Five keys to improving the customer experience: Optimize your workforce The success of a company’s interaction with its customers ultimately rests on the abilities of the individuals communicating with them. Marketing, sales and customer service specialists must possess the basic ability to speak clearly and listen to what customers have to say. It’s one thing to have the best communication equipment and policies in place to track performance and improve operations, but none of your efforts will be successful if your representatives can’t establish a connection with your callers on a basic human level. That’s why Genesys listed optimizing the workforce as one of the ways companies can create a world-class contact center and enhance the customer experience. A successful customer phone call is typically driven by the call center representative’s ability to communicate, and these skills can always be further developed. Working with call center agents with a basic skills and a willingness and ability to grow will ultimately assist with an organization’s professional development initiatives. The Genesys white paper says that inbound call center jobs are changing, and businesses have to be cognizant of this and focus development efforts on new requirements. “The scope of the contact center is changing dramatically, and that change is accelerating as customer interactions become increasingly multi-channel and require more coordination with departments beyond the contact center, including the back office,” the paper says. “That means companies must ensure that agents and employees are properly trained with the right skills at the right time to meet the scheduling demands.” Finding the right people to start with will make a significant difference in these efforts. Working with a call center services provider will put businesses on the path to developing service agents and improving the customer experience.