More than ever before, high-quality customer service is a must. With customers willing to spend more money with a company that provides quality service, and 68% of customers saying that their service rep was a major component in the quality of service they received, companies are increasingly investing in system-wide improvements to the training, technical support, and follow-up they offer their agents.

One way to do so is with the use of an Agent Behavioral Performance Score (ABPS) metric. Measuring several factors during an agent’s communication with a customer, Agent Behavioral Performance Scoring assigns an overall score that measures the display of empathy, ability to build rapport and create new relationships, and the general influence on the customer’s behavior.

What is the agent performance score?

The agent performance score is an integral part of the quality monitoring of a call center. When a recording informs you that your call may be monitored for quality control, a supervisor will listen to a random sampling of an agent’s calls and assign the agent a score based on their performance. The result is the agent performance score, which subsequently informs who needs additional training or intervention, who is moved in line for promotion or growth in the company, and several other important decisions.

Technology allows us to go beyond that small percentage of calls, though, which may not fully capture the highs and lows of an agent’s behavior on all of their calls. Emotion AI that is designed to analyze a range of voice cues can now listen to 100% of calls and is ultimately far less biased than a human evaluator.

Instead of a purely qualitative analysis of agent performance which can be swayed by personal biases and outside factors, you can now assign each of your customer service agents with a purely quantitative measure of their performance. This can help identify and nurture reps with high emotional intelligence and the ability to display empathy, build rapport and create relationships with customers.

AI is able to do this by evaluating not just ‘what’ is being said, but ‘how’ it is being said and the impact that it has on both sides of a conversation. It measures things like:

●      Politeness

●      Composure

●      Empathy

●      Customer reaction

●      Speaking style

If someone is slightly disengaged, seemingly annoyed, too quiet, or otherwise distracted on the phone, AI will capture that and reflect it in the Agent Behavioral Performance Score, helping to identify where intervention and improvement are needed.

The benefits of smart Agent Behavioral Performance Score

There are several key benefits to having a smarter scoring system that accurately identifies and highlights the strengths and weaknesses of your customer service agents. From a business perspective, customer service is a huge opportunity.

Bain and Company reports that increasing retention by just 5% can result in profits increasing by 25-95%. Similarly, they indicate that businesses can increase revenue by 4-8% above the market expectations only by prioritizing customer service improvements. Those companies that take these steps? 73% with above-average customer experience scores perform better than their competitors. The numbers prove it, and now technology is making it possible to measure and act on customer service metrics like never before.  

Some of the most common ways that companies benefit from improved Agent Behavioral Performance Scoring metrics include:

●      Targeted Agent Training – Improve your soft skills training by identifying the specific areas in which individual agents may need support. Focus on ways to boost emotional intelligence, improve responses, and create a positive environment that is helpful to the customer.

●      Greater Compliance – AI can evaluate how accurately your agents comply with major regulations and guidelines both set by the company and the state and federal government. Software can now predict potential litigation, identify areas of complaints, and help agents de-escalate or ask for intervention faster.

●      Reduced Turnover – Agents who are constantly overwhelmed, unsure of themselves, and unable to improve on their agent performance score can be helped by more accurate, persistent feedback from an AI system. This helps improve employee engagement, reduce the risk of turnover, and build a more reliable workforce.

●      Maintain Reputation – Contact centers can maintain a high reputation by improving their outcomes, showing positive results from the use of AI technology, and thus attract more clients looking for contact center as a service.   

Use Case: Customer Experience Analysis Solution

Behavioral Signals is working with an up and coming start-up, in the conversation intelligence space, by offering their OliverAPI to enable them to develop emotion and behavioral call summaries, as part of their Customer Experience Analysis solution. This allows the startup to show the agents’ emotional state during a conversation, alongside a full transcript and a summary of individual interactions with the customer. According to the company’s CTO, during the first trials, it is showing promising results as agents feel more in control of their feelings and reactions, while along with the customer’s emotions, they are learning how they can use them to build a better connection with the customer.

While a good contact center will look at more than just one qualitative measurement of an agent’s performance —first-call resolution, overall customer satisfaction, average handling time and more— a smarter, AI-powered replacement for Agent performance score can help establish a new foundation on which to measure and improve customer service efforts.

By providing employees with greater insights into why they are successful, you can empower them to do better on a daily basis. Metrics are more recognizable and easier to grasp than the litany of data and supervisor notes they get now. For the business that means reduced performance gaps and more actionable goals that can be actively worked towards by the entire team. For the individual, it means greater comfort on the phone knowing that they will be judged in totality and provided support when and how they need it.

Building a World-Class Service Team

Emotion AI allows companies to build customer service solutions that are smarter, more responsive, and better catered to the strengths and weaknesses of individual agents and the specific demands of individual customers. That kind of customization was previously unheard of but is already saving time and money in organizations of all sizes. Learn more about how Behavioral Signals is empowering call centers to leverage technology for the betterment of employees and the organization alike.  

Discover more about the Agent Behavioral Performance Score here.

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on Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 – 1:30 pm PST