#208 Ed Creasey of Calabrio on our joint research piece - The Voice of the Agent

[00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Get Out of Wrap. I'm really excited about this one. It's been very hard to keep this project that we've been doing under wraps, but I'm really pleased to welcome Ed Creasey. Ed, industry legend, I think probably one of the most well-known people in our industry. I've been lucky enough to listen to Ed talk at a number of events. Ed Creasey, your VP of Solution Engineering at Calabrio. Welcome.

[00:00:30] Thank you. You've made my day calling me an industry legend. I was called a veteran the other day, which I think was a bit passive aggressive saying I was old. But I'm going to say legend. Thank you.

[00:00:40] I got called a veteran player at football last night and I had the same kind of... Is this a compliment?

[00:00:47] Not to make me good, Ed.

[00:00:48] No. Ed, thank you so much for being here. And as I said, I'm sure hundreds of our listeners, maybe even thousands have heard you speak.

[00:00:57] But this isn't where, you know, you didn't go straight into being VP. You have had a storied career in our industry. Where did it all start?

[00:01:08] Ed Creasey, your VP of Solution Engineering at Calabrio.

[00:01:09] Yeah. Yeah. It started with a temp job.

[00:01:11] And yes, I know most of your listeners weren't born, but in 1992, I was temping in my holidays at uni and I got this slip to say customer service department.

[00:01:24] Obviously I don't know what the hell that is. And I turned up at this contact center, as we'd call it, in Abingdon and Eltshire, where I'm from.

[00:01:33] And, and it was just chaos. It was pre-technology, really. There were telephones on desk, desks, and there were these things called home groups and phones were ringing off, ringing around in circles.

[00:01:42] No one was picking them up. It was, it was chaotic, but I loved the teamwork. I remember all the characters I was, I was on that first team of six with.

[00:01:51] And I found I was, I was, I was good at solving customer problems and there were plenty of them back then.

[00:01:56] And so I went from agents. I went, I went into, I was a complaints manager for a couple of years, which was brutal, but you learned everything about what goes wrong for customers.

[00:02:06] And then I became a contact center manager. And I went into product development, which was really interesting because obviously product development normally causes all the problems in the contact center.

[00:02:16] So, and the lesson I got from all of that was nothing, nothing beats frontline experience. And I still use it today in my career.

[00:02:23] Yeah. And isn't that strange? We've had very, very similar backgrounds and, and I'm sat right now in did cot. So just, yeah.

[00:02:33] Small world.

[00:02:34] It is a, it is a small world, the beauty of our industry, as well as that lesson in the time you've been in our industry, you must have, you must have some others that come to mind.

[00:02:45] Yeah. I think I was lucky. I went into, to be a QA consultant. I had this hilarious email address. I was edit empathy because we used to laser empathy, which was used in mystery shopping.

[00:02:56] Some people are a lender that. And then eventually it was call recording came in. We, we started taking like recorded calls.

[00:03:03] And the lesson I learned from that was how important it is to hold a mirror up to customer experience. That was, you know, I think that's still hugely relevant, but how many transferable skills we, we, we had to.

[00:03:14] We build on this industry. So effectively I was like, you went to, that's what I did for seven months.

[00:03:19] And I don't think we should ever underestimate how many skills you have when you have to analyze and evaluate contacts. It's a tough thing to do.

[00:03:27] So, you know, that, that was a great experience. And then the last 20 years, this I've been, I've been working in software and I'm really, the big lesson of that.

[00:03:36] And I've done that globally is yes. AI is cool and automation is great, but it isn't about it. It's not about the AI. It's about the problem.

[00:03:45] It's about, you know, can you define your problem and, and, and what do you want the IT to do? And most importantly, what are you going to do with it when you get it?

[00:03:54] So there's a speech front and I hope there's more to come.

[00:03:58] Yes. Yeah. Me too. Now let's get onto the project that we've been working on. What is it?

[00:04:06] It's a continuation of, of a sort of four or five years of research that we've done in Calabria. So it's, and it's been a rich narrative.

[00:04:15] And if you think of the last four or five years, you know, the abnormal streets go more now, right?

[00:04:20] Yeah. We've been looking at how, how contact centers changes and what new things are emerging.

[00:04:24] We started 2020, what everyone talked about was the pandemic. And then in 21, we researched agents and managers, which was, you know, all about that great resignation we used to talk about.

[00:04:35] 2022, we did managers and consumers trying to compare the view from inside to outside.

[00:04:43] Last year, we were looking at managers globally, how I are respecting things. I'm really this year. We wanted to hear the voice of the agent.

[00:04:50] Do we really understand what's going on with them? So that's what we've done.

[00:04:54] And it's been, I have to say, it's been absolutely fascinating to work with you guys and to go out there and engage with agents.

[00:05:05] You know, both me and you are previous agents. I think you, you, I love some of those lessons that front end experience never leaves you. It never, never leaves you.

[00:05:15] And I certainly can't remember in the few years that I was an agent and then team leader being asked to engage in a, in a survey that's so, so comprehensive.

[00:05:27] And it's been brilliant to see, you know, the, the huge amount of responses that we've, that we've had. What kind of, what are some of the like basic details? How, you know, what's the kind of respondent level and that kind of thing?

[00:05:44] Yeah. Let me give you some of the nuts and bolts. I think everyone likes to know what they're, what they're comparing the data to. So we had 520 agents. It was across Europe. 28% had less than two years tenure. So we had, we had a good mix, I think of people who were, you know, who were new, but we also had some good experience in there. 81%. I'm going to say Gen Z because I'm 52. I like to say Gen Z, but just to reassure you, I do say JZ just to be consistent.

[00:06:13] Yeah.

[00:06:14] Or millennial. So yeah. I mean, that's what the workplace looks like. And interesting 45% were right on the average salary that we've seen, which 22 to 26 came. So hopefully that will give your lessons a feel. This is, this is a pretty typical cohort of contact center agents.

[00:06:33] I know. I completely agree. You know, when you mentioned at the start there, that, that first team, and I've, I found that reassuring that when you look at the numbers, you can imagine the makeup of what people listening right now on their way to their contact center will recognize these numbers in terms of what their own teams.

[00:06:55] Yeah.

[00:06:56] Look like, you know, predominantly young, but a great blend of different ages and experiences and all that that brings.

[00:07:03] Yeah. And I found what I love about the research before we get into it is it's got a bit of a wake up call.

[00:07:10] Hmm.

[00:07:10] It's telling team leaders and I know that's going to be a lot of new lessons, but, but you know, the piece, so, you know, some of the managers are going to make decisions.

[00:07:18] Uh, some of the people remote from the contact center, you know, what's really important to agents right now.

[00:07:24] And some of it's not the new cool stuff that vendors like me like to talk about.

[00:07:29] Some of it's like, please remember us.

[00:07:31] Please remember our mental health.

[00:07:33] Please remember our work life parents.

[00:07:34] Please remember every it product you've ever put on my desktop.

[00:07:38] Isn't always helpful to me.

[00:07:40] And I was lucky when I was an agent, PCs didn't exist.

[00:07:43] We had dumb terminals.

[00:07:45] I had three screens to deal with, but we know, you know, an agent's desktop is not fun.

[00:07:50] So yeah, that's, that's what I love about it is, is a, well, often the frontline view comes last.

[00:07:56] This is, we put it first, which I love.

[00:07:59] So what were the 520 agents telling us?

[00:08:04] What, what, what's jumped out to you straight away?

[00:08:07] Okay.

[00:08:07] So let's get into it.

[00:08:09] I did.

[00:08:09] So just give everyone an idea of what we asked.

[00:08:12] We had 32 questions.

[00:08:13] So it was, it was, it was very thorough and that went right across from, you know, the demographics, which we've talked about job satisfaction.

[00:08:21] We've worked deep on work schedules, work environment, workload, systems, and tools, training, management, career, mental health.

[00:08:29] I mean, we, we, we covered a lot of things.

[00:08:32] And the headline is my favorite part of the whole thing is there's a shift in perception.

[00:08:38] All right.

[00:08:38] And all right.

[00:08:39] I I'm a dinosaur.

[00:08:40] So it was an ancient history when, or when, you know, uh, you and I were chatting off air about some of the sadistic, this training and development we've had where we'd be locked in a room or forced to sit in the corner facing the wall.

[00:08:52] Right.

[00:08:52] So that's what happened to me, but there's a shift in perception that there is more value put on agent contribution and creating an environment that agents can find.

[00:09:00] And the top headline is 70% would recommend the job to a friend.

[00:09:05] And I'm, I'm not certainly not in my day with, with that being the stat.

[00:09:08] So I think that's great that people are feeling proud, you know, and they're feeling satisfied with their job overall.

[00:09:14] So, you know, 66% of agents feeling satisfied, 64% of agents feeling proud to work in the contact center.

[00:09:21] These are great stats on them.

[00:09:23] And that jumps out straight away.

[00:09:24] I think a lot of what we do, a lot of certainly what I've tried to do with the podcast, what a lot of what you talk about is trying to change the perception of our industry.

[00:09:35] And prior to doing this research, I think if you'd have said, if we asked over 500 agents, whether they were proud to work in the industry, there, there is no way that I would have thought it would be as high as 64%.

[00:09:49] I think that is so, so positive.

[00:09:52] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:09:54] I mean, but, but Joe, should I ask some question?

[00:09:56] What I love, not just the feeling and satisfied, it was the 13% feeling not satisfied.

[00:10:02] Now there was a step that we're feeling neutral.

[00:10:05] And I think that's a vulnerable state.

[00:10:07] I think, you know, if I, if I'm a, if I'm a contact center leader or a team manager, that neutral state is being pushed into the wrong area.

[00:10:15] So we've got to keep doing the right things.

[00:10:17] And the great things about the rapport is it's given us some tips of maybe some blind spots, some things that we thought were the right things to do or things that are coming from outside the contact center onto us.

[00:10:27] We know that's a big part of the world that we have to live in, that we, that we should be aware of.

[00:10:32] Now that's a standout headline.

[00:10:34] Well, where do we go next?

[00:10:36] Cause we don't want to be blinded and go and think, Hey, everything's great.

[00:10:40] Completely.

[00:10:40] And I think, so then career salary was an interesting section because I think some of us were surprised that the, you know, the top reasons motivating agents to choose the career path.

[00:10:51] And with top one was steady income 70% of it was distinctive.

[00:10:55] And you know, the next closest one was, was team environment of 48%.

[00:10:59] So I think, I think that tells us something about the nature of the world, possibly the gig economy.

[00:11:05] Yeah.

[00:11:06] The, the, the, the, this sort of job, it gives a steady income rather than the old trope that was really, you know, you, you went into a contact center cause you couldn't find another job.

[00:11:15] And I think, I think, I think that's, that that's changed.

[00:11:19] But team environment is clearly somewhere it's interesting from the hybrid world.

[00:11:22] I think that's definitely worth exploring more as we talk later about team development.

[00:11:28] Otherwise with job security and flexible working hours were the top ones.

[00:11:32] There's probably a bit more to be learned from the opportunities as ever.

[00:11:36] And that's really around personal fulfillment if I wanted to sum it up.

[00:11:39] So the lower choices, I'll give you an example.

[00:11:43] Per person control number was chosen 22% of the time as reasons motivating agents for their career path.

[00:11:50] Variety in daily tasks is 19%.

[00:11:54] Jumping benefits 16%.

[00:11:56] And I think all of those say, okay, those are opportunities to get those higher on.

[00:12:00] So think about, you know, the, the recruitment approach and, and the variety of career paths that you give an agent when they come into the contact center.

[00:12:09] It's really interesting, isn't it?

[00:12:11] Because it's kind of like the, the steady income is a thing that gets them to the door, but there's so much more.

[00:12:20] All of the other things that you've just listed are all of the things that have kept us in this industry for, for so long.

[00:12:26] And then why we're so evangelical about it, you're dead right in it.

[00:12:31] It, it, it's telling us we have to front end the messaging.

[00:12:35] So yeah, steady income and the gig economy thing you mentioned is, is spot on, but we have to kind of front end this message.

[00:12:42] You can say, yeah, there's a steady income.

[00:12:44] No doubt about that.

[00:12:45] You'll be part of a great team, but guess what?

[00:12:48] There's all of these other things as well.

[00:12:50] And that starts before they've even entered the industry.

[00:12:53] Yeah.

[00:12:54] The variety interesting.

[00:12:55] I think obviously some of that, some of that is out of control of an organization.

[00:13:00] If they're a monochannel organization, which is unusual now, that can happen if you're stuck in one department.

[00:13:06] But I often say normally when I'm queuing in a supermarket actually, and you know, there's a particularly miserable looking server there.

[00:13:14] And I, I think the way I was when I was there is when I thought every customer is different.

[00:13:19] Yeah.

[00:13:20] So I'm not going to see this as a mundane job.

[00:13:22] I'm going to see every customer as a unique opportunity to make a difference to their day.

[00:13:27] And I think, and I think people need to replicate that within agents career paths.

[00:13:32] And certainly when we come, when we move to career problems, there is more of an issue.

[00:13:36] So when we asked about agents, if they had a long-term view of their career, half of them didn't.

[00:13:41] And 62% of them didn't have a plan.

[00:13:45] So, and the opportunity around long-term was, was really about people who were unsure.

[00:13:50] So that was, that was, that was the strongest trend was, was people were sure.

[00:13:54] And again, that's that kind of vulnerability, right?

[00:13:56] You've got an opportunity to, you know, for agents to create and see that they got a long-term career in their, in your organization.

[00:14:04] I think that's so, that's such a fascinating point as well, because what we're saying is big majority.

[00:14:10] Everybody are proud, would recommend it to their friends.

[00:14:15] They're in and they're committed.

[00:14:17] Yet, that same percentage the other way don't have career progression plans or they're unsure whether they have one.

[00:14:27] And then the onus then sits on both the culture within the contact center, senior leadership, all the way down to their team leaders to start those conversations to map out and say, what is it you want to do?

[00:14:40] How can we keep you here?

[00:14:42] Yeah, totally.

[00:14:43] And I mean, another, another stat 43% went away with the career pathways, you know, and, and that, that you think of our careers.

[00:14:51] And I think of many good by work with the career pathway was awesome.

[00:14:55] Like they went into the planning team.

[00:14:56] They were an agent.

[00:14:57] They went into the planning team.

[00:14:58] They, they discovered a lot of spreadsheets.

[00:15:01] And, and the next thing they know, you know, they're working for someone like to elaborate.

[00:15:05] And then they went into the career and the, or like I did, I went into QM.

[00:15:09] Yeah.

[00:15:09] Oh, and the, and, and I think those two roles are so underappreciated, particularly, particularly of others.

[00:15:16] I'm talking personally here.

[00:15:17] I think QM is often, you know, that the, the, that person who can really understand the conversation, empathize with what that aging was facing, but really the experience the customer got.

[00:15:29] Then do a great coaching session.

[00:15:30] That's a super power in my opinion.

[00:15:32] Well, I don't know how often contact centers sort of see that move as that sometimes there's a bit of a site race mode.

[00:15:38] I can't cope with the customers.

[00:15:39] I want to go off into the QA team.

[00:15:41] I think it should be seen more positively.

[00:15:44] Yeah.

[00:15:44] But well, all of those should, and there's a, there's a plethora of different avenues that people can, can take.

[00:15:51] And you can't start talking about that early enough.

[00:15:55] Can you?

[00:15:55] No, no.

[00:15:56] And I think, I think contact centers need to be deliberate about this.

[00:16:01] You know, when we're well into the new demographics of Gen Z.

[00:16:05] To break my pronunciations.

[00:16:08] And what we know in that, and it is a huge generalization that not every person built born in my era are exactly the same.

[00:16:15] But there's certainly is variety in career was suddenly more important than we saw in all the stats.

[00:16:23] And I think great opportunity to have in the contact center is it isn't a factory.

[00:16:27] It's not like the factory farming.

[00:16:28] There's loads of different roles you can explore.

[00:16:31] So that was definitely an area.

[00:16:33] The other stat in this sort of career segment was about the question we asked, has your role become more difficult?

[00:16:40] And it wasn't a huge majority, but I would say this is an area of concern, which is 31% said, yeah, my role's changed and it's become more difficult.

[00:16:48] Now we all predicted this, you know, when everything, when self-service came along and everyone said all the, all the easy calls are going to go into digital channels.

[00:16:56] And we're going to be stuck with all the difficult contacts and the difficult chats and the difficult emails.

[00:17:02] And that's, I think that was bound to happen.

[00:17:04] And that's a sign that, you know, roles could be getting more difficult.

[00:17:07] So contact centers need to be sensitive to that.

[00:17:10] Yeah.

[00:17:11] Because that has implications for an area that we'll come to as well around wellbeing.

[00:17:16] And you know, this, this is where we're, it's an increased cognitive load that all for the agents as well as, as well as the role becoming more challenging.

[00:17:27] Was there anything else in this, in this section that stood out for you?

[00:17:32] Not really being a WFM company.

[00:17:36] We, we got quite interested in the, these or forecasting sketching side of it.

[00:17:40] And that's definitely an area where there's a strong link.

[00:17:43] I think, Oh, huge.

[00:17:45] And we saw, you know, we saw some really good stuff.

[00:17:50] Like 77% of agents said they could take a break after a, after a contact.

[00:17:54] That's great.

[00:17:55] 72% say usually their PTO attempts were accepted.

[00:18:01] 67% felt management cared about their work life balance.

[00:18:05] And again, I think I took you the last one, you know, managers were saying, well, what about the 33?

[00:18:10] I said, I still think you should be proud of that staff.

[00:18:11] We work with the WFM.

[00:18:13] So those are all sorts of real positives around scheduling.

[00:18:16] There are some routes to improve.

[00:18:18] So 46% of agents feeling they had little or no control of their schedules.

[00:18:23] Now, you know, as an organization that in Vibra really focused on self-scheduling, I think that's a big opportunity.

[00:18:30] And what's, what's, what's great for all your users out there is they probably got the, they probably got the technology to do this.

[00:18:38] Maybe they should just look at their managers and at their partner team and it goes, how can we still, you know, deliver customers a great experience, but it gives people a bit more freedom.

[00:18:48] You must've seen with your clients.

[00:18:52] What happens when you do utilize that?

[00:18:55] What, what are the benefits?

[00:18:58] It's, it's, it has to come with control.

[00:19:01] That's the, that's the one thing I often, when you're talking to clients, strictly in mixed room.

[00:19:05] You have to kind of remember talking to the planners over here that you want to have control.

[00:19:10] I'm talking to the contact center director who has been told by his boss or her boss to say, you have to keep service levels under control.

[00:19:18] But we're also thinking about the agent.

[00:19:20] So yeah, what we've seen is organizations who are, you know, wanted to maintain service level, but give agents flexibility.

[00:19:27] Yeah.

[00:19:28] They, they, they take, they take advantage of three things, right?

[00:19:31] And you, you allow agents upfront to put in your preferences, pre-scheduling.

[00:19:36] You allow the planners to say, to, to do the scheduling and give, but give them, then building.

[00:19:41] You know, free to where agents can go in and not just move schedules around, not just move breaks, but actually we're putting in a

[00:19:48] future's life in, in the roadmap where an agent can add in personal development and training and projects.

[00:19:54] And as long as the service level rules say, you know, we've got enough staff to cover during that period, that that's really going to help some of the future stats I'll share with you about, about, about agents wanting to have better coaching training.

[00:20:06] It's, it's, it's a key area, isn't it?

[00:20:09] There, I think, and by all means, correct me if I'm wrong here.

[00:20:14] You've got great knowledge of this research, but there, there was a free tech section where agents were, you know, able to put in anything they wanted.

[00:20:24] By far the most comments that shows the importance of scheduling work.

[00:20:30] They were all about scheduling.

[00:20:31] I mean, they did completely because you know, that's what I guess so.

[00:20:38] We were, we were, we care about our work life balance.

[00:20:41] We, you know, we know we need to, I remember when our occupancy, cause I remember the first OCD being brought in.

[00:20:49] And I remember starting to see occupancy and I remember seeing when occupancy was heading, right?

[00:20:53] I don't know if it was 95%.

[00:20:54] I don't know if it was possible.

[00:20:55] I remember being really, really, really high.

[00:20:58] It was call off to call off to call.

[00:21:00] It was brutal.

[00:21:01] Yeah.

[00:21:02] No, I think, I think it's where it starts.

[00:21:04] If you think of Maslow's hierarchy of means, right?

[00:21:06] In the context, they're not obviously you need a building, you need some technology, you need some agents, but you need to have fair schedules.

[00:21:13] That's down there as, as your base says.

[00:21:15] But another stat I thought kind of linked to this, which was, while we are staging, are you still ready to deal with busy periods?

[00:21:24] And 60% were confident.

[00:21:25] I mean, yeah, we do.

[00:21:26] But 40% felt unsure, unprepared.

[00:21:29] And I think that's a big chunk.

[00:21:30] If you looked at the team, you know, looked at the teams and you've got 10 teams and four of them aren't ready for, for when it gets busy.

[00:21:37] That that's a concern.

[00:21:38] And that came out in the call of his comments.

[00:21:40] There was obviously lots of, I want more freedom.

[00:21:42] I don't, I don't want to work weekends.

[00:21:44] I think, you know, I want four on, four off, lots of stuff like that.

[00:21:47] But there was also like, you know, I'm concerned.

[00:21:50] I'm concerned about, are we ready?

[00:21:52] And we all know if there's other teams who aren't handling demand, then it's affecting us.

[00:21:57] That's not a good place to be.

[00:21:58] You want everyone to be able to handle the demand.

[00:22:01] It's not a good place to be for the agents, nor is it a good place for, for customers.

[00:22:06] You know, like you say, 40% is significant.

[00:22:09] If you think about the impact that then has on the, on the customers as well, they're number one for us.

[00:22:14] And then the frustration is getting through to someone and you know, there you go.

[00:22:18] That's how, that's how it happens.

[00:22:20] It bleeds everywhere.

[00:22:21] I mean, you know, my, my, my specialist subject is kind of analyzing customer experience.

[00:22:27] And you just feel it as a customer.

[00:22:28] We're all customers, right?

[00:22:30] You feel when that, that agent's under pressure to get you off the chat.

[00:22:34] Yeah.

[00:22:34] Get you off the call.

[00:22:36] You feel it when there's silos, you know, when you're being moved around.

[00:22:39] I can, I can, we are either the best or the worst customers on the planet.

[00:22:42] Contacts them to people.

[00:22:44] Yeah.

[00:22:44] We know when we're being, you know, spun a line.

[00:22:48] We know when we're being pushed to our other department and yeah, that's a bad experience

[00:22:52] for the agents, bad for the customers in repeat contacts.

[00:22:55] All, all the things where extended cable time, all the things that make contact center experience

[00:23:00] poor for everyone.

[00:23:02] I was just a good example of that is, is sort of the, more the coaching area of the data.

[00:23:08] And the role of how do all, how do organizations under prepare for coaching, do more coaching

[00:23:14] and understand the barriers that face, that face agents.

[00:23:18] So we had some good stuff.

[00:23:20] So many super set of agents agreed that when they get training is valuable, which is great.

[00:23:27] We know that's, that's the key to a successful agent.

[00:23:30] You know, you define your customer experience, you train your agents, how to deliver that customer

[00:23:34] experience, and then you go on and do all the measures that we know in large.

[00:23:37] Um, but when we asked about how often it is 37% monthly, we're receiving coaching training

[00:23:45] on a monthly 38% having, having a weekly or biweekly.

[00:23:49] Though with the, with the tech that's available out there, I think there's opportunities to

[00:23:53] feed agents more regular coaching training.

[00:23:57] As a former team manager, I know, and I've witnessed it leave your evaluations to the end

[00:24:02] of a month and they back up and you end up with a big queue and you suddenly rush through

[00:24:06] the end and you send them out and you see drop them.

[00:24:08] That's still happening.

[00:24:10] I think it's a, it's a huge opportunity.

[00:24:13] I was, you go from being disappointed to then thinking, okay, well actually this is still

[00:24:20] good because if we could, if we can increase that frequency.

[00:24:23] And I think the frequency is a reflection of the importance that coaching is held within

[00:24:31] the, within the center.

[00:24:32] If you say, you know what coaching is fundamental once a month isn't enough because as, as the

[00:24:40] research showed when it happens, people, uh, that receive the coaching say, you know what,

[00:24:45] this is valuable.

[00:24:46] This has really helped me.

[00:24:47] Yeah.

[00:24:48] How do we prioritize that so that we can increase the frequency?

[00:24:51] Cause I, you know, I don't think once a month is enough.

[00:24:54] Yeah.

[00:24:55] And I think that's where technology does help.

[00:24:57] Yeah.

[00:24:58] If you can have tools where planners are able to easily plan training sessions across

[00:25:03] the contact center, knowing that with some rules to make sure it doesn't affect service

[00:25:08] that well, that yeah.

[00:25:09] Well, and I think the key though to, to tick both the more training and more empowerment

[00:25:15] is allowing agents to, to plan it themselves.

[00:25:18] We also looked at one-to-ones and that was, that was interesting 28%.

[00:25:22] So they were in a one-to-one weekly 40, 49% are having a monthly 9% saying never, which

[00:25:28] was a bit scary considering, you know, that's, that's nearly 50, 50 origins, but I know as

[00:25:33] a leader, but the importance of that, I I'm, you know, please feel free to call in my team members,

[00:25:41] but I pretty much stick to working.

[00:25:43] Uh, and I, because I keep, we need that regular touch point, particularly coming back to your

[00:25:48] point earlier about the hybrid environment.

[00:25:50] My team goes from California to Melbourne, Australia.

[00:25:54] So everything's hybrid, everything's remote.

[00:25:57] So that, that touch point becomes more and more important.

[00:25:59] Yeah.

[00:26:00] And it, and it's linked to two stats that you've called out from, from earlier, this kind of the

[00:26:06] team environment being a reason why people want to be in the contact center.

[00:26:11] And your one-to-one is a way to strengthen that.

[00:26:15] And then the other one, the other one, of course, is that career pathway, you know, that, that this,

[00:26:21] those one-to-ones are where you start building that.

[00:26:24] Yeah.

[00:26:25] Yeah.

[00:26:25] And you have those, you have that opportunity to create and create the narrative when we,

[00:26:30] how that person's doing the, the challenge they're having.

[00:26:34] I use a technique with my teams.

[00:26:36] We, we, we, we talk about the calendar, talk about what the big, the big rocks that are facing

[00:26:42] them, three things, and what are the red flags.

[00:26:44] And that, that allows, we kind of, we kind of box it around time and it allows people to get through

[00:26:49] in and then focus on the key things.

[00:26:51] And I think with, with, with coaching particularly to, to see beyond the monthly, the monthly,

[00:26:58] shoot it philosophy is key.

[00:27:00] The best ones I've ever seen are when people take 90 day coaching plans and they start with

[00:27:05] a theme and they repeat that theme over, over the period.

[00:27:09] So they, to, they, they start, they're actually in their coaching model, seeing it as a, as a

[00:27:14] longer term thing, rather than I'm getting a monthly drop of my stats, of my evaluation.

[00:27:19] And I'm touched on that form.

[00:27:21] And there, there's really no reference to it next time.

[00:27:25] Yeah.

[00:27:26] I think the formal works a lot better than the ratters.

[00:27:28] Yeah.

[00:27:29] A hundred percent.

[00:27:31] It linked a bit to a couple of the last stats on, on, on sort of coaching QM.

[00:27:35] 58% of agents said they weren't engaged in a quality management process, which shocked me a little bit.

[00:27:42] Could be labeling there a bit because they might say, oh yeah, I get, I get coaching, but you know,

[00:27:49] I mean what's quality management, but let's say there's even some, some, some, some, some

[00:27:52] little accuracy that, that, that was a concern though to see that people weren't, weren't doing that.

[00:27:58] And the next big stat we'll talk about in a second about AI could be into that.

[00:28:03] The other one was 38% of agents should be never have only team bonding activities.

[00:28:06] And I wonder how much that's linked to the hybrid world or have we just got out of a habit?

[00:28:14] Yeah, that was a, that, that was a surprise certainly from my own personal experience and just being within the industry.

[00:28:22] It's, it's those types of events that stay with you and, and strengthen those, those bonds.

[00:28:29] Maybe a point, maybe you're right.

[00:28:31] It points to the challenge that people face now around how do you do that?

[00:28:36] If some of your team or all of your team are working from home, more, but it definitely shows we need to do more.

[00:28:42] We need to do more in that area to really think about how we are, how we are engaging our teams over and above, just all working together.

[00:28:52] You know, what else can we do from a, from a social point of view?

[00:28:56] Yeah.

[00:28:57] And one of the few things or the few benefits we've got of the sort of connected technologies we have, including social media and, and digital platforms is the ability to create communities virtually.

[00:29:09] Yeah.

[00:29:10] So, you know, we've got one, we couldn't have any more tools available to us, but I think also it's, it's how we use them, how authentic they are as well.

[00:29:18] And I think that's definitely something for our listeners to be aware of.

[00:29:22] So should, so should we talk about being a, 900-pound gorilla in the room?

[00:29:26] Yes.

[00:29:26] Go for it.

[00:29:27] Yeah.

[00:29:27] So this is my favorite stand and I will work this differently.

[00:29:30] I sell AI.

[00:29:31] So, the trend came, we asked it.

[00:29:34] Agents how useful is AI in their everyday life.

[00:29:38] And we asked them to rate it on a scale of one to a hundred, one being not useful at all and a hundred being very useful.

[00:29:45] Now 73% scored under 50, 47% scored under 20.

[00:29:51] So that's, that's a bit of a concern.

[00:29:55] I'm not surprised.

[00:29:56] As a consumer, you know, navigating my way through voice IVRs and voice bots, particularly in chatbots, we're all slightly enjoying with a sense of Schadenfreude or the different chatbot disasters that happen out there.

[00:30:10] We also asked how useful the tools are and AI.

[00:30:14] So I think it's important to see this as not just AI, but this could be any automation you get stuck on your desktop to use, to help in specifically helping manage customer inquiries.

[00:30:24] Again, so scale, not useful at all.

[00:30:27] It's very useful.

[00:30:28] 64% scored up with 50, 39% under 20.

[00:30:32] So similar trends.

[00:30:33] So I'm not surprised.

[00:30:35] Well, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

[00:30:37] I think it's a real, it's a real interesting one because I regularly get a feed of anything related to contact centers.

[00:30:48] So news, you know, it's, it's a rising percentage of that info or looking on LinkedIn that is AI, you know, and it's, it's great.

[00:30:58] I think it's real positive for our industry that we were at the forefront of its application.

[00:31:04] But what these stats have really showed is it's, it's not being applied where we really need it to be applied.

[00:31:13] You know, because we, we know that we, that it was over just over 30% was saying my, my job's becoming more difficult.

[00:31:20] And I imagine if we were to do this survey again next year, that's, that's going to increase.

[00:31:24] Where, where can we use this fantastic technology?

[00:31:29] You know, you mentioned scheduling and self-scheduling and we can see in the research how important that is across the board.

[00:31:37] It, it didn't surprise me.

[00:31:40] Um, and like you, I thought it, it points to a great opportunity to say, let's engage with agents and find out how, what, what would be useful?

[00:31:53] What would make them say, or for the ones that did say it, yeah, it's really useful.

[00:31:59] What is it?

[00:32:00] Yeah.

[00:32:00] I totally agree.

[00:32:02] I think, and I think the definition between AI and just trick is critical.

[00:32:07] And I think around planning and scheduling, I think a lot of it that we go and deliver is some of it's powered by AI.

[00:32:13] We have a virtual assistant, you can get, you know, overtime and, and, and, uh, and voluntary time off just by chatting to a chat bot.

[00:32:21] Right.

[00:32:21] But some, it's just going to be good alerts.

[00:32:23] So we can make the, our alerts better.

[00:32:25] So if you get, if you get your, your holiday request approved, it's going to be easier to see it.

[00:32:30] If you don't, if you get out of schedule, you know, it's easier to know that if, if a team manager has someone calling sick, they know it.

[00:32:37] And if planners, you know, all the stuff you expect, that's, that's basic AI.

[00:32:42] I think, I think we're going to see some exciting things around.

[00:32:46] So I'm doing some tests at the moment using generative AI.

[00:32:50] So this latest version, we're all having fun with seeing, you know, if anyone uses Amazon or TripAdvisor, the, you know, you see the summary.

[00:32:57] Yeah.

[00:32:58] Summary of all the reviews, definitely.

[00:33:02] Contacts are being summary, summarized by most applications.

[00:33:05] That's really, really interesting QA.

[00:33:07] So if you're a friend, if you've got any team leaders out there, we do.

[00:33:11] Do regular evaluations.

[00:33:12] I'm sure you have and find it a bit mundane to have a summary of let's say it's a lot, one of the longer contacts.

[00:33:20] And you've got 150 word summary.

[00:33:22] You can read in 20 seconds generated by AI.

[00:33:25] That's a good pragmatic use.

[00:33:26] And you can, you can, you can automate QA forms with some really good, accurate commentary on it.

[00:33:34] But, and here's the rub, right?

[00:33:36] You've got to think about what's the problem I'm trying to solve here first.

[00:33:40] So, if you give an example, I've got a clinical customer in the UK who has very, very important rap time to work on.

[00:33:48] And these are, these are nurses.

[00:33:50] They, they have some very serious clinical conversations and they have to write them up and it takes like nearly an hour.

[00:33:56] So AI is proving a very interesting use case for them yet there because they can summarize that in, you know, in seconds.

[00:34:04] But we really saw the way we did, we did proof of concept to really prove that that would work for them.

[00:34:10] It's also doing, like you can use dashboards and those keywords where certain service users are talking about being at risk.

[00:34:18] And they, we can automatically flag those, those keywords and understand agents who are taking a lot of contacts about where customers are very distressed.

[00:34:27] And so, critical managers can see your outside.

[00:34:30] So I think those good use cases, the things we're finding is got to get the use case right with AI and you've got to, you've got to monitor your AI.

[00:34:41] That's the other thing.

[00:34:42] Make sure you're seeing what your chat and voice bots are doing to your customer experience.

[00:34:48] Some of the things you just shared there are so fascinating, starting with the, the work that you're doing.

[00:34:54] Because I, I can't help but look at that as someone that both being a team leader and a contact center manager, you're working hand in glove with your planning team.

[00:35:05] And all of those things you mentioned that can be picked up by AI, all I was thinking of, I'd have loved to have worked in that environment because it would have saved me so much time that I could be spending with my team.

[00:35:17] Yeah.

[00:35:18] And I could be spending time coaching them rather than has holiday been approved?

[00:35:24] Who's off, who's off sick?

[00:35:25] All of those, all of those types of things.

[00:35:27] I think that's great.

[00:35:28] And then what a great case study that is because it's a, there's some emotion behind that.

[00:35:34] There's some real, this is, this is not people buying shoes.

[00:35:37] This is, this is health.

[00:35:39] Yeah.

[00:35:40] Yeah.

[00:35:41] It was certainly the, it's been the most important project I've ever worked on because you, you're making a difference.

[00:35:46] So, you know, it's a matter of life and death.

[00:35:49] So, so yeah, I, I, and, and when you look at the comments, you know, or, you know, we had a pronouncement question was, you know, just give me, give us some ideas on scheduling and resourcing.

[00:35:59] The themes aren't, they're not necessarily the latest and greatest they are.

[00:36:03] They're just really pragmatic use of technology.

[00:36:07] So it's like, you know, the, the things were annual management, you know, making more transparent, better, better wait lists, fewer restrictions, fairer distribution.

[00:36:17] It was already, you know, shift patterns and work life balance.

[00:36:20] It was, you know, people wanting four day weeks.

[00:36:23] They want more flexibility, you know, more brake management.

[00:36:27] It was more control over break, break timers.

[00:36:29] Yes.

[00:36:30] Systems and technology did come up, you know, they want to have reduced multiple tabs, multiple systems, but a knowledge management.

[00:36:38] Scheduling definitely came up better communication about scheduling, what better coordination.

[00:36:43] Um, and, and finally special circumstances, whereas, you know, about accommodations where compassionately, agencies, mental health staff, all of these things.

[00:37:09] And, and, and that's why we love this.

[00:37:15] Yeah.

[00:37:16] Yeah.

[00:37:23] Yeah.

[00:37:23] Yeah.

[00:37:23] Yeah.

[00:37:23] Yeah.

[00:37:23] Yeah.

[00:37:23] Yeah.

[00:37:23] Yeah.

[00:37:23] And then from AI, the systems that people are using, where's the research go from there?

[00:37:32] It's validating what I thought, which agents aren't thinking about the upside of it too much.

[00:37:40] Some of them view that what I'm doing at the moment with a very large, uh, US customer is we're rolling out.

[00:37:48] Automated QM using generative AI.

[00:37:52] And the best way to learn is to learn in a controlled way, which is what this client is doing.

[00:37:58] Take one, taking one department, using, using AI and learning lessons.

[00:38:03] And we're, you know, we're using some cool stuff that we're using auto QM.

[00:38:07] We've got contacts being summarized.

[00:38:09] We've got, got a new, new BI tool, which is much easier for people to use.

[00:38:13] But that that's my advice of where AI goes for you guys.

[00:38:18] Obviously we're trying a little bit of thinking about, uh, how agents feel about AI, but for you guys, I would always test it.

[00:38:24] Make sure you have a really strong hypothesis of why you want it.

[00:38:27] And make sure you test it in a very normal environment.

[00:38:30] So I always like to recommend when we roll these tools out, I said, don't give me the best team out there.

[00:38:35] Certainly don't give you the worst team because you want it.

[00:38:37] You would give me a typical team.

[00:38:39] And this was about this earlier, right?

[00:38:41] A team with some superstars, but a team with some, so, so plodders and some average people, some difficult people.

[00:38:48] You know, one key thing I would say is when you try and roll out techies, get a motivated team manager.

[00:38:54] That does make a big difference.

[00:38:55] Same in quality, same in planning.

[00:38:58] But here then, you know, if someone doesn't want to make tech succeed, you can get hooked too.

[00:39:04] So that would be my advice for you guys about the way to look at tech.

[00:39:08] It's brilliant.

[00:39:09] And what is there any, where is there anything else in the, I mean, there's so much.

[00:39:15] How will Pete, how can people get hold of this?

[00:39:18] That's a good question.

[00:39:20] It can be downloaded from our website, but I'm assuming we're going to make it available to you to be downloaded in the different channels you distribute the podcast.

[00:39:29] Yes.

[00:39:30] Great.

[00:39:31] I mean, if you were to summarize, I mean, you've, you've, you've gone through some of the key takeaways from it.

[00:39:39] Each section does this when you've gone through the research, how, how did it make you feel overall?

[00:39:46] I love it.

[00:39:46] I love it because a lot of research and a lot, when I read research and I have to kind of take research in and present it back to the market.

[00:39:56] I spend a lot of time saying, trying to work out whatever it means or frankly, disagreeing with my story.

[00:40:02] So the thing I love about this research is I've, I've learned something.

[00:40:06] It all, it all makes sense.

[00:40:08] Uh, and I agree with all the conclusions that agents have made.

[00:40:13] So that's my, that's my biggest takeaway.

[00:40:15] I need more time with it, but my, but my sense is around scheduling, there's really people need to embrace what they can do with a great WFM tool.

[00:40:26] I think there's real opportunities there, particularly around giving agents empowerment and manage to raise schedules without affecting service levels.

[00:40:35] I think that's a bit, that that that's available today around coaching.

[00:40:39] I think you made the point perfectly actually.

[00:40:42] AI and automation.

[00:40:44] What you want is to give your team managers more time to do the real coaching.

[00:40:48] And that connects together two trends here, which is agents appreciating training, but probably wanting a bit more and not really appreciating.

[00:40:55] Automation tools.

[00:40:57] So I think I've seen that.

[00:40:58] And there's, there's, there's a few other little ones, which, which are a bit controversial, but I think were important systems, right?

[00:41:05] Systems being slow, multiple systems.

[00:41:07] One of the biggest reasons is that the people who make the decisions on systems have never been an agent or they don't have visibility of the impact of their tools.

[00:41:16] So I was, I was doing some analysis for a customer in Australia, we're on hold, which is a great thing to analyze.

[00:41:22] Cause why, why, why are agents putting people on hold?

[00:41:24] You know, that's normally a process going wrong and knowledge.

[00:41:27] Yeah.

[00:41:28] And the, for help, it can't be just a cry for help.

[00:41:31] Well, I was looking at this one concert and this was an agent who put very, put customers on hold in 90% context.

[00:41:37] I was like, whoa.

[00:41:38] So literally the highest agent.

[00:41:40] And I, and I was analyzing it and, and during the whole, what we're able to do in our, our, our products is, is where, where there's hold.

[00:41:47] We have a screen recording and we have desktop cameras.

[00:41:49] So the screen record is a video.

[00:41:51] It was six minutes of hold, which is a bit dull.

[00:41:54] But the desktop analytics told me every single application that agent was using.

[00:41:58] And I was looking at them and one little tool tip comes out and it said sticky notes, you know, the little notepad, which most agents use.

[00:42:05] Right.

[00:42:05] Yeah.

[00:42:06] And so I thought I clicked on it and went, why were sticky notes being used?

[00:42:10] Well, they're being used because the system had frozen.

[00:42:12] So what the agent was doing was logging into a screen, which took about 30 seconds.

[00:42:17] Whilst they were in that screen, they were, they were frantically writing down the information that were in that screen because they knew they couldn't go back to that screen because it would take another 30 seconds.

[00:42:26] So we're literally dumping information from a CRM onto a sticky note to allow them to do their job.

[00:42:33] And you could, you know, go.

[00:42:35] The agent was frustrating.

[00:42:37] It was terrible efficiency.

[00:42:38] They went back off hold.

[00:42:39] The customer had put the phone down.

[00:42:41] So the customer was annoyed as well.

[00:42:42] And then copying data out of the customer's system.

[00:42:46] Compliance.

[00:42:46] I mean, literally reboxed.

[00:42:48] But to do that, you need something like screen recording and desktop analytics, which some people think the policing tool.

[00:42:53] But if I was a hybrid agent on a desktop that was running slow, I'd want people to know the impact that had.

[00:43:01] And through that you're able to solve the problem.

[00:43:05] I think that, and again, that comes right back to, to one of your early, early lessons.

[00:43:10] I have absolutely loved not just this podcast, but working with you guys on, on this research for me.

[00:43:19] I, you know, that the pride in our industry, I think is amazing.

[00:43:24] I think, you know, a large proportion of the listeners of this show are senior leaders.

[00:43:30] And I, I think what this research shows amongst hundreds of takeaways is we are being given a huge opportunity with future leaders, future key stars in, in WFM, QM, training, HR, whatever it may be.

[00:43:53] We have been, we have been, we've been told by agents, they're proud to work in the industry.

[00:43:58] They would recommend it to friends, but there's some work we've got to do to, to keep them across the board.

[00:44:06] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:44:07] What an exciting opportunity.

[00:44:08] Yeah.

[00:44:08] Because all the tools are out there.

[00:44:10] Yeah.

[00:44:10] Ed, I've loved doing this with you.

[00:44:12] Thank you so much.

[00:44:13] We definitely have to do another one.

[00:44:16] I think on the research, but also to maybe talk about our shared pasts of how things were different.

[00:44:24] We could do a back in the day when, when I, when I were a lad, that would be kind of, I think it might be just funny.

[00:44:30] Some of your listeners who are not, didn't get back to the nineties to hear some of those stories.

[00:44:36] I'd love to do that.

[00:44:37] It would be cheaper than therapy.

[00:44:38] So yeah.

[00:44:39] Well, let's do it.

[00:44:40] Ed Preecey, thank you so much.

[00:44:43] And for everyone listening, we will share details of how you can get this groundbreaking research.

[00:44:50] It is, it's fascinating.

[00:44:52] It's valuable.

[00:44:54] I've never seen anything like this and Calabrio have been awesome on this and we will share how you can obtain all of it.

[00:45:01] But Ed, thank you very, very much.

[00:45:03] Thank you.