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Brands are not Empowering Contact Centre Employees for Success. 90% of managers think they are treating agents as brand guardians, yet only 33% of consumers agree.

Minneapolis, MN  Sept 2022 – Calabrio, a workforce performance company, has identified a direct correlation between contact centres, brand loyalty and brand revenue. The global research report, State of the Contact Centre 2022: Empowering the Contact Centre as Brand Guardian, uncovered a surprising gap between the role contact centre agents play in consumer brand perception and how much employers support and empower those same agents to be brand guardians.

Both consumers (97%) and contact centre managers (98%) agree that customer service interactions have an impact on whether consumers stay loyal to a brand. And a vast majority (88%) of contact centre managers also agree that brand perception directly impacts overall company revenue. When positive customer experience (CX) interactions boost loyalty, revenue follows.

"We know that contact centre interactions can make or break a customer relationship, leading to increases or decreases in revenue," said Tom Goodmanson, president and CEO of Calabrio. "How smoothly those interactions go is a direct result of how agents are trained and how they are supported with the right tools and technology. It’s critical for brand loyalty that agents feel confident to make the right decisions at any given moment. And the most efficient way to improve the customer experience is to empower contact centre agents as brand guardians."

The jump to the cloud revolutionised how agents work and learn, opening opportunities to build stronger customer relationships. To accelerate this, agents now need a more flexible and more autonomous work experience, accessibility to best practices, and digital tools that help them shape the optimal customer journey across all possible interaction channels. In short, agents need to be truly empowered as frontline brand guardians to protect revenue streams.

Loyalty is fleeting. Bad experiences have BIG impacts

60% of consumers say they switched brands due to a negative contact centre experience— most leaving after only two negative experiences. Even a single negative experience significantly damages consumers’ perceptions across future interactions. In fact, consumers with a recent negative experience were less than half as likely to say contact centres were doing a good job in any category. In other words, recency bias is powerful — and it is hard to recover once consumer confidence is lost.

"Consumer expectations continue to grow, demanding better and faster results. In the eyes of the consumer, contact centres are not doing enough to empower agents on the channels that have the most impact on brand perception," says Blake Morgan, customer experience futurist and Calabrio Customer Connect (C3) keynote speaker. ""

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Date Posted: Monday, September 19, 2022