Empowered agents force role change for contact centre managers

"As a consumer, have you ever been in a situation where you have asked to speak to a manager or supervisor?" asks Ebrahim Dinat, COO of South African customer experience solutions provider, Ocular Technologies. "If yes, the primary reason for this is probably that the agent interacting with you was not able to give you the answer you sought. Before blaming the agent for incompetence, it should be noted that these situations mainly arise because the agent was not empowered."

He notes it thus stands to reason that the more a contact centre agent is empowered, the less frequent will be the need to speak to the contact centre manager. Today's sophisticated technology and focus on the agent experience (as opposed to only the customer experience) is providing agents with the right tools for valuable, informed and quick decision-making engagement.

"The question now being asked is: as the agent becomes more empowered, and fewer requests are channelled to the supervisor, what then is the role of the contact centre manager?" says Dinat.

Chris O'Brien, digital contact manager at Ocular Technologies' partner company, Aspect, highlights the following three elements that contact centre managers should be concentrating on: committing more time to business intelligence; provisioning workloads; and making the change in role from enforcer to mentor.

"Contact centres are a wealth of customer data. If [a contact centre manager] can make sense of your data, it can be used to drive sales or service initiatives, learn more about your target audience, and in a variety of other ways that can drive sustainable long-term growth. Without a point person spearheading a campaign to take advantage of that information, key data could be overlooked or mishandled. Managers act as a conduit for the contact centre and the rest of the organisation, so they are a logical choice to take the helm," explains O'Brien.

She also highlights that if a contact centre manager does not have enough agents in place to field calls, there is a greater likelihood that impatient customers will demand to speak with a supervisor. "If agents can continue to offload responsibilities from their managers, this will give contact centre leaders more time to commit to provisioning workloads. Managers with extra time on their hands can commit more resources into forecasting and scheduling, perpetuating conditions that will ensure fewer call transfers," she says.

"Overextended managers are often too busy to engage with agents unless there is an issue that has to be resolved," continues O'Brien. "Empowering your agents will free you up so that you don't have to simply act as an enforcer, making sure agents are doing their jobs. You'll have more time to sit side-by-side with them, understand what needs to change, how you can improve, and provide them with mentoring that will keep agents engaged and effective." Thus a mentorship rather than administrative relationship is formed.

"The contact centre is changing dramatically and evolving as fast as new technology comes to the fore to support this industry in the new economy. It is therefore not surprising that as the role of the agent changes, so too will the contact centre manager role, resulting in a more skilled workforce that enables business value and that pinnacle every brand aims for: an exceptional customer experience," concludes Dinat.