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Question: We’re implementing a real-time guidance application and don’t want to overwhelm our agents. What are some best practices?

Answer:

Real-time guidance (RTG) applications should help a company transform their approach to servicing, sales, and even collections. These tactical “real-time, all the time” solutions make high-value contributions to organizations by changing the manner in which conversations are handled. Real-time guidance solutions are context-sensitive and combine the intelligence of a knowledge base with the workflow capabilities of a script to prompt and guide agents to complete critical steps, say the right things, and take the most appropriate actions on behalf of the customer and organization. These applications enable and engage agents and by doing so, improve both the CX and EX. However, to realize the greatest benefits and return from these solutions, organizations need to change their service culture and overhaul many of their well-established processes and best practices. Below are a few best practices to help contact centers realize value from a real-time guidance implementation. 

  1. Keep guidance short and to the point 
  2. Base guidance on conversation context and desktop activity
  3. Customize guidance based on information about the customer and their preferences from the CRM or other systems
  4. Personalize guidance based on agent skill, proficiency, and/or tenure
  5. Let agents choose how/where the guidance is provided on their desktop
  6. Allow agents to set their own preferences, e.g., should a knowledge asset automatically display, or only a link to the article 
  7. Leverage emotion detection and sentiment analysis to alert supervisors and remind agents to modify their approach and/or to de-escalate contentious situations
  8. Encourage agents to send feedback about usability/effectiveness of the guidance and content gaps 
  9. Use guidance to help agents overcome objections for sales and collections
  10. Use guidance to assist agents with verification, improve compliance, and reduce risk
  11. Use guidance to recognize agent in real-time for outstanding interaction handling
  12. Include agents as part of the team creating and updating the guidance content

Best practices, like the ones above, are intended to help an organization get started with a new technology or make changes in their department. However, DMG cautions companies to customize these, and any best practices, to the needs and culture of their own operating environment to optimize benefits.