FUTURE OF
CONTACT CENTER
EMPLOYEES
MARKET STUDY
JANUARY
www.customercontactweekdigital.com
2024
CUSTOMER
CONTACT WEEK
DIGITAL
2024 JANUARY CCW MARKET STUDY | Future of Contact Center Employees
CUSTOMER
CONTACT WEEK
DIGITAL
www.customercontactweekdigital.com |
Intro
The biggest cost of universality is a lack of intense questioning. This reality has long been
evident when it comes to the contact center employee experience.
Few contact center leaders dismiss the importance of the employee experience. Few
doubt the impact empowering atmospheres have on agents’ ability to support customers.
But as we celebrate broad ideas around the employee experience and trumpet concepts
like “happy agents equal happy customers,” we do not always ask ourselves what it truly
means to generate agent happiness. Equally importantly, we do not always question whether
supposed “employee empowerment” initiatives will actually deliver short-term happiness, let
alone spur long-term improvements in performance, engagement, and retention.
This lack of questioning is particularly notable – and concerning – when it comes to the
impact of artificial intelligence (AI). As we embrace concepts like “AI for simple issues,
agents for complex work” as employee-centric initiatives, we may not sufficiently question
whether agents want to do the work, have the skills and capacity to do the work, or have
the leadership support to do the work. As a result, we may not be taking the necessary
steps to cultivate a next-generation workforce that is ready, willing, and eager to delight
ever-demanding customers in an ever-complicated customer experience landscape.
To help the contact center community overcome these challenges, CCW Digital is thrilled
to share this market study on the Future of Contact Center Employees. The product of
exclusive, in-depth research, it reveals how the role of the agent will evolve in the era of AI.
More importantly, it reveals the questions leaders must ask and the steps leaders must take
in their effort to prepare and motivate agents for the new, AI-driven normal.
It closes with a look at how the supervisor experience must concurrently evolve to create
managers who can become coaches and bosses who can become visionary leaders.
2024 JANUARY CCW MARKET STUDY | Future of Contact Center Employees
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Table of Contents
2
Intro
4
Methodology & Demographics
4
About the Author
5
Key Findings
6
Is Employee Happiness Still An Objective?
8
Fired or Empowered? What Does AI Really Mean For Agents?
10
Are Agents Ready (and Eager) For The New AI-Driven Normal?
15
Are Supervisors Ready For The Contact Center Of The Future?
18
Four Factors That Will Impact Contact Center Employees in 2024
21
From Stress To Success: Reducing Complexity With AI-Powered Contact Center Solutions
30 How Customized Strategies Drive Dependable Sales Performance & Outcomes
36 Appendix
37
2024 Editorial Calendar
38 Meet the Team
2024 JANUARY CCW MARKET STUDY | Future of Contact Center Employees
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CONTACT WEEK
DIGITAL
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About the Author
Brian Cantor
Principal Analyst, CCW Digital
Customer Management Practice
C U S T O M E R
M A N AG E M E N T
P R AC T I C E
Brian Cantor is the principal analyst and director for CCW Digital, the global online community
and research hub for customer contact professionals. In his role, Brian leads all customer
experience, contact center, technology, and employee engagement research initiatives
for CCW. CCW Digital’s articles, special reports, commentaries, infographics, executive
interviews, webinars, and online events reach a community of over 150,000.
A passionate advocate for customer centricity, Brian regularly speaks on major CX
conference agendas. He also advises organizations on customer experience and business
development strategies.
Methodology & Demographics
To understand the future of contact center employees, CCW Digital conducted an
extensive survey in January 2024. The survey uncovered perspectives from an audience of
contact center, customer experience, marketing, and operations leaders.
Respondents represented organizations of most industries and all size ranges. Example
job titles included director of client experience, manager of member of experience, chief
customer officer, head of customer care, vice president of customer engagement, vice
president of customer service, senior vice president of operations, head of client care,
senior director of customer experience, vice president of contact center operations, and
senior director of customer success.
2024 JANUARY CCW MARKET STUDY | Future of Contact Center Employees
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Key Findings
Employee engagement remains a top priority, with 95% of contact center leaders still
faithfully subscribing to the idea that “happy agents equal happy customers.”
Top employee experience focuses for 2024 include satisfaction and retention, training
and coaching, and performance management. Though still on the radar, rethinking
compensation and career pathing represent comparatively less popular priorities.
The fear of AI replacing jobs is palpable, with 70% of acknowledging the existence of
such concern within their teams.
Granted, many leaders do not feel the fear is warranted. Only one-fifth presently worry
that AI will lead to significant contact center job reduction.
But even if it does not eliminate jobs, it will likely change the nature of the agent role.
Many contact center leaders expect AI to remove at least some simple issues from the
typical agent’s job, thus shifting them to more complex, high-value work.
Nearly 90% are confident agents would be willing to take on this more complex
work, although a non-trivial percentage believes this eagerness is contingent upon
improving compensation and career path opportunities.
Once they are willing, agents will need to develop skills related to product mastery,
emotional intelligence, multichannel fluency, and knowledge management. More than
eight-in-ten contact center leaders believe their teams will require at least six months
to cultivate such competencies.
Beyond providing the requisite training, contact centers will have to eliminate
inefficiencies that inhibit successful performance. At present, high volumes of simple
issues, ineffective knowledge management solutions, insufficient customer data, and
burdensome non-interaction work create undue effort for agents.
Despite trumpeting the importance of providing more personalized, consultative
support, only 6% of contact centers actually grant agents complete freedom to go off-
script and provide “above and beyond” care.
10 To empower the next-generation agent experience, successful brands must cultivate
a team of next-generation supervisors. Crucial competencies for the manager of the
future include the ability to coach for product mastery, comfort with modern contact
center systems, adeptness at managing customer and employee feedback, and a flair
for managing based on big picture outcomes rather than traditional efficiency metrics.
2024 JANUARY CCW MARKET STUDY | Future of Contact Center Employees
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When it comes to contact center cliches, none trumps
“the customer is always right.” There is, however, one
with nearly as much ubiquity: happy agents equal happy
customers. The mantra has become a driving force for
the contact center community, spurring innovation around
everything from automation solutions, to office culture
initiatives, to workforce management strategies.
Of course, when a cliche becomes so universal, it is
worth questioning the extent to which the message still
resonates. Is the “happy agents equal happy customers”
phrase lingering due to familiarity and complacency, or is it
enduring because contact center leaders truly and actively
swear by the concept?
The latter answer is the correct one. A whopping 95% of
contact center leaders acknowledge a crucial link between
employee and customer experiences.
Is Employee Happiness Still An Objective?
Nearly two-thirds continue to take the phrase at face value,
believing confidently that emotionally happy employees
deliver better experiences for customers. Thirty percent
(30%), meanwhile, take a less literal approach to the
phrase. They see the adage not necessarily as a call to
focus on emotional happiness but instead as a reminder to
empower overall agent performance.
But regardless of whether one focuses on emotional
happiness or operational empowerment, one thing is
abundantly clear: the employee experience still matters
greatly to today’s contact center leaders.
Befitting this reality, contact center leaders plan to
prioritize numerous employee experience initiatives
in 2024. Particular priorities include satisfaction and
retention (93%), training and coaching (90%), performance
management and measurement (88%), and empowerment
through better tools, technology, and/or data (86%).
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Granted, not all employee experience measures are
commanding the same degree of attention. Though on
the radar, initiatives like re-evaluating compensation (54%),
rethinking career pathing (68%), and accommodating more
flexible scheduling models (70%) rank as comparatively
less common priorities.
Will brands that avoid addressing pay, career trajectory,
or work flexibility substantially bottleneck their ability
to achieve universal objectives like satisfaction and
retention? Given the anticipated evolution of the agent
role, that question will gain new relevance as contact
centers look to the future.
Does your contact center/CX team subscribe to
the idea that “happy agents = happy customers”?
65%
Yes - we truly believe that emotionally happier agents
will deliver better customer experiences
30%
Somewhat - we see a connection between CX
and EX, but it’s more about empowering agent
performance than literally making them “happy”
5%
No - we see the CX and EX as two separate things
Over the past year, do you feel your contact
center has improved in the following areas?
Improving employee satisfaction and retention
Improving employee training and coaching
Improving performance measurement/management practices
Empowering employees with better tools/technologies/data
Improving collaboration and team-building
Hiring higher caliber talent
Improving contact center culture
Balancing at-home vs. on-site work
Encouraging frontline employees to think critically, go off-script, etc
Managing the impact of AI and automation on employee
performance & satisfaction
Accommodating more flexible schedule/shift models
Providing clearer / more valuable careerpathing
Re-evaluating employee compensation and/or perks
7.5%
10.00%
11.88%
14.37%
15.00%
21.88%
24.38%
25.62%
25.62%
28.75%
30.00%
32.50%
46.25%
92.50%
90.00%
88.13%
85.63%
85.00%
78.13%
75.63%
74.38%
74.38%
71.25%
70.00%
67.50%
53.75%
Yes
No
2024 JANUARY CCW MARKET STUDY | Future of Contact Center Employees
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Though not quite as recognizable as “happy agents equal
happy customers,” the notion that “AI will augment rather than
eliminate agents” has become rather popular among contact
center professionals.
Of course, the notion was far easier to blindly accept when
AI contact center solutions were still in their infant stages.
When chatbots were terribly unhelpful and agent assistance
tools were disappointingly robotic, there was little immediate
reason to see AI solutions as a threat to agent jobs. In that
era, the question was not whether AI tools would eliminate
agents but whether they could even handle enough simple
issues to meaningfully augment performance.
AI technology has, however, come a long way. Generative AI
projects like ChatGPT prove that AI is capable of automating
meaningful contact center work, while demonstrating that
Fired or Empowered? What Does AI Really Mean For Agents?
self–service can be more dynamic, conversational, and
personalized than the convoluted IVRs and static FAQ pages
of yesterday.
As confidence in AI’s transformative potential grows, so too
does concern over its impact on human contact center work.
Nearly 71% of contact center leaders acknowledge that fear
of AI-driven job loss exists within their organizations.
Is that fear warranted? Today’s contact center leaders have
mixed feelings.
A non-trivial 16% still doubt AI will meaningfully impact the
contact center, while 26% believe its impact will be limited to
only the most basic tasks – thus having little consequence for
the role of the agent.
2024 JANUARY CCW MARKET STUDY | Future of Contact Center Employees
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On the other hand, 7% feel AI will definitely lead to significant
job reduction.
The balance of leaders subscribe to the idea that AI will
absorb many current agent tasks, thus enabling them to pivot
to more complex work. They do, however, have conflicting
perspectives about what this ultimately means for headcount.
Nearly 38% of contact center leaders are taking an upbeat
view of the “AI for simple issues, agents for complex ones”
mantra, noting that there will be enough new work to keep
most agents around. Just over 13% are taking the pessimistic
perspective, fearing that there will not be enough complex
work to avoid headcount reduction.
Which best describes how your contact center/
CX team addressing the fear that “AI may
replace employees”?
29.38% No need - there is no fear of AI replacing humans
within our team
26.25% Broadly discussing the future of AI and how it may
or may not impact headcount during team meetings,
coaching sessions, etc
24.38% Not actively addressing it, but the fear/concern does
at least somewhat exist
20.00% Actively highlighting specific ways AI will empower
employees / lead to a better agent experience
37.50% Somewhat - AI will absorb many current agent tasks,
but we’ll have enough new work to keep most
agents around
26.25% Not really - AI will only absorb very simple/repetitive
tasks, so we’ll still need almost all agents
16.25% No - we are not currently convinced AI will
meaningfully impact contact center workflow/needs
13.13% Probably - AI will absorb many current agents tasks,
and there is not enough complex work to avoid
headcount reduction
6.88% Definitely - AI will lead to a significant reduction in
headcount
In your personal opinion as a leader, do you
expect AI to lead to headcount/team reduction
within the contact center/CX function?
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Although they have not yet reached a consensus on
whether AI will definitely lead to meaningful job loss, the
majority of contact center leaders accept that it will at least
meaningfully transform the role of the agent.
As AI solutions help brands automate traditional contact
center tasks, agents will pivot to more challenging, less
predictable work. This pivot may entail focusing on
more complicated customer interactions, taking on more
analytical tasks, or moving outside the contact center. The
point, however, is that transformation appears inevitable.
And if the role of the agent is changing, so too will the
associated workflows, competencies, coaching strategies,
and career trajectories.
Are Agents Ready (and Eager) For The New AI-Driven Normal?
DO AGENTS ACTUALLY WANT
“COMPLEX” WORK?
“AI will automate simple issues so that agents can focus
on complex ones” has historically been presented as an
employee-centric notion. The argument was that because
agents dislike performing rote tasks and addressing
repetitive customer inquiries, they would be much happier
handling more difficult and complex interactions.
Many contact center leaders still subscribe to this mindset,
albeit with a caveat in some cases. Whereas 49% believe
their agents are already eager to take on more complex
work, 40% feel that willingness is conditional upon
receiving better compensation and/or career opportunities.