This post has been republished via RSS; it originally appeared at: New blog articles in Microsoft Community Hub.
In this guest blog post, Richard Henke, head of marketing at Bucher + Suter, explains how the b+s Connects unified contact center agent desktop integrated with Microsoft Dynamics 365 can improve agents' well-being and performance, deliver exceptional customer experiences, and enhance business results.
The contact center agent experience is constantly advancing. At least it ought to be. Most of the qualitative and quantitative indicators that contact center leadership hangs their hat on are at least tied to agent experience. Cost control. Agent retention and productivity. Customer satisfaction.
Herein lies the criticality of a unified agent experience. Be it the email support agent, tech specialist manning the phones, or otherwise, the quality and efficiency of the work relies heavily on what the agents have at their fingertips. More specifically, how much time and effort is required of an agent to find what they need, often without a moment to spare.
Common indicators of a fragmented agent experience
Let’s say an enterprise client calls into business support to troubleshoot their cybersecurity solution. The latest update is causing system errors with a third-party firewall. The last thing this client needs is to wait for the agent to track down customer context in different systems, or for the agent to locate the correct resource.
Usually, what’s bad for the customer is bad for the agent, too.
Waiting likely indicates the agent is struggling to navigate different tools and processes. Or that they don’t have all the customer context they need in one place (within their agent desktop, ideally). Perhaps they’re spending time perusing knowledge base articles located here, tribal solutions stored there (wait, has this solution been peer-verified, and do I even have sufficient permissions to access it?).
All the while, time to serve is slowly going up, impacting the very performance indicators the already-taxed business support agent is routinely evaluated against. Every second the agent wastes affects the customer and the quality of their interaction, which can in turn leave other customers spending more time in the queue.
What a unified agent desktop looks like in practice
Both our theoretical enterprise client and the agent supporting them will have a much better go of it with a unified agent desktop in place. You’ll recognize a unified agent experience by a few common denominators:
- Everything agents need integrated into their primary interface or single source of truth (such as Microsoft Dynamics 365)
- Complete 360-degree context on every customer and case, whether by phone, email, SMS text, online chat, or social media
- Seamless and streamlined processes for interacting and collaborating with other agents
- Multiple agent resources, databases, and channels integrated into a single search experience
- Personalized suggestions and predictive analytics that help agents quickly find solutions or tailor responses
Why contact center leaders should care: advantages of a unified agent experience
With these core tenets supporting them, you can imagine the improvement to said agent’s day-to-day work life. Now, many of the repetitive, “low-touch” issues or context-based solution recommendations will be waiting for the agent when they pick up the phone. That means less time spent jumping between interfaces, channels, and browser tabs to find the answer.
The contact center team overseeing operations will see these optimizations reflected in their numbers. A unified, Dynamics 365-based agent experience provides more comprehensive data insights for performance tracking, feedback analysis, and other important analytics. Further benefits include gains in resolution time, agent satisfaction, and customer satisfaction that can save significant cost. In the end, the customer support leader may also find themselves with more time to focus on their mission-critical responsibilities.
Bucher + Suter’s approach: Microsoft Dynamics 365 integration
With its Microsoft Dynamics 365 integration, Bucher + Suter, a Microsoft Gold partner, provides an embedded Dynamics 365-based omnichannel desktop with Webex or Cisco Contact Center. The integration gives agents a true 360-degree view of the customer at (and in some cases, before) the point of contact, while automatically capturing important insights at every turn. By getting all the context they need without leaving the Microsoft Dynamics 365 interface, agents have more leeway to deliver exceptional and efficient customer experiences.
The integration includes the following enhancements to the agent experience:
- Agent state federation (Microsoft Dynamics 365 Presence sync)
- Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and call data transfer
- Screen-pop (and screen-pop on transfer)
- Automatic interaction logging and record creation
- Enhanced click-to-dial
- Single sign-on (SSO)
- Consult and transfer calls
- Integration API for custom integrations
Additionally, the b+s Connects Integration API can be used with other tools in the Microsoft suite to automate tasks throughout the customer interaction. It leverages Microsoft Power Automate to create knowledge lookups based on data from IVR, customer records, or the details of the call itself.
As the contact center environment continues to evolve, leaders need to stay one step ahead of their customers’ every need. Increasingly, that effort begins and ends with the agent experience.
Visit Microsoft AppSource or click here to arrange a personalized demo of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 integration.
Learn more about the b+s Connects solution here.