Agents report an average increase in productivity by 50 percent with an integrated multichannel agent desktop, according to a new study from cloud contact center and customer service solutions, LiveOps, Harris Interactive and Social Business Builders.
The companies evaluated the interdependency between the agent experience, customer experience and business bottom line. The research revealed four key points:
- Happy Agents Equal Happy Customers: 92 percent of consumers surveyed report that a customer service agent's perceived "happiness" has a direct impact on their customer experience with the brand.
- Integrating social channels on the agent desktop is a requirement: 85 percent of consumers surveyed feel that how a brand handles issues on their Web site or on social channels, like Facebook or Twitter, is a good indicator of a brand's ability to deliver customer satisfaction and quality of support.
- Most brands fail to provide consistent service across multiple channels: 89 percent of consumers surveyed believe it is important to be able to communicate with companies by any channel, including social media, and still receive the same quality and efficiency of response. Additionally, 61 percent of social media users feel that brands do not effectively communicate with them on these channels.
- Live agent service, regardless of channel, is preferred over self-service: 90 percent of customers surveyed value the ability to communicate with a live person on any channel--voice, e-mail, chat, SMS or social.
"Social and mobile are rapidly changing the industry, said Natalie Petouhoff, CEO, Social Business Builders, in a statement. "As a result, there is tremendous opportunity and new revenue upside for brands that know how to leverage their contact center agents and multichannel technology platform. We found that when agents have a fully integrated social, multichannel desktop, they can not only improve their productivity by 50 percent or more, they can also deliver exceptional social customer service with a high social media ROI. The study revealed that for the companies in our agent productivity and universal queue research, the incremental profit contributions ranged anywhere from $815,000 to $2 million per year. This research proves how much companies can gain by simply empowering agents with the right tools to interact with today's customers."