eGain’s SVP Worldwide Marketing Anand Subramaniam believes that delivering a consistent content experience is key to driving value for both customers and agents. According to a recent survey of 500 contact center agents by the customer engagement solutions provider, agents reported the top two obstacles to providing excellent customer service were finding the right answer to customer questions (26%), and different systems and information sources provide different answers to the same questions (25%).
Those responses closely corresponded to an earlier eGain consumer survey. In it, consumers were asked about the worst aspects of getting help from contact centers. The top three responses:
- Different customer service agents give different answers, 41%
- Customer service agents don’t know the answer, 34%
- Can’t find the answer on website, 31%
The findings were not surprising, says Subramaniam. “We have these experiences fairly often as consumers. When you use web self-service, you often get the dreaded ‘no results found’ or 100 search hits that are only remotely related to your issue. Human-assisted service is equally challenging. Most recently, when I had to get something fixed in my house through my home warranty company, I had to contact them multiple times. Each time, I received a different answer. To complicate matters even more, I received different answers through the call center, digital and field touchpoints. This problem is commonplace, in our experience.”
What can contact centers do to address content-related consumer and agent pain points?
“Looking at the root causes from our recent surveys, it is clear that the biggest hurdles for great consumer experience and agent experience can be addressed with a robust, omnichannel knowledge management system infused with AI. This will provide consumers and agents with fast, accurate and consistent answers and intelligent process guidance, regardless of touchpoint,” Subramaniam says.
“Moreover, to develop empathy with customers and agents, center leaders should eat their own ‘gourmet food.’” he adds. “They should conduct mystery-shopping as a consumer and ‘mystery-serving’ as an agent in their contact center to experience things for themselves. Empathy helps drive action!”
