How Voyc helps you care for your team members – as well as your customers – in stressful times.
With the cost-of-living crisis deepening, pressures are building on agents taking customer calls in contact centres throughout the UK financial services industry.
It’s vital to spot potentially serious problems early and provide care and support when needed.
“It’s clear that team members working on the front line are going to face increasing stress as the current crisis unfolds” says Deborah Ware, Consumer Credit Specialist and former COO at Financial Wellness Group, a leading debt advice and support provider.
“The anxieties that some customers express in calls are already having an emotional impact on some agents. Employers need to be mindful of this and consider what they can do to provide support. Luckily, technology can help a lot these days”.
Deborah’s concern reflects the current environment in many financial services call centres across the country.
Agents often face conversations with customers who are emotionally distressed. Sometimes to extremes which are difficult to manage. In fact, it’s not unheard of for callers to talk to agents about their suicidal feelings. That’s well beyond the kind of conversation that contact centre employees have historically been expected to handle.
On other occasions, agents are increasingly facing abuse and even serious personal threats from customers who are struggling to cope with the daily pressures of life.
The financial services sector is particularly exposed to this rising concern. Often, money-related problems contribute to the customer’s anxiety, such as unmanageable credit card debt, negative investment returns or disagreement over an insurance claim.
All in all, the impact on team members handling difficult calls from stressed customers can be very harmful.
Caring for front-line staff has never been more important
The global economic outlook remains fragile and unpredictable and financial services contact centre agents are likely to face challenging customer interactions for the foreseeable future.
It’s critical for employers to provide comprehensive training, support and protection for team members.
Morale, productivity and staff retention all depend on this. But most importantly, so does the health and well-being of the people affected.
How Voyc helps you protect team members
At Voyc, we’re already helping financial services firms provide their vulnerable customers with the care they need and deserve. Our white paper on this subject discusses this area in full detail.
But the Voyc solution can be applied equally well to protecting and caring for contact centre team members faced with potentially harmful customer interactions – as explained by Steve Peacock, Chief Risk Officer at Oplo:
“Call monitoring software certainly helps firms provide a more appropriate and considerate service to vulnerable customers.
“It also helps identify those agents in the call centre who need extra help, training, and even support and respite when they find themselves in a difficult or distressing situation. It is absolutely a priority to not only help customers, but also look after our colleagues who often have to deal with new and challenging life experiences.”
The Voyc software can readily be configured to help firms identify and respond instantly to specific words, phrases and emotional indicators whenever they occur – in 100% of call centre interactions.
Whether it’s a specific phrase used by a distressed customer, or an agent struggling to respond to a difficult interaction – Voyc will send an instant alert to specific individuals, like supervisors or trainers, or teams designated to deal with the situation. A simple click on the alert plays the precise part of the call that is of concern – and action can be taken immediately to support the agent and handle the issue as required.
Find out more, with a free demo
We’ll be delighted to give you full details of how Voyc can help your business protect and care for your people as well as your customers.
We can even give you a live demo, tailored for your particular business.
To get started, simply contact us here and we’ll get back to you without delay.
“Seeing Voyc in action – live on your own calls – is the best way to understand how it works and the instant benefits it delivers,” says Matthew Westaway, Voyc’s co-founder and CEO.
“We’re always delighted to demonstrate how the solution monitors 100% of call centre interactions – and how we can configure the software to raise an unmissable alert whenever there’s an issue in a call that needs support. These alerts enable the appropriate supervisory and QA teams to take immediate action – and deliver the care and reassurance needed and deserved by front-line agents as well as customers“.
