Contact centres: why developing your agents NOW can address customer challenges of the future

‘Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing.’

—Rollo May, Existential Psychologist

We interact with brands every day. Brand connection can hit us at many levels, but the value of genuine human interactions in contact centres stands out as a potential peak (or dip) in our brand relationship. As Rollo May, Existential psychologist says, community can be built through good communication. Contact centres are more than just hubs for calls; they’re platforms for building lasting relationships and brand communities.

To cement this idea of why human connection is so important, in a report released by Calabrio this month, when asked ‘will AI mean more or fewer agents in the future?’ 70% of contact centre managers answered that they believe there will be a need for more agents over the next 10 years. This data was taken from 400 contact centre managers surveyed globally, and may seem contrary to what we all feel the industry is facing into when looking at AI and automation. but despite these changes already in progress, the contact centre industry is still growing.

 ‘The majority of contact centre managers surveyed felt this trend (growth) was going to continue, with agents becoming even more important brand guardians given the increasing complexity of customer challenges.’

—State of the Contact Centre, 2023, Calabrio

But for contact centre agents to realise this potential: meet the increasing complexity in customer interactions, and truly become the brand guardians they could be, they will need to increase skills in problem solving, critical thinking and communication. Ensuring that your contact centre has a learning and development (L&D) strategy in place will be critical to meet this demand. And a great L&D strategy won’t be just about skilling your agents, but strengthening coaching and development skills in your leadership team to embed these skills on the job and in every interaction.

Leaders play a foundational role in contact centres. And great leaders are great coaches too, cultivating a collaborative dynamic that allows their agents to grow and flourish with clear direction and vision. If you want to grow skill quickly, investment in the coaching muscle in your contact centre will pay you dividends.

At this point you’re probably thinking ‘that’s all well and good – I believe in coaching – but the reality is, my agents have little off-phone time. We don’t have time to coach now, let alone in the future with more change coming.’

If you have great leaders, every moment, every interaction becomes a coaching opportunity. In our experience, the most effective coaching is done in a few minutes, directly after a call observation. A quick review of what was demonstrated, some observations and feedback, asking for input on a better way of going about it, practice on the new behaviour, and a clear, timebound commitment from the agent on putting the new behaviour into action on their next x-number of calls, can all be done in fewer than 5 minutes. If you want to elevate your agents to the level they’ll need to operate on to deal with complex enquiries, educating your leaders on how to coach in the moment, focusing on small changes, frequently, becomes essential.

This approach will seem counter-intuitive when we’re talking about big future skills like critical thinking and good decision-making, but in reality, all development can be boiled down to small changes, that when actioned and mastered in small increments will actually build to exponential change for both an individual and across a cohort.

The key is in the application. We know we learn best when we put skills into action – when we’re applying them on the job. But to drive this kind of application post-learning, you need a strong coaching cadence that will keep your agents on track. This not only ensures they’re trying new skills, but they have support to practice and improve, and gain feedback along the way so they move towards mastery.

Creating a strong L&D strategy now, that includes upskilling your leaders to help develop your agents, will help you to address the future skills gap and create true brand ambassadors that will build your brand community. Making development and coaching a priority ensures you can foster a culture of continuous learning, meaning your contact centre is equipped to adapt to any automation, AI and customer challenges of the future.

Read more about our contact centre consulting here.