Today’s podcast is with Martin Teasdale, host of Get out of Wrap, a contact centre focused podcast, and Ed Creasey, Global VP of Solutions Engineering at Calabrio, a workforce performance suite provider. Martin recently collaborated with Ed and the team at Calabrio on a new piece of research called Voice of the Agent. Martin and Ed join me today on the podcast to talk about some of the main findings emerging from the research, the enhanced reputation of the contact centre industry and some key messages for team leaders and contact centre leaders and directors.

This interview follows on from my recent interview – We got everyone involved in support and made our customer support metrics public – Interview with Kenji Hayward of Front – and is number 529 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders who are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

Here are the highlights of my chat with Martin and Ed:

• Collaborated on a recent piece of research (Voice of the Agent), which focuses on capturing the agent perspective.
• Big shout out to Rachel Russell, who is a superstar and led the team who pulled this research together.
• Agents report that they are proud of the work that they do:
  • 70% of agents would recommend their job to a friend, 64% are proud to work in the contact centre and 66% of agents are satisfied with their job overall.
• The talent within our industry has evolved, which lends itself to better management.
• 79 % of agents said that they received a wage increase in the last 12 months.
• But the report did also muse whether this was just a box-ticking exercise and something that they were forced into doing because of the macro environment.
• Is there a disconnect between the changing complexity and requirements of the role and how it’s being rewarded?
• Does the salary and the reward structure meet or match the growing requirements and complexity of the role in a market-driven economy?
• One of the things I see all the time when working with speech and text analytics is the amount of needless cost there is in the contact center that could be avoided and is often caused by other areas of the business, but it manifests itself in the customer experience.
• 56% of agents don’t find AI useful in their daily tasks.
• The problem is that we’re not putting it in front of agents in a sensible way before we put it live.
• I was sat with an agent last week who was taking payments with 15 applications on their
• desktop.
• When you trial something it has to be with a typical team and not a superstar team.
• There was a piece of data in the research that said 38 % of agents say they never have planned social activities.
• That feels like a missing piece.
• However, you have to recognise, certainly given the hybrid world that we live in now, that more effort is required.
• It would be interesting to see if there’s a correlation between agent attrition and number of social activities.
• If you’re a leader that isn’t necessarily that way inclined then delegate it.
• 46 % of agents say they have little or no control of their schedules.
• Increasing that number should be on everyone’s to-do list as it demonstrates that work-life balance and agent wellbeing are important.
• Martin’s best advice: Read the research and take action on it. And, talk to your teams. Not just the
• customer facing ones but the support functions as well. Ask them: “What can we do to make your job better, easier?”
• Ed’s best advice: Get your agents involved in the scheduling process and use AI and automation to help you increase the frequency you conduct agent coaching.
• Ed’s Punk CX brand: H&M.
• Martin’s Punk CX brand: A UK healthcare brand that can’t be named and Nespresso.

About Ed

Ed Creasey is Global VP of Solutions Engineering at Calabrio, leading teams from the West Coats of the USA to Australia. With 30+ years in customer experience, he’s worked from contact centre agent to executive level, specialising in AI, analytics, workforce optimization, and cloud solutions.

His experience spans contact centre software, mobile telecoms at Vodafone, quality & empathy research, and pioneering interaction analytics in EMEA. He’s a regular public speaker on CX industry challenges and specialises in AI’s impact on customers and employees.

Ed focuses on delivering practical solutions that drive success for his customers, bringing expertise in contact centre technologies, AI, automation, and workforce engagement management.

Check out Calabrio, grab a copy of the new research report: Voice of the Agent and feel free to connect with Ed on LinkedIn here.

About Martin

Martin Teasdale started in call & contact centres as an agent on the phones in a Contact Centre in London following university and has stayed in the industry he loves ever since. Martin progressed in Operations from Team Leader , Contact Centre Manager, Head of Sales, OBTM Director through to a Senior Director of Quality Solutions before leaving employment to focus on his podcast and community as a solopreneur.

Martin is passionate about the Call & Contact Centre Industry and helping others and it was this that led to Martin setting up the UK’s first podcast dedicated to this industry, called ‘Get out of Wrap’ in May 2019. Now at 150 episodes Get Out of Wrap has become a UK Call & Contact Centre institution.

Martin has also created the Team Leader Community which is an online community for Team Leaders, managers and aspiring Team Leaders. The community is totally interactive and is a safe, inclusive space for Team leaders to

come together and share best practice, share and overcome challenges together and to learn from industry experts. It is jam-packed with content and posts every day and is the single best place to get the content and help you need to become an expert team leader.

Check out Get out of Wrap and feel free to connect with Martin on LinkedIn here.

Image credit: Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash