Category: Industry Insights

  • Achieving a Cloud Migration Victory: Prioritizing Human Factors

    Achieving a Cloud Migration Victory: Prioritizing Human Factors

    The aphorism “one hand washes the other,” ascribed to Seneca the Younger, underscores the symbiotic relationship between human beings and technology. Without one, the other would cease to function – or even exist.

    Human ingenuity spawns technologies that tackle complex challenges and precipitate sweeping societal transformations, exemplified by the Internet and, more recently, artificial intelligence—a true paradigm shifter.

    Jeff Bezos succinctly captured this dynamic, noting that “We co-evolve with our tools. So we invent new tools, and then our tools change us.” Similarly, cloud technology has drastically altered organizational landscapes globally, enabling instant collaboration and accelerating development cycles, profoundly impacting everything from remote gig work in the United States to vast call centers in India.

    Yet, cloud migration projects frequently falter and the best-laid plans can fall short. Reasons range from budget overruns and inadequate planning to unrealistic timelines. And a critical oversight in many of these projects is underestimating the human element.

    Successful cloud migration necessitates a holistic approach involving every organizational level. This was illustrated by Amazon Web Services, which identified stakeholder misalignment as “Pitfall #1” in cloud implementations. A cloud initiative requires a cohesive, purposeful, and unified effort.

    The article explains, “The root cause for this is usually the absence of buy-in and alignment from application and business teams. You are prematurely committing funding for a cloud migration initiative without a clear top-down mandate.

     

    Change Management – The Heart of Cloud Success

    Take Accenture, whose experiences underscore the centrality of change management in cloud migration. Their Federal Services division’s shift to the cloud, while fraught with unexpected challenges, was buoyed by astute foresight of its management and the agility of its operating teams.

    “With a detailed reskilling and change management program in place, employees were able to quickly transition to new roles, in many cases shifting their focus from simply managing workloads to optimizing performance,” the Accenture report said.

    The cloud is more than a bundle of hardware and software tools. It’s a powerful change agent for how work gets done. It impacts every area of the organization, from data storage to collaboration, IT to HR, and sales to operations. Employees across an organization will grapple with its impact.

    Prominent firms like Google, Accenture, Deloitte, McKinsey, and IBM offer bespoke frameworks and consultative services to guide this process.

     

    The Age of Anxiety, Overcoming Resistance and Building a Cloud Culture

    No matter the approach, unmanaged change leads to confusion, decreased productivity, and frustration, which can jeopardize projects. Your goal should be to communicate with honesty and directness that the organization is pivoting to a ‘cloud-first’ culture.

    Here are two human areas to focus on when implementing a cloud migration initiative:

     

    Employee Resistance to New Technologies

    Resistance to new technologies and the associated anxiety about job security are natural responses to rapid change. Managing this transition effectively is vital. Clear, honest communication about transitioning to a cloud-first culture can alleviate uncertainty and foster acceptance.

    Here are steps to mitigate employee resistance:

    • early stakeholder involvement
    • celebrating milestones
    • recognizing and identifying enthusiastic “cloud champions” to foster buy-in
    • regular updates on cloud migration progress and challenges

     

    Knowledge Gaps and Skill Shortages

    Cloud adoption often reveals gaps in knowledge and skills. A multifaceted approach to upskilling—encompassing targeted training, continuous professional development, mentoring, online courses, and workshops—is essential.

    As Seneca suggested, cooperation is fundamental to success. This is particularly true in cloud migration, where technological and human factors are inextricably linked.

  • Pushed to The Breaking Point, Contact Centre Agents Are Burned Out

    Pushed to The Breaking Point, Contact Centre Agents Are Burned Out

    Their youth was gone. They were old already. They were through with it. They had no more illusions, and no more resistance. They were empty and indifferent. They had been robbed of the simple human feeling of happiness…

    – Erich Maria Remarque

    Global enterprises frequently offshore contact center operations, lured by benefits like reduced labor costs, 24/7 service capabilities, and multilingual support. While this strategic move allows businesses to concentrate on core functions, the well-being of these agents is paramount.

    High stress and burnout rates not only affect retention but can compromise brand interactions. True brand integrity requires an inclusive approach, ensuring all representatives, irrespective of location, feel valued and integral to the organization’s mission.

    According to a Cornell University 2020 research study, 87 percent of contact centre agents report high or very high-stress levels. This data doesn’t bode well for companies that rely on contact centres to be the first and only human contact with customers.

    Contributors to advisor stress include back-to-back calls, verbal abuse from customers, understaffing, constant performance monitoring, heightened consumer expectations, and the perpetual demands of being a brand ambassador.

    The Costs of Contact Centre Agent Burnout

    Agent burnout has a significant negative impact on operations and the bottom line. Key consequences include:

    • Increased absenteeism and turnover: Burned-out agents take more sick days and are more likely to resign, leading to staffing deficiencies and reduced productivity.
    • Declining customer service quality: Exhausted agents struggle to deliver excellent service, making more mistakes, interacting rudely with customers, and demonstrating apathy. This drives customer dissatisfaction and lost sales.
    • Heightened costs: The financial impact includes expenses for hiring and onboarding replacement staff, lost productivity from absenteeism and turnover, and incalculable costs from dissatisfied customers who may defect to competitors.

    Proactively identifying and mitigating burnout is crucial to avoid these negative repercussions.

    The Rise of AI and Analytics To Understand Emotional Intent

    AI has become highly efficient at recording voice, video, text and email while providing multiple ways to present contact centre managers with meaningful updates on agent performance while monitoring call volume. The aim is to support the agent during peak periods to avoid the triggers of burnout and fatigue.

    Consider a 2023 research study conducted by EvaluAgent, which provides quality assurance and performance improvement solutions for contact centres. The study was conducted among 300 contact centre professionals in Europe and North America. The highlights of the findings include:

    • 47 percent of all contact centre employees plan to leave their jobs within 18 months.
    • 23 percent of contact centres use AI
    • 72 percent of employees are comfortable with AI solutions measuring their performance

    Measuring absentee rates, turnover, customer satisfaction scores, and agent engagement can also provide leading indicators to address issues before they escalate.

    Automation and AI have made significant changes to customer support, but complex and intricate issues still demand nuance require a human touch.

    Recognizing contact centre agents, even across regions, as true vanguards of brand representation is imperative, especially as they often engage with customers during moments of frustration. Their experiences and insights, thus, become invaluable and prioritizing well-being and their feedback is essential.

    We’re hardwired to care about the social and emotional interactions with others. We’re social beings,” said Dr Phoebe Asquith, Lead Psychologist for Wellbeing Solutions and Senior Business Consultant at Sabio Group. But for agents, the common result of caring is exhaustion and loneliness, she said.

    Get closer to your contact centre agents. Your customers will remain close too.

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