For many organizations, contact centers function as the face of the company, serving as the primary avenue for customer interactions. Agents are the frontline soldiers in the battle for retention, helping to shape the perception of the brand with every call.
This is a major reason why relying on outdated technology can be so detrimental. Without the right up-to-date tools, agents cannot effectively and productively win over customers and keep their loyalty.
Imagine a customer calling in regarding a newly opened account or a complicated return process. The agent is eager to help, but things move slowly. They waste minutes searching for the necessary customer data and rekeying the same information across their various desktop applications – the CRM, knowledge bases, reporting tools, data/analytics platforms, chat, email – and beyond.
Depending on the nature of the issue, the agent might need to take multiple steps within each tool and perhaps even engage multiple colleagues to help. The call drags on and the customer and agent are both left feeling frustrated.
Enterprise browsers…are built to address the specific challenges that agents encounter each day.
This is an untenable situation for today’s contact centers, whose KPIs typically include metrics on call resolution time and customer satisfaction.
A 2022 report from the Harvard Business Review found that knowledge workers switch between different apps on their desktops 1,200 times a day on average. This results in four hours a week spent reorienting themselves within their workflows.
This “toggle tax” prolongs just about every process. At scale, it can be a massive drain on team-wide productivity.
The challenges, workflows, and technology at play may be complex, but they stem from a common problem: agents are accessing their tools via browsers that fail to account for their unique challenges. But by adopting an enterprise browser, contact centers can accelerate resolution times and optimize resources while improving experiences for all stakeholders.
A Purpose-Built Solution
Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge are among the most frequently used applications in our personal lives. The same is true at work; most knowledge workers carry out their workflows using mainstream browsers.
But Chrome and Edge were built for casual web browsing, not for multi-tool, data-heavy processes that involve a combination of web tools and native apps. Too often, using them results in slow, laborious workflows. Instead of being an accelerator, the existing technology means contact center agents are forced to fight their way to resolution on every call.
Enterprise browsers, on the other hand, are built to address the specific challenges that agents encounter each day. They are a single solution to improve access to information, streamline manual processes, enable flexibility, and promote repeatable best practices.
These browsers can also future-proof an organization’s technology stack, so users can enjoy these benefits both immediately and long into the future. (SEE FIGURE 1)
From Inefficiency to Productivity
Today, most contact center agents rely on a broad range of applications that often sit siloed on the desktops. This presents a huge array of challenges; the toggle tax is just one example.
Take the example of an agent seeking to look up information on the same customer across multiple databases. On today’s crowded desktops, simply locating the right tab or window can be a major productivity drain. Once the user manages to find the necessary applications, they must reenter the search criteria into each one, creating tedious manual work while inviting room for error.
This process often involves taking notes in a word processing application and repeatedly pasting the right pieces into the relevant fields: hardly a streamlined process.
Users are then left to figure out their own workarounds and, understandably, develop their own idiosyncratic workflows to manage stressful situations and competing priorities. The effort is there, but in the customer’s eyes, the results might not be.
An enterprise browser, meanwhile, doesn’t just serve as a means of accessing applications: it’s an entry point to everything required to drive better support outcomes.
With this approach, contact centers can transform this fragmentation and inconsistency into unified, repeatable workflows that are far more than the sum of their parts. Our research suggests that this approach can shorten support call times by as much as 80%.
These benefits can take many different forms:
- Enabling unique ways for users to configure their screens, thus allowing a greater number of tools to function alongside or embed within one another: instead of constantly toggling between tabs and windows.
- Users can consolidate their workflows using as much or as little screen real estate as desired.
- Administrators can potentially build recommended layouts for specific roles or departments, fostering efficiency and best practices across the contact center.
Beyond bringing workflows into a single location, enterprise browsers can help drive processes from start to finish. With all applications available via a single pane of glass, they can share data and context seamlessly. Instead of repeatedly copying and pasting from the notes window, agents would be able to input the information once and watch it populate across every app in their workflow.
Similarly, viewing customer information in one database could trigger prompts to look up the same customer in a separate database, accelerating multi-step processes. With the right interoperability layer, contact centers can even bring their native apps into this seamless workflow.
At the same time, an enterprise browser should offer data controls so that customer information remains protected, no matter how many apps it touches.
This same ability to share data and context could enable agents to perform a single search query and instantly view results across every application at their disposal: a massive time-saver on the increasingly cluttered contact center desktop.
And with familiar productivity features adapted for an enterprise context, the total value proposition becomes that much more powerful. One example could be a notification center that actually prompts agents to open the relevant application for each alert, or even perform rapid tasks within the alert itself.
In short, an enterprise browser offers contact centers a unified, efficient means of finding information and executing workflows with far greater speed, leading to better support outcomes and greater capacity.
Enterprise Browser, Enterprise Benefits
Enterprise browsers can powerfully enhance agents’ ability to deliver for customers: but this is just the beginning. At scale, the contact center can realize transformative benefits.
Part of this comes down to a basic question of resources. By maximizing agent efficiency, contact centers can serve customers at a far faster rate, increasing satisfaction.
The contact center can also access rich analytics on how the enterprise browser is being used…
But contact centers can also reduce the number of agents required to provide this exemplary client service, thereby reducing one of the most significant costs on the enterprise ledger. Our research suggests reducing call times through an enterprise browser can result in $8 million in savings per 1,000 agents.
In addition, enterprise browsers can offer contact centers far greater flexibility and control when it comes to bringing about this resource optimization.
Secure Remote Work
I mentioned a few best practice implementations and data security benefits earlier. These are especially important with the rise of remote work.
In many cases, remote agents use non-managed devices, which are an inherent data security risk. But with an enterprise browser as the entry point, contact centers can ensure remote agents are following the most efficient workflows in a secure, compliant manner, with no device-level implementation required. This enables firms to hire the very best support professionals, no matter their location.
Accessing Rich Analytics
The contact center can also access rich analytics on how the enterprise browser is being used, far beyond what most consumer browsers typically provide.
These can include metrics on individual apps, multiple apps used in concert, specific screen setups, workflows for specific customer inquiries, and more. This enables the contact center to assess how top-performing agents are navigating their workflows, leading to insights on how to maximize productivity across the entire team.
Future-Proofing
Finally, by enabling workflow acceleration, data sharing and easy access to tools and information, enterprise browsers can protect an organization’s existing technology investments and future-proof its current stack. Instead of ripping and replacing preferred applications and disrupting long-established processes, contact centers can bring them into a new and more efficient context, driving benefits for all.
Conclusion: A Necessary Evolution
In an era where customer experience (CX) is paramount, enterprise browsers can be a game-changer for contact centers.
By streamlining workflows, reducing the “toggle tax,” and enhancing data interoperability, organizations can empower their agents to resolve issues more swiftly and accurately. The potential for significant cost savings, improved agent performance, and heightened customer satisfaction positions enterprise browsers as not just an upgrade, but a necessary evolution in the contact center landscape.
As businesses navigate the complexities of customer interactions in a competitive marketplace, embracing innovative technology like enterprise browsers will not only safeguard existing investments but also future-proof operations against evolving demands.
In this way, organizations can transform their contact centers into efficient, customer-centric hubs that drive meaningful engagement and foster lasting loyalty.
