Learn how you can make an impact on your customers' experiences by improving your support agents' experiences

1. Improve Customer Experience
Through Agent Experience

2. Customer Support plays a big role
in your customer’s overall experience
While some customer support
improvement initiatives can be
helpful, they might not deliver big
shifts in how customers feel about
their experience with your company.
Question: How can you fundamentally
impact overall customer experience
through customer support?

3. …by improving the experience of your agents
Develop an Agent Experience Map – agent experience maps are similar to customer journey maps,
but from viewpoint of the agent
“Fix” the Problems – use the agent experience map to brainstorm and target opportunities where
agents are most unhappy… and where their experience is adversely affecting your customers
Measure Agent Experience Efforts – Identify key metrics in the agent experience and collect
ongoing feedback to test the impact of specific improvement initiatives on the agent experience
Create an Agent Advisory Council – establish a group of agents who are passionate about making
changes and use the council to foster continued agent feedback and ideas
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Conduct Agent Research – use research to learn about the day-to-day life of your agents

4. Conduct Agent Research
First, conduct research with your
agents the same way you would your
customers, educating yourself on the
realities of their front-line experiences
Research Methods can include:
• Agent Observations/Ethnographies
• Agent Interviews
• Agent Focus Groups
• Agent Surveys
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5. Focus on all elements of the agent journey
just as you would with a customer journey
Typical agent journey elements:
• Hiring/Selection Process
• Onboarding and Initial Training
• Experience / In-Production
• Reward and Recognition
• Career Development
• Performance Management
• Loyalty and Engagement
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6. Research will help you understand the following
for each part of the journey:
• What agents do at each step in the journey
• How they feel at each step of the journey
• What they are expecting
• Who or what they are interacting with
• How they feel today and how they want to feel
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7. Once all your research is complete,
collectively map the agent journey
with your team. This is typically done
in a cross functional team meeting.
This hands-on, collaborative mapping
activity reinforces the research, gets
buy in on the agent viewpoint from
the team, and engrosses everyone in
the agent’s voice.
An example of an Agent Journey Map
is included on the next slide
Hold a Journey Mapping Session2

8. Hiring/
Selection
On-boarding/
Training
Experience/
In-Production
Reward and
Recognition
Career
Development
Performance
Management
Loyalty/
Engagement
Agent
Experience
Emotion
Graph
Agent
Quotes
Opportunities
12345678910
Delighted
Dissatisfied
AGENTEXPERIENCEMAPEXAMPLETEMPLATE
Include agent quotes that support the emotion at each
stage in the experience in this row
Identify opportunities for improving the experience at
each stage in this row
Note the emotion at each step in this row – from
dissatisfied to delighted
Identify process steps in the
agent experience in this row
Note: The sample map template is intended to be an example based on best practices in agent experience; some organizations may want to customize it to
reflect their environment.
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9. As you map the journey, circle the gaps in how the
agent feels and how you want them to feel as well as
the gaps in what the agent expects and what they are
getting today. Afterwards, conduct group
brainstorming activities to determine what initiatives
can be implemented to overcome those gaps.
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Map the Gaps

10. “Fix” the Problems
Agent Happiness
CustomerImpact
Low
Low High
High
Low Agent Happiness
Low Customer Impact
Low Agent Happiness
High Customer Impact
High Agent Happiness
High Customer Impact
High Agent Happiness
Low Customer Impact
Fix First
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Use the
experience
map to
identify the
biggest
challenges
and quick
wins

11. • Identify clear objectives for what you want to learn, develop baseline
metrics, and ensure the insights gathered are actionable
• Measurement can be a combination of existing metrics (i.e. first contact
resolution), and new metrics gathered through research conducted with
the agents using surveys, interviews, and focus groups
• Combining quantitative and qualitative measurement tools can be very
impactful:
– Agent surveys and existing metrics: Provides baseline and tracking measures
– Agent interviews, focus groups, and observations: Provides the “why” behind
the results as well as new ideas for improvements
Measure agent experience improvements
and correlate it to customer satisfaction
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12. • Get regular feedback from all contact centers
• Establish a venue for gathering feedback on new programs, tools and
processes by agents, BEFORE implementing them
• Get agents involved and part of the solution
Create an Agent Advisory Council to…
Pick your agents… Pick your topics…
• Positive attitude about making changes
• Respected by peers
• Effective communicator
• Mix of “old-timers” and “newbies”
• Demonstrate leadership
• Feedback on the products, “what the
customers are saying”
• Feedback on tools, training, processes,
communications, support systems
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13. Customer Support is a key driver in
your customers experience. Improving
your agent experience is just one
strategic initiative that has been
successful for many of our clients.
Ask us about how we have helped
global support organizations create
compelling experiences for their
customers.

14. At Clearworks we help our clients connect with their
customers to create clear and compelling products,
services and messages. We get what it takes to bring a
product or service idea to life and how to create an
actionable plan to get there. We understand what you
need to know and how you’re going to use that
information to make decisions. Let us bring clarity to
your products and services.
customers. connections. clarity.
Thank You.