Much has been written about customer experience, but what is agent experience and why is it important? Agent experience is what contact center agents encounter every day as they do their jobs. It's influenced by a wide variety of factors, including training, technology, supervisors, schedules, customer interactions, company policies, and more. The agent experience is important because it affects agent satisfaction, which in turn impacts the quality of service they provide to customers. It also impacts absenteeism and turnover - two big issues that most contact centers struggle with.
The agent experience begins with the hiring process and continues through the exit interview. Like the customer experience, it's the sum of many factors and it's cumulative. Unfortunately, with average annual agent turnover at an estimated 30-50% in the contact center industry, there's clearly some work to be done. Being an agent is a tough job, especially if you deal with a lot of angry customers day in and day out. Some people will resign due to the nature of the job. But others quit for reasons that can be managed and improved - reasons such as incompetent supervisors, technology that doesn't provide answers to customer inquiries, not enough recognition or toxic culture.
Contact centers that want to be successful in the experience economy aren't just focusing on the customer experience - they're also improving the agent experience. Happy agents, happy customers? It seems to make sense.
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