Building Agile CX Teams Through Targeted Training

The on-demand delivery industry relies heavily on swift, effective, and precise customer service, as it demands real-time issue resolution and seamless communication. Maintaining customer satisfaction hinges on an agile support team capable of managing unexpected challenges and addressing queries promptly. That’s why a leading food ordering and delivery platform needed to prioritize tailoring their training effectively, and partnered with IntouchCX to ensure their top-volume drivers and agents gained the skills required to handle high-impact customer issues.

Our training sprints focused on equipping agents with the precise skills needed to resolve specific challenges, ranging from technical troubleshooting to complex customer concerns. By aligning our program with the distinct needs of our partner’s service environment, we reinforced critical skills for high-volume scenarios, exploring tools like co-pilot functionalities to improve Average Handle Time (AHT). These sprints aimed to reduce response times and build agent confidence and proficiency, setting a foundation for seamless adaptation to evolving customer needs.

Optimizing Agent Skill Sets

Recognizing the unique skills needed for standard customer service compared to those essential for managing high-demand scenarios is crucial in a fast-paced industry. IntouchCX identified this need and conducted a high-level analysis to determine whether agents were being effectively trained to handle these challenges and if the agenda was truly aligned with the necessary skill set for optimal resolution. In this assessment two main areas of improvement were identified.

1. Co-Pilot Opportunity

Agents faced workflow inefficiencies that impacted both productivity and customer satisfaction, marking the first of two key challenges. Streamlining processes and reducing errors became critical to ensuring a smoother and more effective customer experience.

• Agents spent 1-2 minutes confirming the customer and searching for the solution in the knowledge base.
• Agents spent 1 minute documenting case notes, often getting distracted while doing so during the call.
• Most auto-failures occurred due to missed callbacks or failure to use the outbound script.
• Occasionally, agents would overlook addressing all of a customer’s needs—for example, handling two out of three issues while missing one.

Smart Prompts in Action

• Prompt guides were created with a co-pilot tool and enhanced with access to Zendesk articles through hyperlinks for quicker reference and support.
• We used a Robotic Process Automation (RPA) tool—a technology that automates repetitive, rule-based tasks—to generate automated summaries of actions taken for case notation, improving efficiency and reducing agent workload.
• We implemented a co-pilot tool that prompts agents with the script during outbound calls. To reinforce this, we incorporated roleplay exercises in the training process, allowing agents to practice using the script in real-world scenarios. This has become a required skill for passing the Certification Assessment.
• A co-pilot case summary was set, automatically capturing all customer needs and indicating whether each was addressed. This streamlines case documentation and ensures no issues are overlooked.

2. Training and Agents Success

The second key challenge was the opportunity to advance agent preparedness to enhance the quality of customer interactions. Strengthening training, skill assessment, and understanding of customer needs was crucial to improving performance and ensuring agent actions aligned with business priorities.

• New agents selected incorrect reason codes for contacts and were unaware of the impact of QA and its importance to the business.
• New agents did not acknowledge the caller’s pain point(s).
• There was no skill assessment or certification in place. Quizzes focused on the product (app/services) rather than key drivers and customer use cases.

Roleplay Reinvented

• The training approach was structured to include listening to sample calls, completing the QA rubric for each use case, and discussing the appropriate reason code. Agents also engaged in mock ticket handling and roleplay exercises, ensuring they accurately completed reason codes in Zendesk.
• We added a training module to present acknowledgment statements, ensuring agents understood their importance. Training practice was further enhanced by incorporating roleplay exercises that required agents to include acknowledgment statements.
• Building a certification process in collaboration with our partner allowed us to adjust assessments to better align with the work and problem-solving requirements.

Projected Success

Emphasizing both skill refinement and process adaptation, strategic sprints will foster an environment where agents can confidently manage diverse tasks, from technical troubleshooting to handling nuanced customer concerns—enabling organizations to create a CX team that thrives in both performance and customer satisfaction.