Your frontline and back office have different jobs to do, and that’s how it’s supposed to be. That’s because they work in two different environments. Your frontline agents work in real time, meaning a problem arises and they take the call and attempt to resolve it. They work to pursue immediate resolution, taking calls as they come unless a backlog develops during periods of heavy activity.
In the back office, employees may be performing work or tasks that don’t involve having direct contact with customers. Tasks in the back office may take days or even weeks to complete, and they aren’t necessarily looking to resolve an immediate conflict.
Many times this can lead to a feeling of separation between the two. They know the other is necessary, but they don’t have a specific use for each other at most times. This isn’t ideal, because when an issue does arise that requires collaboration between the frontline and back office, you don’t have the structure or relationships in place to easily resolve the issue and move ahead. Instead, you have a lot of back and forth that doesn’t accomplish much, while distracting both teams from their primary goals.
So what are the upsides to collaboration between the two? For one thing, you’ll be providing better customer service. Your frontline may handle the customers individually, but it takes the entire contact center to provide excellent customer service over a long period of time. Collaboration between the two leads to the proper sharing of information, meaning that frontline agents have what they need to resolve a situation without waiting on the back office.
When you have collaboration between the frontline and the back office, you’ll also notice that employees are happier and perform better. That’s because each side understands the objectives of the other, and also knows how each role supports the other. You want your entire team to be working in sync, not like two different sides with their own independent goals.
And if you want to really achieve collaboration in your contact center, then you should be investing in workforce optimization solutions. These solutions can help your business improve the way the frontline and back office work together by:
Collaboration between your frontline and back office is absolutely necessary if you want your contact center to run as efficiently and productively as possible.
Workforce optimization solutions from Kova facilitate the capture and process of critical information about work output and customers, revealing areas of opportunity, and providing the insights that produce measurable results. So contact Kova today if you’d like to hear more about how our workforce optimization solutions can benefit your contact center.
