Blog

Ringing in the new year provides an opportunity to create a fresh start for your agents and your contact center – even despite the stale circumstances. So while the start of 2021 might not bring the overnight “new year, new you” fix we were all hoping for, here are some workforce engagement ideas to help refresh your agents’ mindset to start the year on the right foot.

There’s a quote that has often been attributed to Albert Einstein that’s particularly apt today: “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”

Attrition has a wide-ranging impact on the contact center. Customer satisfaction (CSAT) can take a hit in contact centers with high levels of attrition due to missed service levels or inexperienced agents. Callers are likely to experience higher average handle times (AHT), more transfers and lower first-call resolution. Supervisors are forced to deal with a greater number of absence- and attendance-related issues, while the business overall is affected by increased costs related to recruitment, onboarding and attrition during onboarding.

The disruption and uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted virtually all businesses within all industries, of all sizes, and all around the world. The impact varies across all businesses depending on their unique dynamics; however, many contact centers were caught unprepared by the pandemic’s economic fallout and continuously struggled to adapt—with many still struggling to do so. The reality is, COVID-19 is hardly the only disruption firms have faced (or will face) during their existence.

Attended Automation bots are software robots that reside on call center agent’s desktops and are designed to work collaboratively with people in real-time. These desktop bots can automate certain tasks on behalf of the agent, freeing them up and increasing their capacity to take on more complex, higher value work. They can also guide the agent in real-time with next best action advice, enabling agents to perform better and reach their KPI’s.

Great customer service hinges on having the right people in place, at the right time, with the right skills to handle customer issues. But if agents aren’t where they need to be – where they were scheduled to be – the best workforce planning processes are all for naught.

First let me tell you a little bit about St. Luke’s. St. Luke’s is the only Idaho-based, not-for-profit, community-owned, and community-led health system. St. Luke’s has eight medical centers and about 300+ clinics throughout Idaho. At St. Luke’s I work in a department called St. Luke’s Connect. Connect supports our patients with myChart support, Patient and Family relations, registration for community classes, after-hours nurse triage, appointment scheduling, and more. My job within this system is two fold. I have an IT aspect where I support the maintenance of our applications. On the Analyst side, I support the Workforce Management application, workflow development, ticket submission, and Go-Live support for new onboarding clinics.