls the experience end-to-end. Aside from consuming these experiences, customers do everything else themselves around the experience, such as purchasing, provisioning, managing, upgrading, and even deleting.

In many cases, these interactions are highly automated, and customers have little or even no direct contact with any people from the company they are buying from. This may seem impersonal, especially for those who pre-date the digital world, but these are the preferences of many of today’s customers.

In this context, it should be no surprise that these customers are very comfortable with automated self-service, and some even prefer not to deal with a live agent.[viii] In keeping with the adage that “the customer is always right,” this is another reason why call deflection can really help drive CX.

Empower customers engagement

There’s a bigger story here in terms of driving CX, and that has to do with creating a sense of empowerment with customers. The days of waiting on hold endlessly to speak with an agent aren’t that far behind us, and given the constraints of legacy technology, the painful ordeal of getting customer service is often more the rule than the exception.

In earlier times, customers had fewer options to go elsewhere, so they tolerated poor service—but were always ready to switch at the drop of a hat if something better came along.

Today’s marketplace is much different. Competitive options are abundant, and switching costs are low. The balance of power has very much shifted in the customer’s favor, and nurturing that empowerment is one of the best ways for brands to drive loyalty and make CX great.[ix]

Call deflection may only play a minor role in the overall customer service process, but for customers, it makes choice possible. If customers natively prefer self-service and call deflection takes them there, they’ll feel a greater sense of control over their CX, which aligns well with this broader theme of empowerment.

[i] Gartner: Customer Service Support Trends
[ii] NICE: Customer Experience Transformation Benchmark (2020)
[iii] Workforce Institute Workers Globally Wish for Better Technology (2019)
[iv] McKinsey.com: Service Industries can Fuel Growth by Making Digital Customer Experiences a Priority
[v] Salesforce: State of the Connected Customer 4^th Edition
[vi] Gallup: The American Upskilling Study
[vii] ICMI: Do Away with Agent Title (2021)
[viii] Salesforce: State of the Connected Customer 4^th Edition
[ix] Gartner: New and Improved Customer Effort Score (2019)