British politician Amber Rudd famously said, “Automation is driving the decline of banal and repetitive tasks.” It’s true. However, in addition to that, automation is enhancing the efficiency, productivity, and efficacy of people operating the automated systems and processes.
This echoes the sentiment of Josh Kaufman, the author of the bestselling book ‘The Personal MBA,’ who rightly said, “The more efficient the automated system, the more crucial the contribution of the human operators of that system.”
To paraphrase it, the greater the efficiency of automated systems, the higher the productivity and effectiveness of the people using them.
In recent times, automation has revolutionized the contact center industry. As Canadian-American motivational speaker Brian Tracy asserted, “Automation is not a thing of the future, but a thing of the present.”
As per the findings of McKinsey study, automation can enhance global productivity growth by 0.8 to 1.4 percent each year.
Another report released by Verinext revealed that automation has improved jobs for nine out of every ten knowledge workers and productivity for about a third of them.
In this blog post, we will discuss how automation is assisting in enhancing agent productivity in contact centers. So, without further ado let’s dive right in. If you are an owner of a contact center, then this blog post is going to add immense value to your business. Read on and thank us later.
Different Ways Automation Can Enhance Agent Productivity in a Contact Center
When contact centers automate their communication processes, they start a virtuous cycle. As one thing leads to the other, it compounds the productivity of agents by leaps and bounds. Here are some ways automation enhances agents’ productivity in contact centers.
1. Allows Agents to Focus on Core Skills and Expertise
There is a recent quote doing rounds on the internet that goes like this—”Automation will help humans become more human at work.” We could not agree more. The best thing automation does is that it enables contact center agents to focus on what they are best at. Automation helps agents to focus on their core skills and expertise. There are findings to corroborate the point. As per a poll, 85 percent of business leaders said that they believe automation enables employees to focus on goals that matter to the company.
2. Allows Agents to Focus on High-Value Tasks
Author and noted academician Jeffrey K. Liker once famously said, “Most business processes are 90 percent waste and 10 percent value-added work.” That’s so true for organizations and contact centers using manual communication tools. However, sophisticated contact center software automate low-value activities and enable agents to focus on high-value activities. When agents don’t have to waste their time on low-value and unproductive tasks, they are more free to channel their energies and time into high-value work. They are more equipped to provide value-added work.
3. Saves Time on Repetitive and Manual Tasks
Would you be surprised to know that automating manual tasks can help agents save considerable time they would have spent on repetitive and mundane tasks? Definitely not! Let’s take only one example to understand how automating manual and repetitive tasks can save agents time. Let’s take the example of manual dialing versus automated dialing. When agents dial phone numbers manually, they take about ten to fifteen seconds to dial one number. Now, just imagine if they have to make a hundred calls per day; they would waste 20 to 25 minutes just dialing phone numbers manually. By leveraging auto-dialers, however, contact centers can save the time unnecessarily wasted on manual dialing. As per a study, 73 percent of IT leaders believe automation saves nearly 50 percent of time.
4. Enhances Speed
Automation executes certain tasks with breakneck speed and precision. When contact centers automate their communication processes, the speed of agents increases by leaps and bounds. In the previous point, we have discussed how automation saves agents a considerable amount of time. That means agents can do more work in the same amount of time. Let’s say that in a manual calling process, an agent closes a call in ten minutes. In the automated process, the likelihood of closing the same call is about five to seven minutes.
5. Reduces Human Errors
Automation can reduce, if not completely, eliminate human errors by leaps and bounds. As per the findings of a recent survey, about half of organizations believe that automation reduces or eliminates the chances of human error. It may come as a surprise, but a large chunk of human errors happen due to complacency and boredom. In manual processes, the chances of both are much higher. But as soon as contact centers automate the manual and repetitive tasks, they empower agents to do more interesting and challenging tasks and remove boredom and over-familiarity in their work.
6. Boosts Consistency
Consistency is the key to high productivity, quality, and success. Automation enables contact center agents to be more consistent. When contact centers automate their communication processes, they replicate every preliminary task (such as greeting customers, routing calls to the right departments and agents, retrieving customer information, and more) in an identical manner. The consistent processes empower and inspire agents to be consistent at their work.
7. Enhances Cost Savings
Last but not least, automation drives massive cost savings for contact centers and all types of organizations. As entrepreneur Haresh Sippy rightly said, “Automation is cost cutting by tightening the corners and not cutting them.” If we go by credible findings, a survey revealed that 51 percent of IT leaders said that automation can reduce overall costs by 10 to 50 percent.
Taking Everything Into Consideration,
Modern contact centers need to make sure that their agents are productive and effective at their work. As customer demands increase and more and more emerging technology tools transform the way.
