Category: Customer Experience

For decades, contact centres have been environments of high staff turnover. Employees were expected to churn, and managers focused their resources on rapidly recruiting and onboarding new people. But a tight post-pandemic labour market and rising recruitment costs mean that model is no longer sustainable.   Hiring new employees for the contact centre is now the…
The post Build a culture of learning to retain CX employees appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

Satisfaction is often driven by the story we tell ourselves.

How does this rank compared to what I expected? Compared to what I used to have? Compared to the person sitting next to me?

The richest person in the world used to sleep on the floor and eat moldy food, but still felt great because it was more than the person in the next cave.

The good news is that our perception of comparison is up to us.

The optic nerve dominates.

It’s piped directly into our brains and uses a lot of processing power to help us discern the world through vision.

As a result, it’s louder than our other senses and often outshouts the rest of our brain. That’s why it’s easy to be fooled by a magician.

This focus on sight means that we often are at a loss on how to deal with things that are invisible.

It works in our favor with the placebo effect. We can see that we just swallowed a pill, or wore a brace, or bought an expensive bottle of wine. That input helps us heal or enjoy the moment, even if the organic invisible things behind the scenes don’t quite match what we saw.

And it works against us when it’s time for our community to process things that are invisible over time (like evolution or systems change) or invisible in the moment (like viruses and greenhouse gasses).

When there’s a conflict between what we know and what we see, we often default to the wrong one.

The closer we look at what other people believe and do, the more clear it is that our view of the world doesn’t precisely match theirs.
It never has, but now it’s magnified. The things we thought were a given, aren’t. No one believes what I believe, not exactly.
How is it possible, we wonder, that people like us don’t believe what we believe or do what we do? Not just people we don’t know, but the people we do know.
And how do we dig in to overcome magnified divisions to find shared objectives, to fight for justice and dignity and what’s right at the same time we connect with people we might be inclined to push away…
Simply asking the question helps us find a way forward. Realizing that people don’t know what we know, don’t believe what we believe. And most of all, that they have a noise in their head, just as we do.

You might want to make something that a lot of people want a little…

Or you could make something that a few people want a lot.

It’s usually neither.

It’s rarely (very rarely) both.

If you work hard and make intentional choices, though, you might end up with one or the other.

Happy Friday! We’re bringing you the latest roundup of industry news. This week, we’re looking at new research into the cost-of-living crisis, contact centre issues, and Qualtrics’ new solutions to directly help those contact centre problems.   Key news On September 19th, Feedspot posted the current Top 10 CX publications available on the web. We’re absolutely…
The post This week in CX: Qualtrics, Optimizely, and Serena Williams’ marketing campaign appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

Silos between customer support and product teams in SaaS companies make it harder to resolve issues or prioritize features. Here’s a 5-part blog series to help with this challenge. The first part is now up! Can you relate to these issues? https://www.rejoy.io/blog/4-step-recipe-for-an-efficient-product-support-collaboration submitted by /u/Interesting_Time8303 [link] [comments]

There’s nothing that destroys a perfectly good call center schedule like unplanned absences.
Don’t get us wrong—we’re in full support of call center agents taking time off and embracing work-life balance. But scheduling shifts becomes tough when absenteeism rises, leaving the agents who did show up to bear the brunt.
Unplanned absences have a ripple effect that can impact everything from customer satisfaction to agent attrition to contact center KPIs—and that’s something you shouldn’t ignore. If you’re consistently finding your team short-staffed, you may be overlooking this key area of your call center’s performance.
How to Foster Agent Engagement in Today’s Contact Center
What is Absenteeism, Anyway?
Absenteeism is also known as “absence rate” in the call center. This figure stands for unapproved time agents spend away from their workstation. This doesn’t include planned absences from work (i.e., booked vacations, paid holidays, jury duty). Rather, it should include the following:

Sick leave
Personal days
Unexplained absences
Extended breaks at work

That’s not an exhaustive list, but it covers the most common instances of unauthorized or unplanned leave. Your absence rate can be used to highlight general areas of improvement around productivity or identify employees who may need support with time management.
Common causes of absenteeism can include:

Work stress or burnout
Insufficient support at work
Frequent scheduling issues
Poor culture fit
Negative work atmosphere

If you’re struggling with these issues in your call center, you should begin tracking and logging absence rates. Which brings us to our next topic…
The Magic Formula: Calculating Absence Rate
Absence rate is a relatively simple figure to calculate. To determine your team’s monthly absenteeism rate, use the formula below:

Monthly Absenteeism (%)
= # hours absent this month / Total # hours scheduled for the team this month x 100

The resulting percentage shows how much time your agents spend away from their workstations during working hours. You can use a variation of this formula to track individual agent absenteeism as well. This can be a helpful figure to discuss during employee performance reviews.
Here is the formula for calculating monthly individual absenteeism—it’s very similar to the formula for calculating team absenteeism:

Monthly Individual Absenteeism (%)
= # hours agent is absent this month / # hours agent was scheduled this month x 100

How Absenteeism Impacts Your Call Center
We’ve explained what absenteeism is, as well as how to calculate absence rate. Before you roll your eyes at yet another performance metric to track, consider the KPIs directly affected by absenteeism:

Cost of operation
Staffing and scheduling
Customer satisfaction (CSat)
First call resolution (FCR)
Abandonment rate
Agent satisfaction and attrition

The Only Call Center Agent Performance Metrics You’ll Ever Need
High absenteeism impacts your contact center operations in the same way short-staffing does. The workday will be more challenging for the agents who do show up and it becomes difficult to maintain a positive customer experience. Metrics like first call resolution and abandonment rate may start to tumble.

Cost of Absenteeism ($)
= # unauthorized hours absent / Average agent hourly rate

The formula above helps track the cost of absenteeism. It’s an approximation, but this figure can help management understand the full impact absenteeism has on the business. If your call center agents are salaried, note that you’ll need to take an extra step to calculate their hourly wages.
Analyzing Your Absence Rate: What Does it Mean?
Calculating absenteeism is the easy part. The hard part is next: drawing conclusions from your new set of data.
By measuring absence rates on a monthly basis, you’ll be able to identify trends and patterns from the resulting information. But a simple percentage figure doesn’t say much on its own—here are a few things to keep in mind when assessing your data.
Monthly versus annual tracking
You may have noticed that the formulas we provided above focus on monthly absenteeism reporting. While it’s less work upfront, annual reporting doesn’t give you as many data points, making it more difficult to identify patterns and causes for high absence rates.
Also, keep in mind that you may see shifting absenteeism patterns throughout the year. Does your absence rate spike during certain months, and drop during others? Remember, by putting in the effort to collect this information, you’ll be much better positioned to address any challenges your call center faces.
Separate short- and long-term absenteeism
Absence rate can be a bit misleading if you don’t know what to look for. That’s because some instances of absenteeism carry more weight than others. For example, it’s acceptable for employees to call in sick to work if they aren’t well. It’s extended unauthorized use of time that you’ll want to address.
Martin Jukes at Mpathy Plus recommends breaking the absence rate into two categories: short-term and long-term. Short-term absenteeism consists of absences of up to five consecutive days. Any absences beyond that would be considered long-term absenteeism. By separating this information, you’ll be able to see which types of absences are most common in your contact center.
Identifying group trends
Another way you can break down your absence rate is by group. Your contact center is run by many different departments and teams, each with their own specialties and skills. By assessing each group’s absence rate individually, you can find out which teams are contributing the most to your absenteeism.
Let’s say you have a low employee absence rate of 5%. While this is great for your department overall, you may find that one team is contributing to much of that score. That’s an insight you won’t have if you don’t break down your data.
What is Call Center Shrinkage?
Reduce Absenteeism with These Tactics
Once you’ve identified key areas for improvement, it’s time to formulate a plan of action. The following tips are great places to begin:
Offer immediate feedback to your agents.
Don’t ignore unauthorized leave. Agents will form habits based on the feedback they do or don’t receive. What’s more, letting this type of behavior slide may encourage other agents to follow suit.
It may be tempting to hold onto this feedback until a formal review comes along, but by that point you may find yourself with a bigger problem on your hands. Take the individual aside and share your feedback to nip any problems in the bud.
Improve working conditions.
Look at your contact center and ask yourself: “Would I be productive in this environment?” If your workplace is drab and dreary, it may negatively impact your team’s productivity levels, leading to absenteeism. Consider investing in office lighting, ergonomic equipment, and other things to make the environment more welcoming.
But don’t just stop at aesthetics—consider the tools that agents rely on to do their work. Investing in call center technology that automates the monotonous parts of their job can make things easier for them. And the easier it is to do their work, the more likely they’ll be at their workstation supporting callers.

TIP:
Fonolo’s call-back solutions eliminate the need for hold time, keeping call volumes manageable and improving both customer and agent satisfaction. Win-win!

Update your absenteeism policy.
When was the last time your management team visited your absenteeism policy? With more contact centers embracing remote and hybrid work, it’s important to keep these standards current so they align with your present-day operations.
After analyzing your absence rate data, you may need to add or adjust your policy to better serve your needs. Be sure to clearly communicate these changes to your agents and be ready to open the floor to any questions or concerns they may have.
Conduct return-to-work interviews.
For long-term absences, it’s always a good idea to check in with your agents over a return-to-work meeting. This is an opportunity to document the reason behind the absence and offer support for their transition back to the workplace.
Incentivize good attendance.
Consider offering incentives for consistently strong attendance to reward agents for their time management skills and dedication. This could consist of anything from cash bonuses to paid time off. Be sure to clearly outline and communicate the requirements to your agents.The post Calculating Absenteeism in the Call Center first appeared on Fonolo.

The phone in your pocket cost $600, but that was two years ago, so now, it seems to be free and fully paid for.

The upgrade has a slightly better camera and a slightly faster processor.

Here’s the question: “If you could have chosen between the phone you have now and the phone you want now two years ago, would you have paid $700 more for the newer one?”

Most people would not.

So why do we upgrade? Software, phones, cars, houses…

It’s because we’re not making that simple choice. Instead, we’re embracing the wisdom of the choice we made years ago at the same time we’re focusing on the glaring defects that status and affiliation relentlessly point out.

They’re not trying to sell you a phone any longer. Or a house. They’re spending all their time selling you an upgrade.

Hi all. We are working on a product for people in the Customer Experience to help them analyze their clients customer feedback data and manage brand reputation using data coming from review, surveys, NPS, etc.. So here is how this works: 1.) You bring in your own data that you want to do analysis on (Google reviews, Reddit, Twitter, 3rd party sites, NPS, etc.) 2.) We extract all relevant themes and topics along with sentiment and emotions for each of the reviews in Step 1 3.) We then populate our dashboards with visualizations and analysis that can be helpful to get a complete 360 degree view of what customers are actually talking about your product. What are your thoughts around this and how can we add features to this product to help solve your problems? submitted by /u/miteshyadav [link] [comments]