The rapid evolution of AI features in the call center is expanding the capabilities of self-service. Live agents aren’t being pushed aside, however. They are taking on more complex roles as guides for complicated inquiries beyond the capabilities of any machine.
Investments in self-service can’t come at the expense of investments in your employees, according to Mario Matulich, president and managing director of Customer Management Practice.
Rolling out AI-powered self-service while cutting back on live support is a self-defeating proposition, Matulich said.
When self-service fails — and it will, as no form of AI is perfect — customers will naturally turn to live agents. If agents are overworked and under-supported, that will come across in their interactions with customers, putting the company in danger of losing both.
"Market share is being lost, and you're dealing with potential attrition problems because of agent burnout,” Matulich told CX Dive.
This leads to lower staffing levels and worse customer service outcomes and becomes “a cyclical process,” where one makes the other one worse, he said.
Workers need to be empowered
The days of handling rote calls with a simple script are largely coming to an end.
Agents are increasingly taking on a role where they can have a major impact on customer experience by handling complex, high-value and sometimes emotional inquiries. “An automation strategy should take lower-value, lower-complexity work off of the human and create an opportunity for that human to take on more complex work,” Matulich said.
He noted that while giving people more important work “sounds great on paper,” it also means that agents need the proper motivation and training for their new roles.
Since workers will be taking over more calls from failed self-service attempts, they are often hearing from customers who are already feeling a bit frustrated, according to Julie Geller, principal research director at Info-Tech Research Group.
As a result, modern training programs need to put an emphasis on critical thinking and emotional intelligence, according to Geller. Agents need to be able to deftly handle irritated customers and solve problems that require thought beyond the usual script.
Agents also need ready access to customers’ call histories, including any solutions that have already been suggested, Geller said. Forcing a customer to recount their problem or suggesting steps that were already taken can add to a customer’s existing vexation.
Companies should make sure their self-service options also take the changing role of the agent into account, according to Geller. Smooth self-service tools that feel intuitive and personalized will improve a customer’s satisfaction even if they still need a live agent in the end.
Agents should “foster a sense of progress and understanding in the conversation and really guide the client,” Geller said.
The modern call center needs a new approach
The kind of workers who will thrive in the call center is changing. Agents who feel perfectly satisfied fielding basic questions may not do as well with more complicated queries that are beyond self-service capabilities, Matulich said.
More call center jobs are becoming remote or hybrid as well, he added. This puts distance between agents and their supervisors and can have an impact on how agents handle training and personal interactions.
A modern all-star agent is open to remote coaching, technologically capable and wants to be empowered to solve customer problems without a defined playbook, according to Matulich.
However, understanding the key qualities of an ideal agent is very different from discovering, hiring and training someone who can take them on. Call center leaders need to be ready to rethink their workforce strategies for the modern AI-powered hybrid work environment.
“It doesn't matter if you've been doing this for decades,” Matulich said. “Nobody really has more than four years experience running a [modern] customer contact operation.”
