30 minute interview

“An agent is the most valuable asset”

James Brooks, Senior Vice-president, Genesys Telecommunications Labs, on the emerging trends in the contact centre industry and related issues.

What are the core issues of today’s contact centre stakeholders?

The latest Genesys study comes at a time when contact centres are under increasing pressure to meet the often conflicting demands of service quality, self-service, revenue generation and cost efficiency. Although there are several aspects to address in order to meet these challenges, the Genesys research has indicated that leading contact centres recognise that they need to focus on their most valuable assets that are agents.

What are the major trends that the contact centre community is witnessing worldwide?

The contact centre industry has reached a critical phase, now. The demands of the industry have changed. There are some things that have emerged as key advantages and some have become needs of the hour. Among them, delivering superior end-user customer service has emerged as a key competitive advantage for businesses today. At the same time, however, getting the most productivity and revenue from the contact centre is becoming a top initiative for companies of all sizes. Choosing a proven contact centre software solution from an industry leader is a good start. However, it’s not enough to ensure success. A successful contact centre solution requires the efficient integration of four key elements—advice, execution, education, and support. Genesys Customer Services was created to provide these vital support services to our enterprise and service provider customers in a coordinated manner with our partners.

Other big issues are to get the consumer loyalty as well as an agent’s satisfaction.

How has the consumer’s mindshare changed or evolved?

In an environment where acquiring new customers is costly and highly competitive, companies are placing greater emphasis on maximising their revenue by cross-selling, and 75 percent of commercial organisations undertake cross-selling during inbound service calls. The majority of agents feel quite comfortable with cross-selling, and only 13 percent avoid it. Surprisingly, consumers are also quite open to cross-selling, and only 15 percent don’t want companies to tell them about additional products and services that may benefit them.

What are the major issues in this industry that need immediate attention?

Growing expectations of consumers is becoming a problem as lot of organisations are putting proper and dedicated efforts for this. Issues like longer hold timings are making the end-consumer unhappy. An unhappy consumer can demoralise the agent, and that reflects on the business growth. In a market survey, it appeared that the hold-time issue is the biggest issue faced by the industry. The survey says that, 73 percent of consumers get irritated with the longer hold-time and find it to be a frustrating factor. However, 30 percent of agents feel that the greatest cause of their own stress at work comes from those customers who get frustrated by the hold-time. This is regardless to say that the agent’s cool and calm approach towards work is the key to success but in a situation like this the equilibrium is upset. So another issue is having an agent’s full output for work.

— Faiz Askari