2020 wasn’t exactly what you would call an easy year for anyone, and in some ways it was especially tough on businesses. The pandemic caused many companies to change their course of action, and fast. This kind of necessary-yet-difficult pivot resulted in transitional hiccups and lasting negative side effects.
The shift to temporary work-from-home setups affected almost every industry. According to ZenBusiness, more than 70% of companies have said they have employees currently working from home. This means that companies now have to ensure their employees have what they need and are, in fact, doing their jobs properly from within their own homes – atmospheric and technical environments that companies cannot control.
This has especially impacted call centers. As stated by GEP in this blog post, the pandemic has forced more than 90% of contact center employees to work from home. These work-from-home contact center agents need proper equipment and technical setups. And on top of that, they have to manage (and ultimately reduce) background noise and avoid typical at-home distractions, such as dogs barking or boisterous children.
Right alongside the work-from-home challenges that agents and contact center managers are facing, the pandemic inspired an influx of calls into contact centers, causing longer wait times. These, and other obstacles that contact centers faced ultimately put customer experience at risk. Companies needed fast and easy ways to:
- Shift contact center agents to at-home working environments
- Resolve voice quality issues
- Ensure networks could accommodate increased call volumes
Agile practices and continuous testing and monitoring to the rescue.
Businesses that follow an Agile/DevOps methodology know that automation is the key to achieving faster release cycles, optimizing teams’ time and skillsets, and increasing overall customer satisfaction with a higher quality CX. And the benefits of automation were magnified during the harsh transitions and drastic changes that the pandemic forced contact centers to face.
Learn more about the Cyara AI-Led Customer Experience Transformation Platform.
