Khoros Reveals How to Best Retain Contact Center Agents with AI and Automation

New whitepaper addresses major agent pain points and strategies to improve their satisfaction and help them manage growing customer demands across channels

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Khoros, an award-winning leader in digital-first customer engagement software and services, today released its latest whitepaper, Turning the Great Resignation into the Great Retention: 5 ways leaders can automate to save money & limit agent attrition. The whitepaper explores how brands can best address contact center agent pain points to achieve lasting retention.

In November 2021, a record 4.5 million Americans quit their jobs. Contact centers were hit especially hard: compared to other occupations, contact centers lost twice as many employees, costing brands time and money and disrupting customer care. To uncover how brands can best support their agents, Khoros interviewed 30 Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) decision makers and executives from brands across B2C and B2B industries with in-house or outsourced contact centers.

From its proprietary research, Khoros identified five important ways contact center automation can improve job satisfaction for agents, thereby reducing turnover. Strategies to accomplish each are detailed in the report. This report also highlights pain points for contact center leaders, as well as strategic priorities and a portrait of the ideal agent of the future.

Key findings from the report include:

• Defined career paths for agents highlights the possibility for advancement within the contact center or to another organization in the company, helping agents feel valued.
  
  
• Better technology and tools alleviate the daily aggravations agents feel when they have to jump between several systems to serve customers.
  
  
• Thoughtful automation reduces agent stress, and there are four important ways that brands can successfully transform their contact center for the digital era.
  
  
• Automation can help contact centers create the agent of the future — one who can handle multiple types of inquiries and show true empathy to customers.

“Agent attrition isn’t just a trend, it’s a major hurdle for contact center leadership,” said Sejal Amin, chief product technology officer (CPTO) at Khoros. “As agents take on more channels, more complex interactions, and more calls, organizations need to provide them with solutions that enable them to be more efficient and engaged. Turnover can’t be eliminated completely. However, modern technology like automation and an omnichannel engagement hub can certainly help agents be more productive and successful, in turn, making your customers happy, too.”

To download the full whitepaper, click here. To learn more about Khoros and its digital-first customer engagement software and services, visit khoros.com.

Research Methodology

Khoros conducted 30 60-minute interviews. Interviews were moderated by a third-party research consultant to ensure impartiality of the results.

Interviews were conducted primarily in the US in November and December of 2021. Participants were contact center leaders at companies with annual revenues in excess of $250M. Further, participants were all involved in purchase decisions for their company’s contact center tech stack, with purchase minimums sitting at $1M.

A mix of mid-market, enterprise, and B2B and B2C companies, these decision makers represented a wide variety of industries from retail, professional services, transportation and logistics to financial organizations and more. Their contact centers offered web chat or messaging as contact channels and dealt with mostly inbound or a mix of inbound and outbound communications.

Khoros was revealed to be the sponsor of this research, and the data collection periods took place between November and December of 2021.

About Khoros

Khoros’s award-winning customer engagement platform helps over 2,000 global brands, including one-third of the Fortune 100 companies, create customers for life. With over 20 patented technologies, Khoros connects every facet of customer engagement, including digital contact centers, messaging, chat, online brand communities, CX analytics, and social media management. Combined with our top-rated services, the Khoros platform enables brands to connect with customers throughout their entire digital journey.

Khoros powers more than 500 million daily digital interactions and leverages AI to turn these interactions into actionable insights. Primarily owned by Vista Equity Partners, Khoros is recognized as one of the Best Places to Work both nationally and locally across our 11 offices around the world. For more information, visit khoros.com.