SKILLS REQUIREMENTS

Today’s contact center agent requires personal effectiveness skills and values demonstrating their ability to work with customers, co-workers, and management. These include interpersonal skills such as concern for others. Agents must also know how to communicate with customers. Although empathy isn’t taught in new hire training, agents must possess this ability upon hire.

Employers seek an agent who displays integrity by showing accepted social and work behaviors. Agents behave ethically through responsible use of company time and property. Personal effectiveness values include dependability and reliability. Agents who value being on time fulfill job obligations without the distraction of attending to personal business. Contact centers look for professionalism in maintaining a professional presence and adhering to ethical standards. Agents who know how to show up dressed for work and comply with the dress code daily without any questions.

Contact centers look for agents who demonstrate commitment to effective job performance. These agents are motivated to do a great job by completing work assignments on time and aim to achieve results in everything they do. At every opportunity, agents demonstrate a commitment to self-development and improvement. They can learn and incorporate classroom and on-the-job training into their work performance.

These agents demonstrate flexibility and adaptability, adapting to work requirements and demands. They handle group assignments, pilot programs, and anything that requires quick learning and new focus and direction.

Contact centers need agents who can solve customer problems by applying critical and analytical thinking and basic academic skills. Can the agent use a logical thought process to analyze information and draw a conclusion? Can the agent use basic mathematics? For example, agents must understand data on a customer account or use basic math calculations to add a $5.00 fee to a service. Agents must also interpret agent metrics, graphs, and reports to improve continuously.

Agents need to be good at a list of things. Listening and speaking are apparent, yet it is amazing how many agents cannot do either. Many agents fail with basic sentence structure, grammar, and word usage. Because agents want to decrease talk times, they speak fast, and the caller has no clue what was said. The caller is left frustrated.

To be an effective agent, agents need to be able to “Touch Type” on a computer keyboard with all ten fingers using complete sentences, no emoticons or texting abbreviations. Many contact centers today provide agents with dual monitors due to the number of applications they have open simultaneously. Agents are expected to be comfortable with those two monitors on the desk. Customers demand confidence. They don’t want to hear about your computer challenges.

Today’s agents should know how to use and manage basic office applications like email, chats/instant messaging, essential Word and Excel, and the Internet to find information. The agent should be resourceful and locate, read, and use data to solve the customer’s issue. Knowing how to find and use information is essential to agent success.

Contact centers employ insurance agents, financial advisers, mortgage bankers, collectors, help desk techs, nurses, doctors, salespeople, and travel and hospitality professionals. Each industry may have its own licensing/certification requirements and compliance regulations. Contact centers can provide licensing classes or hire agents who already have licenses.

Industry Content Supporter:
Stephen Paskel
VP, Senior Technology & Global Operations Manager
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-paskel

Outsourcing eliminates staffing issues. You don’t have to hire, train, or fire agents, and you don’t even need a recruiter, saving your company money! Companies that provide 24/7 support often utilize overseas contact centers for after-hours support. Hiring and running second and third shifts stateside can be difficult and expensive.

Outsourcers are an excellent solution for overflow calls. Overflow calls can be easily handled with an overseas contact center, primarily when both companies utilize the same contact center platform. This makes it very easy to open queues when service levels exceed expectations. Outsourcers are a great resource when call volumes are high and you are short agents. You can quickly bring up the overseas center and bring service levels back to normal much faster.

There are many benefits to using overseas contact centers; the cost might not be.

Industry-wide service center competencies are specific to contact centers. For example, quality assurance pertains to phone calls. How and why are agents’ calls recorded and listened to? Do agents demonstrate a willingness to take feedback for personal and professional development?

HIPAA and PCI regulations create company policies and procedures for agents, keeping them compliant with local, state, and federal regulators. Many industries require agents to complete regular compliance courses and training to minimize noncompliance and company risk.

Even the contact center phone system is specific to the contact center. Logging into a queue is unlike picking up the phone and getting a dial tone. Contact center technology includes CTIs or screen pops with agent scripts, surveys, and customer information. Agents hear terms like ACD and skills-based routing, and the metrics they are held accountable for, like “average talk times, schedule adherence, and call abandonment, are just a few. Understanding workforce management and how it manages the agent’s schedule as well as the schedules of all agents.

Many industries use customer service and basic sales skills. At a minimum, agents should demonstrate their ability to build rapport, communicate effectively with multiple generations and cultures, handle upset callers, and manage difficult situations. Upselling, right-selling, and cross-selling require asking problem-solving questions, handling objections, presenting features and benefits, and closing questions.