What is Agent Experience?
Much has been written about customer experience, but what is agent experience and why is it important? Agent experience is what contact center agents encounter every day as they do their jobs. It's influenced by a wide variety of factors, including training, technology, supervisors, schedules, customer interactions, company policies, and more. The agent experience is important because it affects agent satisfaction, which in turn impacts the quality of service they provide to customers. It also impacts absenteeism and turnover - two big issues that most contact centers struggle with.
The agent experience begins with the hiring process and continues through the exit interview. Like the customer experience, it's the sum of many factors and it's cumulative. Unfortunately, with average annual agent turnover at an estimated 30-50% in the contact center industry, there's clearly some work to be done. Being an agent is a tough job, especially if you deal with a lot of angry customers day in and day out. Some people will resign due to the nature of the job. But others quit for reasons that can be managed and improved - reasons such as incompetent supervisors, technology that doesn't provide answers to customer inquiries, not enough recognition or toxic culture.
Contact centers that want to be successful in the experience economy aren't just focusing on the customer experience - they're also improving the agent experience. Happy agents, happy customers? It seems to make sense.
How NICE can help
NICE is the market leader in providing customers the cloud contact center software they need to deliver consistently exceptional customer experiences. Benefits include:
- Modern ACD providing digital-first omnichannel routing and increased business agility
- Integrated and comprehensive workforce management solutions to engage and empower contact center agents to achieve business goals
- Automation and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to enhance the customer experience and automate routine agent tasks
- Omnichannel customer journey management
- Agent interfaces that streamline handling of contact center interactions, regardless of channel
- Seamlessly integrated Workforce and Quality Management to simplify scheduling and support agents with appropriate monitoring and training
- Call Center Performance Management tools including gamification that motivate and inspire your agents
CXone provides an intelligent, unified suite of applications covering the breadth of contact center management disciplines, simplifying administration and streamlining the user experience.