Combating Technology Fatigue in the Contact Centre

Natalia Abad of Genesys discusses how you can protect your contact centre agents from technology fatigue and protect their well-being.

While the new normal of working remotely has allowed contact centre agents to stay safe and, in some cases, increase their productivity, it also has changed how employees relate to one another.

With this, companies have identified the skills and abilities necessary to engage remote workforces and collaborate online. But new challenges surface as we add digital tools and software to meet the needs of customers – and potentiate employee performance.

Contact centre employees face a lot during a single day of work. Not only are they the face of your brand and good name, they also must answer enquiries, review and validate client information, come up with effective solutions to questions, manage their time to properly service clients’ needs, and even attend trainings. And they often need to do all of this through multiple interactions and tools.

Navigating these disparate tools and software ultimately leads to poorly executed tasks.

Repetition and Technology Fatigue

Repetitive tasks and changes to different tools that employees use create technology fatigue — a state of mental exhaustion and disengagement that occurs when people are required to use numerous digital tools and apps repeatedly.

Not only does this decrease an agent’s ability to execute their daily tasks efficiently — and that affects productivity and job quality — it even causes physical symptoms, such as sore and strained eyes, frequent headaches, back pain, and sleep deprivation.

Several factors cause technology fatigue, including the need to exert a lot of effort and execute different processes only to achieve a single task; over-scheduling daily tasks, contributors, and tools needed; and the need to demonstrate good performance.

Also, because of technology fatigue, it’s common for employees to become frustrated and eventually abandon a task. This translates to a drop in productivity — and that affects your business outcome and bottom line.

Finding Balance for Employees

Companies must find a balance in employee productivity and the employee experience. It’s important that, with the abundance of digital tools available in the workplace, companies ensure their employees are positive and focused so they can achieve success.

This often means reducing the steps employees must take to complete tasks, making conversations with employees more meaningful, giving them tools that keep them engaged without creating extra work and reducing the number of interfaces they have to handle.

Author: Robyn Coppell