98% of contact center leaders are investing in agent experience. Here’s how

Agent experience is the measurement of how enabled, efficient, and effective contact center agents are. The happier and more fulfilled your agents, the happier your customers.

Among the many ways contact center leaders are investing in agent experience, AI coaching for call center agents stands out as one of the highest-leverage. Traditional coaching models rely on managers sampling a handful of interactions per agent each month, which leaves most conversations unreviewed and feedback delayed by weeks. AI coaching for call center agents closes that gap by evaluating every interaction and surfacing specific, timely feedback tied to what actually happened on the call. For agents, that means clearer expectations and fairer treatment: strengths and gaps are identified from real interaction data, not from a manager's limited sample or personal impression. This kind of consistent feedback loop is quickly becoming a baseline expectation for good agent experience, whatever mix of in-office, remote, or hybrid work a team runs.

The 2021 Post-Pandemic Contact Center Report of 250 contact center leaders shed light on agent experience.

‍Half (52%) of surveyed business decision-makers believe that agent experience has a “strong” impact on KPIs and an additional 46% believe that it has at least “somewhat” of an impact.

And it’s become even more important with the shift to remote and hybrid workforces. How are you keeping teams motivated and engaged when you’re not all on the same floor?

How to measure agent experience

It’s no secret that until recently, agent experience was difficult to quantify and measure. But with the emergence of AI-driven contact center platforms, those metrics uncover agent experience in ways we couldn’t before.

And as a result, contact centers have been investing in changes to improve agent experience in 2021. Keeping agents more engaged through regular conversations (58%), providing more personalized coaching and support (57%) and automating workflows to improve agent productivity and time management (54%) are the top changes respondents plan to implement.

Automating workflows is key - it’s what enables agents to focus on active listening, empathizing, and relating to customers. It’s what breaks down the burdens of tedious and menial tasks for agents and lets them operate more efficiently. They’re spending less time on data entry and research, and more time interacting with customers.

Agents are your frontline representatives - and maybe it wasn’t so quantifiable before, but it is now. What were top agents doing to create strong connections with customers, to retain business, to grow accounts. But we do see this is key to differentiating with service in the future.

How AI agents for contact centers improve agent experience

AI agents for contact centers change what agent coaching looks like day to day. Instead of a supervisor reviewing two or three calls per agent per month, AI agents for contact centers can evaluate every interaction against the same criteria every time. That consistency removes much of the subjectivity agents often cite as a source of frustration, since scores and feedback no longer depend on which manager reviews a call or how busy that manager was that week. The result is coaching agents can trust and act on, which is itself a meaningful improvement in agent experience.

Looking for more on agent experience?

The full report dives in agent experience and customer experience in Section 2, but also includes results and analysis on AX/CX technologies and use cases from leading contact center operators. Read the full report here.