I’ve heard there’s some confusion about an order the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released concerning automatic dialers calling cell phones. What’s the issue?

5/9/2016

Question
I keep hearing about agent engagement and empowerment, but am really unclear how this can be applied in a structured and metrics-driven contact center environment. Can you give me some practical ways that this can be accomplished?

Answer

The influx of Millennials into the workforce is contributing significantly to changes in technology and management styles. Millennials are driving companies to come up with better ways to engage and motivate their staff, although the need to feel recognized, valued and rewarded transcends generational boundaries. Here are some practical and useful suggestions for engaging and empowering contact center agents:

Gamification: Gamification is proving to be a highly effective method for motivating and rewarding all employees. Gamification is about using game mechanics, intrinsic and extrinsic rewards and recognition to engage employees and drive desired behaviors. It empowers employees by giving them visibility into their performance data, and provides the tools they need to make self-directed improvements and sustainable changes.
Voice of the Employee (VoE): Creating a formal employee feedback process, and utilizing VoE feedback to understand employee motivations, perceptions, suggestions and potential business process improvements, are best practices for engaging employees. Effective VoE programs invite employees to participate in improvement programs. Organizations should use VoE to share findings and recommendations with the staff, and then take action on the feedback, which is an important way to let employees know that they are valued and respected.
Agent self-service: Today’s workforce management solutions have a wide variety of features to empower agents to self-manage their work/life balance. Agents can define and prioritize their schedule preferences, manage time-off requests, and initiate shift swaps. Alerts and notifications keep agents on task for schedule adherence, and real-time KPIs help them track their own performance effectiveness. Mobility and SMS alerts notify agents of schedule changes and overtime opportunities.
Analytics-enabled quality assurance (QA), coaching and eLearning: Activities such as analytics-enabled quality assurance and coaching, team meetings and up-training can also improve agent engagement. Analytics-enabled QA leverages speech and text analytics, business rules and automation to identify, classify and rank interactions and agents that require management attention. Analytics-enabled QA evaluates 100% of agent interactions to provide a clearer picture of agent performance, and enables managers to pinpoint key performance opportunities and provide targeted feedback, coaching and eLearning content to effect improvements and monitor progress.