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Today we here at CXQA Live give a big welcome to Jeremy Watkin from NumberBarn and we’re focusing our conversation on implementing the right technology into the contact center.

Jeremy talks about the main priority, as he sees it, regarding technology in a contact center: It should boost customer self-service. Data shows that customers would rather not call a contact center to resolve their problem, preferring any option that enables them to solve the issue independently. When he’s evaluating contact center technology he’s looking for ways to boost self-service.

The second must-have in the technology we utilize is that it helps agents work more efficiently. We don’t want our agents to feel aggravated; that energy would get passed down to the customer. That aggravation would also lead to higher agent turnover. For these reasons we depend on the technology in our contact centers to improve our efficiency.

And of course, promoting customer self-service and efficiency must be carefully tempered so that we can still work and serve in a way that feels human.

The wrong technology or poorly implemented technology can work against the safe, successful and satisfied agent and can impact the metrics we expect of agents.

We feel so strongly about this advice: Sit down next to the agent and observe them at work. Don’t overwhelm the agents or the managers with too much ROI talk. Empower the agents to look for trends, do diagnostic work on their own and ‘act like an owner.’

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