How to Foster Compassionate Agents

“You have to have empathy.”

“Put yourself in the shoes of your customers.”

“Empathy, empathy, empathy.”

I feel like these phrases are thrown around a lot in our industry.

In speaking with numerous contact center leaders, one complaint they consistently hear in customer surveys is, “The agent did not care; the agent did not listen; and/or there was no compassion.”

As a consumer, have you ever been so frustrated because the agent did not listen and gave you the impression they did not care, or that they did not have any compassion for you?

How did you feel? Do you ever wonder what made the agent speak or react in the manner that lacked compassion and empathy? How do we create an environment to foster empathic and compassionate agents?

Let’s take a look.

Improve your recruitment process

Ask your leadership and HR, what they look for when recruiting contact center agents: Is it skill, will or both?

Search for individuals with experience helping others in any area of life. It is not necessary to get agents with previous contact center experience, but they should have previous experience where they helped someone solve a problem by looking at with a lens of compassion and empathy.

Search for those people with the “will” or desire to help and the will to be coached. Just hiring agents that have the exact technical skills, but not the “will” is not the wisest move to create an environment of empathy and compassion.

Review your onboarding techniques

What does your onboarding process look like? How do you make your agents feel right from the job posting, interview cycle, offer letter and training?

The manner in which your new hires are treated will be how the culture of your contact center will be like.

There is an example of a wonderful company where HR knew that the new employee could not make multiple trips to the office to do paperwork. HR was respectful of the new employee’s time, had everything sent at once to the new employee and made one appointment to submit paperwork and do all other onboarding requirements. This gesture, saved the new employee two trips to the office as she was still working and did not want to miss work.

Focus on your workplace environment

A few questions to ask yourself:

• What is the workplace environment?
• How are the agents treated on a daily basis?
• Are the agents extended the same empathy and compassion that is expected of them or are they treated like a KPI producing machine?
• Are your agents allowed the freedom to deliver wow customer service, showing empathy and compassion without fear that their call will be 20 seconds too long? What KPI’s do you reward, recognize, coach to or punish?
• Are your agents focused on serving the customers or focused on meeting QM and KPI’s? Are they driven by a quantifiable checklist or a genuine desire for compassionate care?

To foster empathetic and compassionate agents in your contact center, each leader that supports the agents and the organization as a whole must walk the talk and exhibit the behaviors that they want displayed towards their customers.

Training and listening matters

Are agents listened to and are they trained in how to really listen to each other and to their customers?

Until we really hear what people are saying, we can’t understand what they are feeling. If the agents are too pressured to say the script in too short of time, then there is a chance that they will not even take the time to actively listen to the customer. What gets missed from that call is empathy.

As a training exercise, have your agents role-play scenarios and listen to calls, ask them:

• What is the customer’s concern?
• What are they feeling?
• Why are they feeling this way?
• How would you feel, if this happened to you?
• If it has happened to you, how did you feel?
• As an agent, what can you do to create a positive experience?

Recognize and reward “Random Acts of Kindness”

Take the time to recognize and celebrate those individuals that show compassion and kindness to others, whether they are coworkers or customers. Showing kindness is directly connected to an empathetic and compassionate heart.

If we focus on creating an environment with a commitment to meaningful human experiences, then we will have great employee experiences and customer experiences taken care of. Leading from the heart is actually the strategy to foster empathetic and compassionate agents.