UK-based contact centre workers see poorly performing IT as more
stressful than customer complaints, according to research from
YouGov.
The
Voice of
the Contact Centre Agent research project, commissioned by
consultancy Sabio, showed that 48% of contact centre agents said
slow, unreliable and poorly integrated IT systems were the most
annoying or stressful part of their job.
Of these, 56% said slow systems, with applications crashing and
systems freezing, caused the stress. A further 20% said
over-complicated processes that were not user-focused were the
source of the problem, and 11% blamed poor systems integration and
the need to cut and paste between applications.
"We talk a lot about the customer experience, but it is rare
that we actually listen to what the contact centre agents
themselves are feeling," said Kenneth Hitchen, consulting director
at Sabio. "They are an essential part of the customer service
equation, and we need to pay them more attention, particularly when
it comes to IT where we're not providing them with the tools to do
their jobs well."
Hitchen said more than one-third of agents were using five or
more application passwords to carry out their daily duties, and 30%
of agents spent more than five minutes logging into applications at
the start of the day.