Awaken the Force in Your Call Center

There has been an awakening. Have you felt it? Your call center is the nexus of your customer service operations – the center of your universe. Every day, your council of phone agents are having critical touch points with customers. In fact, in a survey done by Cogito, agents are talking to more than 30 customers a day. With these conversations being essential to every customer-brand relationship, your call center agents are the trusted guardians and diplomatic emissaries of your business – your Jedi Knights.

In order to foster good conversations, establish trust, and generate increased loyalty with your customers, your Jedi must harness the power of the Force. They must be allowed the freedom to let go of their fear, and feel the force around them. Cogito is here to help guide their path to the Light.

Not all conversations are created equal.

More often than not, your Jedi agents are facing emotionally taxing and complex conversations with customers – especially in highly emotional situations. Whether it is a customer complaint or an insurance claim, tensions can run high and agents need to have the emotional intelligence and soft skills to properly and empathetically handle the situation. As these situations occur several times a day, agents become drained both mentally and emotionally, which makes for an industry that is known for high turnover rates. In fact, according to QATC, call centers have a turnover rate of 30-45%. Companies need to invest in their agent’s emotional health, not only for the sake of the employee, but for the company’s ROI on each agent.

Too many policies and rigorous training requirements? That’s not how the force works!

Constantly scrutinizing call center Jedi agents via call monitoring causes them to become angry and frustrated, and anger is the path to the dark side. Always being under close observation and supervision will not empower your agents, rather it will make them nervous, demotivated, and cause them to lose touch with the Force. Although overbearing managers can be counterproductive, employees need guidance – 98% of employees fail to be engaged when they receive little or no feedback from managers (Gallup). Avoid these pitfalls, or risk extinguishing the light within your agents.

Let the technological Force be with you.

Equip your Jedi agents with technology that can provide streaming conversation guidance and tools to help them self-improve. According to a survey by Cogito, 73% of agents believe it would be helpful to be alerted to the customer’s perception of their communication style during the call. Additionally, 76% of service professionals say that establishing better rapport with customers will increase their job satisfaction. When AI technology is implemented in a way where it coexists with humans and can also demonstrate measurable impact, it can improve both customer experience and employee performance and satisfaction.

Understand and use the Force for good.

As 90% of top performers have high emotional intelligence (Talent Smart), it is a key skill for successful Jedi agents to understand and apply. Empower your agents to harness emotional intelligence and recognize emotional intelligence as a key skill amongst service professionals. Since there are limitations on what agents can say, how they say it is often more important. This means that emotional intelligence and soft skills have the ability to make or break an agent’s mission.

The Force is what gives a Jedi its power. With Cogito, your Jedi agents will know the true power of the Force. Awaken your call center and guide your agents into the light.

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