There is much debate about what makes an ideal contact centre agent...It is indeed extremely important for organisations to get it right at the front line as most often agents are the ones who directly interact with customers at the first instance and represent the organisation’s image to customers.

So what makes an ideal contact centre agent?

Is it the older mature female? Or is it the tech-savvy multi-tasking Gen-Y? Or is it someone else??

Huge generalisations here:

1. With older mature females you get the softer skills, the empathy, the understanding and listening skills, along with a more stable workforce giving you longer tenure and lower attrition
2. With Gen-Y’s you get the multi-tasking ability to handle multiple channels and tasks along with good computer and technology utilisation skills

So ideal, is perhaps a mash-up of the above two types of staff: Someone with good soft skills, mature minded and is capable of efficiently and effectively handling multiple channels at tasks at the same time – now this is perfect!

In reality, how many of these type of people are there in this world? I’d imagine they’d be pretty hard to come by...

Obviously every organisation is different – products/services, values and behaviours, culture – with this the types of staff suitable for each organisation will be different too. It is perhaps good to have a mixture of staff characteristics, this may allow you to get the best of both worlds. Also mix it up within the teams as well, this will allow sharing of individual skills and knowledge and hopefully a merging of skill sets – one day everyone will be perfect ideal contact centre agent...

But seriously, analyse your workforce, work out the types of staff that not only have good performance but also have good team and personal skills, and profile them – this could be combination of technical ability as well as psychological aspects – then go and recruit for this type of person... remember this does not stay the same, as people and organisations change and evolve continuously... continually update and refresh your recruitment criteria.

Even though you may have found your ideal contact centre agent, be sure to provide them with relevant ongoing training in your policies, processes and procedures, contact handling techniques and contact centre technologies to ensure your agents are fully equipped to assist your customers.