Contemporary customer service teams are facing growing pressure to solve complex issues faster, under tighter performance expectations. A Salesforce study reveals that 77% of agents report increased and more complex workloads compared to a year ago, raising burnout risks and weakening service quality. This highlights the fact that businesses cannot compromise agent experience in favour of customer experience and satisfaction. Companies that prioritise agent experience in customer service can achieve sustainable performance, higher productivity, and customer loyalty.
what is agent experience in customer service?
Agent experience refers to how customer service professionals feel about their work environment, tools, support, and opportunities. Strong agent experience creates confident teams capable of solving problems quickly, while weak experience harms performance and increases business risk.
Poor agent experience in customer service not only affects performance and cost but also erodes customer trust. Key risks businesses face if they fail to focus on agent experience include:
- High turnover and rising operational costs: Frequent hiring and training raise expenses and disrupt team stability.
- Burnout and declining productivity: Overworked agents struggle to focus, causing errors, slow responses, and reduced engagement.
- Poor job performance and skill degradation: Limited training and support weaken problem-solving and communication abilities.
- Loss of institutional knowledge: Attrition erodes expertise, damaging team effectiveness and onboarding quality.
- Poor customer experience and reduced brand loyalty: Frustrated agents deliver inconsistent service, harming satisfaction and churn rates.
On the other hand, understanding how to improve agent experience and investing in your agents creates a stronger, motivated workforce, offering benefits like:
- Improved productivity and faster issue resolution: Better support and smarter tools help agents work efficiently.
- Higher customer service quality and satisfaction: Confident agents deliver helpful, empathetic interactions at scale.
- Better talent attraction and retention: Positive culture and career growth attract skilled professionals and reduce turnover.
A strategic approach to agent experience in customer service not just improves customer satisfaction, it also strengthens performance, reputation, and long-term profitability.
how to improve agent experience for enhanced customer experience
Customer service roles today are harder than ever due to shifting expectations, digital complexity, and uneven access to tools. Agents often face skill gaps, manual processes, and pressure to resolve high-value problems quickly. These challenges make it difficult to maintain motivation, performance, and consistency.
Understanding how to improve agent experience can help businesses overcome these challenges and drive better customer outcomes by equipping agents to work more confidently and efficiently.
build skills with continuous development
Continuous, focused development helps agents handle evolving customer expectations and complex products with confidence. Short, targeted learning cycles build problem-solving and communication skills without pulling people away from queues for long periods. Transparent career pathways also reinforce motivation, because people work harder when they see personal growth linked to performance.
modernise tools and technology
Legacy systems drain energy, slow down conversations, and create frustration. Modern platforms support faster decisions with unified interfaces, contextual knowledge, and guided workflows. Simple, intuitive technology reduces cognitive load and enables consistent performance, especially in hybrid and remote environments. Better tools empower teams to focus on customers rather than systems.
streamline workflows with automation
Fragmented workflows force agents to juggle low-value tasks. Automation removes repetitive work, standardises processes, and frees capacity for higher-value conversations. According to a McKinsey report, automating routine tasks can save 60–70% of an employee’s work time, which directly supports productivity, wellbeing, and customer experience. Automation becomes an enabler, not a replacement.
create a supportive workplace culture
A positive culture makes demanding roles more sustainable. Agents feel valued when organisations listen, recognise effort, and treat mistakes as learning opportunities. Sensible scheduling, clear expectations, and access to wellbeing resources reduce burnout and encourage long-term commitment. Healthy teams deliver consistent performance even in high-pressure environments.
build a knowledge-driven environment
A well-structured knowledge base reduces the time necessary for searching for answers and prevents escalation fatigue. Centralised guidance, real-time updates, and knowledge analytics help teams resolve issues faster and maintain accuracy. When information flows easily, customer conversations improve, and agents feel more confident in every interaction.
use AI for real-time support and productivity
AI for agent productivity transforms daily work by eliminating guesswork and simplifying complex decisions. Real-time guidance, automated summarisation, and intelligent task allocation reduce handling time and stress. AI helps agents respond with clarity, maintain empathy, and deliver consistent outcomes across high-volume channels.
recognise, listen, and respond to feedback
Feedback matters when it leads to visible action. Agents feel valued when leaders acknowledge their experience, prioritise improvements, and involve them in decisions that influence workflow. Recognition builds trust and loyalty, strengthening the link between agent experience and customer loyalty.
Organisations that invest in modern tools, supportive culture, and meaningful development elevate agent experience in customer service, creating service functions that are more resilient, productive, and customer centred.
Infosys BPM helps businesses leverage technology and AI to transform agent experience in customer service by simplifying work, improving visibility, and enabling scalable change. Its customer service outsourcing solutions combine automation, analytics, and experience design to enhance productivity, knowledge, and customer outcomes.
conclusion
Agent experience in customer service drives operational performance, customer satisfaction, and brand loyalty. Strong foundations across skills, technology, process, wellbeing, and culture help teams work confidently and sustainably. Organisations that understand how to improve agent experience and act early will build service functions that encourage innovation, inspire loyalty, and adapt quickly to future demands.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. What is agent experience in customer service?
Agent experience is how customer service professionals feel about their tools, workflows, support, and growth opportunities. Strong agent experience creates confident, high-performing teams; weak experience increases risk and cost.
Key elements include:
- Day-to-day work environment and workload balance.
- Quality of tools, systems, and knowledge resources.
- Training, coaching, and career development paths.
- Support from leaders, culture, and wellbeing programs.
Q2. Why is agent experience so important for customer outcomes?
Agent experience directly shapes service quality, resolution speed, and customer loyalty. When experience is poor, both performance and brand perception suffer.
Risks of weak agent experience:
- Higher turnover and rising hiring and training costs.
- Burnout, errors, and slower responses.
- Loss of institutional knowledge and inconsistent service.
- Lower customer satisfaction and increased churn.
Q3. How can organisations improve agent experience in customer service?
Improving agent experience requires coordinated changes across skills, tools, processes, and culture.
Practical actions include:
- Building skills through continuous, targeted development and clear career paths.
- Modernising tools and technology with unified interfaces and guided workflows.
- Streamlining workflows using automation to remove repetitive, low-value tasks.
- Creating a supportive culture with fair scheduling, recognition, and wellbeing support.
- Investing in a knowledge-driven environment with up-to-date, easy-to-find guidance.
Q4. How does AI help improve agent productivity and experience?
AI supports agents by reducing manual effort and providing real-time guidance, rather than replacing human judgment.
AI use cases for agent productivity:
- Real-time prompts, knowledge surfacing, and next-best-action suggestions during interactions.
- Automated summarisation of calls and chats to cut after-call work.
- Intelligent routing and task allocation to match skills with queries.
- Analytics that highlight coaching opportunities and process bottlenecks.
Q5. What should leaders measure to track agent experience improvements?
Leaders need a mix of operational, people, and experience metrics to understand how agent experience is changing over time.
Useful measures include:
- Agent turnover, absenteeism, and internal mobility.
- Handle time, first-contact resolution, and quality scores.
- Employee engagement survey results and eNPS.
- Training completion, skill progression, and knowledge usage.
- Customer satisfaction, NPS, and complaint trends linked to specific teams.
