Remote, in-office, or both?
What work setup makes for happier contact center agents and customers?
The happiness of your contact center agents—and your customers—depends on the flexibility of their work environment. Agents who have a hybrid remote/in-office work arrangement report being the most satisfied with their jobs vs agents who are fully remote or fully in-office. Contact center agents also say that a hybrid remote/in-office setup enables them to provide the best service to customers—but managers don’t agree.
Where do agents work?
Most contact center agents report having a hybrid in-office/remote work arrangement.
64%
Have a hybrid remote and in-office work arrangement
Work exclusively in the office
20%
Work exclusively remote
16%
What work arrangement makes for the happiest agents?
Agents
A hybrid work arrangement enables agents to provide the best customer service:
What work arrangement makes for the happiest customers?
Hybrid
68%
In-office
49%
Remote
16%
Agents with a hybrid work arrangement are the most likely to say that they are “very satisfied” with their jobs. Fully remote contact center agents actually report a slightly lower rate of being very satisfied with their jobs.
Agents report being “very satisfied” when their work arrangements are:
Contact center agents and managers disagree about what work environment enables them to provide the best customer service. Most agents said that a hybrid remote/on-site environment enables them to provide the best service. Only about a third of managers agree. The difference between the way managers and agents feel about working exclusively on-site is even starker.
Managers
Managers
Agents
A fully on-site work arrangement enables agents to provide the best customer service:
Contact center agents do more than answer calls
Do contact center agents handle sales, service, or both?
Answering inbound calls
51%
Handling customer complaints
46%
Making outbound calls
41%
Most contact center agents reported that answering inbound calls was the top reported job responsibility. But many also said that preparing reports for upper management and analyzing calls is a big part of their job.
Contact center agents report their top job responsibilities are:
Both customer acquisition and service
Most contact center employees say that their role involves both customer acquisition and customer service.
64%
The contact center should be viewed as a revenue driver, not a cost center. That’s because customers tend to call when they have questions—especially when it concerns high-stakes purchases like buying a car, getting a mortgage, or home improvement projects. People who call are showing intent and are highly motivated to buy.
Only customer service
30%
Only customer acquisition
1%
What kind of calls are coming into the contact center? Many are hot leads, and they convert at about 5x the rate that typical shoppers convert online.*
of those leads will convert
33%
of calls are leads
35%
*Invoca customer platform data, 2022
Analyzing call center data and preparing reports for upper management
41%
It’s no secret that contact center agent turnover is very high, and our survey showed that most agents say they’ll leave their posts in the next six months. The surprising dichotomy is that most also report being quite satisfied with their jobs. Though it appears that contact center agents in the U.K. are more likely to stay put than those in the U.S.
Contact Center Job Satisfaction is High, but so is Turnover
Of U.K. contact center agents report they’re “very likely” to leave their job in the next six months
28%
Of U.S. contact center agents report they’re “very likely” to leave their job in the next six months
60%
The average yearly contact center turnover rate reported by managers
60%
Why do contact center agents quit?
Male contact center employees were more likely than female employees to report being likely to leave their current job in the next six months
58%
vs.
49%
Reasons that have less of an impact on their decisions to leave:
Boring or repetitive work
13%
Stress or anxiety
18%
Reasons contact center workers say impact their decision to move on:
Poor work-life balance
31%
Lack of career advancement opportunities
35%
Better job opportunities elsewhere
38%
Contact center workers are not leaving because of the work itself—very few said they would leave their job because of boring or repetitive work. But the combination of a hot job market, lack of advancement opportunities in contact centers, and poor work-life balance are causing a lot of turnover.
Being treated poorly by customers
18%
Improve agent retention
39%
Boost operational efficiency
56%
Improve customer satisfaction scores
62%
You’ve heard it before—happy agents equal happier customers. Most contact center managers think improving agent job satisfaction would have a considerable impact on customer satisfaction scores. But improving agent satisfaction doesn’t just impact CSAT scores.
Improving Agent Satisfaction Boosts Customer Satisfaction
Call center managers think improving agent job satisfaction can:
The call experience can make or break customer loyalty
Manager’s view of customer satisfaction misses the benchmark
U.S. and U.K. call center managers say their call center customers are:
Somewhat dissatisfied
2%
Somewhat satisfied
25%
Very satisfied
70%
The benchmark average CSAT for call centers is about 80%—that is 80% of callers would say they are “very satisfied” with their experience. However, 70% of call center managers surveyed think their customers are “very satisfied”—which misses the benchmark by 10%.
Will pay more for great customer service*
63%
Will stop doing business with you after just one bad experience*
76%
It’s not a huge surprise that you have to keep your customers happy to acquire and retain them. What’s startling is that most customers will stop doing business with you after just one bad experience. This means that your bottom line also depends on having happy contact center agents.
*Invoca Buyer Experience Benchmark Report, 2022
Providing amazing customer experiences on the phone is a complex task. Agents require coaching from managers in order to properly handle the myriad situations that arise and the growing range of products and services that companies offer. Most agents actually feel positively about the coaching they recieve, and they think that it helps them provide better service to customers.
How often do contact center agents get coaching?
The State of Contact Center Agent Coaching
More than once a week
Weekly
Monthly
Bi-weekly
Never
Less than once a month
But don’t overdo it on coaching!
Contact center agent coaching is effective and appreciated
Coached weekly
58%
Coached more than once a week
78%
Coaching can easily turn into micromanaging if you do it too often. Employees who said they have coaching sessions more than once a week are more likely to quit in the next six months than those who get weekly coaching.
say coaching has a “very positive” impact on the service they provide
65%
of call center agents said feedback on their call performance has a positive impact on the level of customer service they provide
86%
9 out of 10
Contact center managers and agents agree—coaching agents is an effective way to provide better customer service.
contact center managers think their agents feel positively about the coaching they receive
The likelihood that agents will leave in the next six months:
The customer is always right, right? Tell this to anyone who has worked in the service industry and watch their eyes roll out of the back of their heads. Working in customer service has its highs and lows, to say the least. Super-nice people can make your day with just a smile and a thank you. Rude jerks make you want to rush to your first strong drink of the night. And then there’s the beyond-the-pale, anxiety-inducing behavior like sexual harassment and personal attacks that drive many people out of the industry altogether. Contact center agents deal with it all, every day.
A Day in the Life of a Contact Center Agent
Customers are rude to agents more often than they’re thankful
Agents often experience:
People call often call businesses in varying states of distress, and contact center agents are the ones on the receiving end of their ire or gratitude—which customers dish out in nearly equal measures. They also often blame agents for things that are out of the agent’s control.
When customers call, they’re frequently unprepared
Agents often experience personal attacks and harassment
Contact center agents care about their customers
Gender and negative experiences with customers on the phone
Expressions of thanks or gratitude
35%
Rude or angry behavior
37%
Getting blamed for things they can’t control
38%
What contact center workers love about their jobs
People calling for no reason at all
28%
Unprepared callers (e.g. don’t have an account number, order number, etc.)
46%
People calling for things they can do online
47%
Agents often experience:
Outside of rude or thankful customers, contact center agents most frequently have to deal with customers who are unprepared or with issues that can ostensibly be addressed online. This is often due to sub-par digital experiences that frustrate customers into calling (which is also outside of the control of agents!)
One in five
The phone creates a degree of separation between customers and the people who are there to help them, and unfortunately, this brings out the worst behavior in many people. Nearly a quarter of contact center agents report enduring personal attacks, discriminatory comments, and sexual harassment.
contact center agents regularly experience personal attacks, discriminatory comments, or sexual harassment.
Agents often experience:
Female agents experience more rude behavior and more often catch the blame for things they can’t control, while male and female agents report experiencing the same rates of sexual harassment. Male agents face more personal attacks than female agents.
Rude or angry behavior
Getting blamed for things they can’t control
Personal attacks
Sexual harassment
Somewhat unimportant to very unimportant
3%
Somewhat to very important
94%
It’s important that I provide the best service possible on the calls I handle:
When you call a business, you probably think that the person on the line helping you is just following a script and going through the motions. When we asked agents if it’s important to them to provide the best customer service possible, more than 9 in 10 said yes.
Work-life balance
28%
Helping people
42%
Gaining transferable skills
47%
What I love most about my job is:
Of course, it’s not all screaming customers and getting blamed for your company’s awful website—agents seem to think there’s a lot to like about their jobs.
Solving complex problems
39%
Mystery shoppers
After-call surveys
AI-based solutions
Manual call listening
Conversation intelligence
Managers report analyzing calls with:
Conversation intelligence and AI are currently underutilized in the contact center. A little under a third reported using conversation intelligence to analyze calls—about the same that report using manual call listening for QA purposes. Even fewer reporting using AI.
The Impact of Conversation Intelligence and AI in the Contact Center
Conversation intelligence can provide the context that agents need to provide better experiences
Contact centers that use conversation intelligence think their agents are more receptive to coaching
Contact centers that use conversation intelligence QA more calls
Conversation intelligence makes agent performance evaluation fairer
Conversation intelligence is key to better agent performance evaluation
When asked what information is the most useful to have before starting a conversation with a customer, contact center agents said they want:
Contact center agents are pros at handling the unexpected, but they want context to make their lives easier and their customers’ experiences better. Since most buying journeys begin online, providing agents with context from the digital journey can give them the details they need to provide better experiences.
Contact center managers that use conversation intelligence are 50% more likely to say their agents feel “very positively” about the coaching they receive.
Compared to those that use manual call listening to analyze calls, contact center employees that use conversation intelligence report that they analyze a higher percentage of their calls.
Conversation intelligence, AI, or other technology
40%
Call resolution rate
43%
Conversation intelligence w/human review
47%
The fairest method of evaluating calls is:
Overall, contact center agents and managers said that a combination of conversation intelligence/AI and human review is the fairest way of evaluating performance, followed by call resolution rate.
Said they can’t score enough calls to accurately evaluate agent performance
62%
Most call center managers say they can’t analyze enough calls to accurately evaluate agent performance. There is a clear opportunity here, however. While 62% said they can’t score enough calls to accurately evaluate agent performance—about the same number said that having appropriate call analytics technology is the best way to make coaching more effective.
Said having appropriate call analytics technology is the top factor that impacts their ability to provide more effective agent coaching
61%
Contact centers that analyze over 50% of their calls:
Use manual call listening
44%
Use conversation intelligence
60%
Contact centers that analyze over 80% of their calls:
Use manual call listening
13%
Use conversation intelligence
30%
The customer’s name
What products/services they’re interested in
The customer’s phone number
What web page they were looking at before calling
If they abandoned an online shopping cart before calling
What ads/ promotions they saw before calling
What items were in their online shopping cart before calling
The caller’s purchase history
Want to learn more about how Invoca’s AI conversation intelligence can help you retain happier agents, earn more customers, and drive more revenue? Get the Ultimate Guide to Conversation Intelligence for the Contact Center to see how it can work for you.
Learn How Invoca Can Transform Your Contact Center
Survey Methodology & Demographics
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Introduction
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Introduction
Remote, in-office, or both?
Contact Center Job Satisfaction is High, but so is Turnover
Improving Agent Satisfaction Boosts Customer Satisfaction
The State of Contact Center Agent Coaching
A Day in the Life of a Contact Center Agent
The Impact of Conversation Intelligence and AI in the Contact Center
Learn How Invoca Can Transform Your Contact Center
Survey Methodology & Demographics
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of call center managers are likely to implement a conversation intelligence solution in the next year
85%
Conversation intelligence may be underutilized in the contact center—but not for long.
Most call center managers will implement a conversation intelligence solution in the next year
