Top 3 complaints from customer support agents

We all have our fair share of job-related woes. Unfortunately, a recent Gateway Research report found that support agents have their fair share of industry complaints.

According to the same report, Uncover the true value of your support organization, there are numerous benefits to having a support team who can successfully (and happily) do their jobs, including better customer retention, reputation, and earnings. If any of the following complaints resonate with your own support team, read on to learn how to make your agents (and customers) happier.

1. Conflicting priorities and strategies
Support agents have to share the brunt of multiple stakeholder influences, which can mean having to balance differing game plans and approaches to support: 38% of the surveyed respondents complained of feeling overwhelmed by conflicting priorities and strategies. This can lead to a lot of juggling, trying to please too many people or departments at once, all while failing to meet the needs of the customer.

As is usual with conflicting ideas, communication is key. Agents need a clear understanding of their roles and what success looks like. By knowing which priorities and strategies are working, support teams can work towards a better and more cohesive strategy built around keeping things simple.

2. Too much on their plate
We all have too much on our plate. But hearing that from a support agent should be alarming, because that likely means they’re not resolving customer issues in a timely fashion (or stressing themselves out to do so).

The Gateway survey found that this issue goes both ways: 33% of surveyed customers were frustrated by “unacceptable resolution times”, and 36% of the surveyed support professionals complained of having too much on their plate. It would be surprising if there wasn’t a correlation between the two.

Since the easy answer of “hire more support agents” isn’t always an option, customer support departments need to get smarter to quickly resolve issues while maintaining quality support. Self-service options, such as a mobile-optimized help centers, as well as automations that direct customers towards self-service information in a timely and streamlined fashion, can take reduce the number of tickets agents must actively work on. When customers can help themselves, an agent’s workload will seem a lot less daunting.

3. Some CX systems are hard to use
An overly complex customer experience (CX) system is kind of an oxymoron: it’s meant to remove unnecessary middle layers for a simple end-to-end experiences, yet it makes things more difficult for the agent (and as always, the customer). A difficult CX system was the top complaint of support professionals: 45% of the surveyed respondents felt that their systems were too hard to use or integrate into their workflow.

Giving support professionals an easy-to-use platform that simplifies the tough work of customer service can solve this issue. Agents can have the effective tools they need for collaboration, information gathering, and automation. An easy-to-use system assuages the common difficulties of the job, leaving a support team with more solutions than complaints.

Customer service doesn’t have to be painful for your agents or customers they support. Learn more about common roadblocks that prevent companies from providing great support, and how avoiding them can lead to loyal customers.

Read the Gatepoint Research report: Uncover the true value of your customer support organization