5 Ways Presence Technology Can Give Your Contact Center a Leg Up on the Competition
Presence features are deceivingly simple to use but extend far beyond seeing a colored dot on a desk phone, messaging app, or unified communication (UC) dashboard.
In fact, presence technology, which enables contact center managers to instantly see the availability of agents, has become a powerful management tool; delivering tactical advantages in call management, team communications and productivity. This leads to improvement in the overall customer experience.
When it comes to contact center management, no two clients have the same needs — so be sure your carriers reflect that fact.
Benefits of Presence Technology
- Improved Resource Management. With presence technology, supervisors can quickly and easily distribute tasks based on which customer service reps (CSRs) are available. Similarly, if agents receive calls or customer requests they aren’t equipped to handle, they can quickly assess who among their colleagues is available and transfer the calls or send instant messages for help. This simple, but powerful, ability cuts hold times dramatically while improving the customer experience.
- Faster Communications with Instant Messaging. Instant messaging is a great tool when used in tandem with presence; it makes it easier for agents to determine when it’s appropriate to initiate a chat message with a colleague. This is particularly helpful when managers and agents require a rapid exchange of information when escalating customer requests or accommodating a “challenging” caller.
- Better Management of Remote Workers. Presence indication gives supervisors a light-handed approach to managing and tracking remote workers, gaining real-time insight into their availability and productivity. Additionally, advanced presence features take it a step further by offering intelligent availability, so agents can indicate their preferred channel (email, phone or chat) for connecting. This also a CSR to communicate what channel they are currently working in.
- Minimized Distractions. Presence gives agents control over their availability, so they aren’t distracted while completing tasks and helping customers. The ability to signal “do not disturb” and temporarily tune out distractions helps agents focus on the customer matter at hand, which makes for a more productive and happier agent, and happier customers too.
- Recreating the Water Cooler Effect. A common lament of remote workers is that they miss a physical office’s break room or water cooler area where employees congregate, chat and commune. Presence helps by giving employees a sense that they are connected and free to converse via chat in real time. UC conferencing and cloud collaboration tools take this to another level by expanding the range of communications and collaboration tools available to include voice and web conferencing.
