“Hello Lauren, thank you for contacting customer service, what can I help you with today?” Doesn’t that start your customer experience off right? In order to customize your communication, companies use agent screen pops to aid in the journey. Agents use screen pops in many different ways and across all channels. During an interaction, a screen pops up to the agent with relevant customer information, like their name, the selection they made in the IVR, their CRM profile, and maybe even some agent scripting. With good cloud-based contact center solutions, implementing agent screen pops have never been easier. Open and accessible APIs allow for seamless integration and data dips into CRMs and databases to quickly and easily retrieve customer information based on their phone number or other data points, and immediately present those to the agent.
The obvious benefit of an agent screen pop is improvement in customer experience; I have come to expect the agent to know my name. However, benefits extend to other contact center metrics as well.
Average Handle Time
An effective agent screen pop can have a dramatic positive impact on average handle time (AHT). On average, screen pops shave off 15-20 seconds per call, because rather than the agent having to search for the customer’s information manually in the database, that process is automated. And while average handle time is important within the contact center, it also indirectly impacts your customer experience as well. We know the leading indicator of successful customer service is speed, so the more quickly and efficiently a customer’s information is accessed, the better.
Wait Time
We know that an improvement in one contact center metric – like average handle time – can cause a positive domino effect on other metrics. If screen pops improve the AHT, then they also in turn will have a positive impact on the wait time. When agents are handling interactions more efficiently, that means the other customers waiting in queue will not have to wait as long to speak with an agent, making a more positive experience overall!
Agent engagement
Having been in an agent’s shoes, I can attest that an agent’s day can be incredibly repetitive -- asking the same questions and searching for the same information at the start of every interaction all day long. However, the more we can automate an agent’s work, the more efficient and more engaged agents become. Thus, an agent screen pop can positively impact agent engagement, equipping them to provide a more responsive and interactive customer experience.
If process automation is one of your contact center “to-dos” in 2018, agent screen pops are a very easy and low-budget place to start. In a short amount of time, you will get a lot of bang for your buck, as your customer satisfaction, average handle time, wait times, and agent engagement all improve.
