Cincom Systems, citing a new Ventana Research paper, is recommending taking a hard look at unifying contact center agent desktops to boost their productivity, reduce their frustration, and improve customer service.

 

The company points to the study, “Customer Experience Management: Improving the Consistency and Quality of Customer Interactions” which reveals that the agent’s desktop is a primary source of frustration for both agents and customers. That’s no surprise, says Cincom, to anybody who has been forced to navigate these systems or sit on hold while the agent navigates them.

 

The firm says that companies today are continuously gathering more and more information. In a typical organization, the various business units record the information that is important to them and store it in a convenient manner. In the past, little thought was given to the fact that the data could be valuable to other business units, especially the contact center.

 

“Customers today have a pretty good understanding of the information they’ve given to businesses in the past. They expect the contact center to be able to recall that information and know them when they make contact.”

 

Yet according to Ventana Research, only 35 percent of respondents said their desktop provides agents with ‘relevant information to the caller’s profile and circumstances.’ That leaves nearly two out of three contact centers ill-equipped to search for information that is probably locked in independent silos.

 

“This creates a tremendous challenge for agents. They are forced to open multiple applications and tediously toggle between them to find the information they need to resolve the customer’s issue. This takes time: time to log on to different applications, time to find the information on the different screens and time to put it all together in a manner that makes sense to the customer. And all the while the customer is sitting idly by wondering why they are doing business with a company that doesn’t seem to care. The results are frustrated agents and customers.”

 

A unified agent desktop, says Cincom, simplifies and streamlines desktop complexity, enabling agents to work smarter and faster, significantly increase productivity, reduce handling times and improve the customer experience.

 

While many organizations (49 percent) ‘plan to build a system in-house to address these issues,’ there are proven solutions already on the market that are very effective.

 

When implemented correctly, the unified agent desktop serves as the hub for interacting in the contact center and the window into the customer outside of the contact center. Instantly providing agents with the right information and resources, for and about the right customer, the unified agent desktop enables agents to respond quickly and appropriately to each customer for better, faster, more effective interactions.

 

The key benefits of this unified agent desktop include:

 

*          Better customer experiences and customer retention through faster response times and empowered agents with access to information to get the job done and accurate, effective interactions across all channels, both inbound and outbound

 

*          Efficiencies and savings via increased agent productivity with a greater focus on the customer. Also reduced agent training that saves time and money and lowered turnover from satisfied agents who feel effective and productive

 

*          Increased revenue by effectively solve the customer’s initial issue and increase the likelihood and openness to new revenue opportunities