It’s a Match: Talkdesk Tool Tackles Contact Center HiringIt’s a Match: Talkdesk Tool Tackles Contact Center Hiring

Contact center-as-a-service provider Talkdesk has launched a gig-economy job tool for connecting companies hiring contact center agents, supervisors, and system administrators with candidates.

The tool, called CXTalent, uses the Talkdesk iQ artificial intelligence engine for the match-ups. iQ groups potential candidates based on their skills, certifications, and experience. Then, it recommends the best candidates for the job.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on different industries. Some verticals, such as food services, streaming media, and home improvement have seen an explosion in business, while others, such as automotive, clothing, and beauty have experienced a significant fall off in business. As a result, some organizations have had to staff up their contact center workforces while others have had to reduce them significantly. The question is, how can the companies that need more agents quickly find experienced people to fill their voids with those laid off by other organizations? CXTalent is effectively a matchmaking service that creates a contact center talent pool from which businesses can select candidates.

While CXTalent, which is available for all customers, can alleviate the pressure companies face today to staff contact centers with well-trained customer service agents, Talkdesk also intends to support employment opportunities for customer service industry novices, too. For contact center newcomers who want to learn new skills or the recently unemployed looking to change careers, Talkdesk is offering free training on its CCaaS platform through the Talkdesk Academy.

Job seekers can expand their knowledge by taking various courses and earning Talkdesk certifications. Talkdesk Academy offers four progressive levels of coursework to sharpen a candidate’s skills: apprentice, sensei, master, and grandmaster.

Talkdesk Academy relies on AI to create recommendations of additional skills that could help candidates get hired. The academy follows a multitier process to train agents, supervisors, and administrators in using Talkdesk for remote contact center service and support operations.

Talkdesk is an increasingly popular cloud-based contact center platform for companies with fluctuating customer service needs. Using Talkdesk, companies can equip contact center agents to work from anywhere and manage customer service inquiries across all channels, including voice, email, chat, or social media. This allows agents to have flexible work hours to answer inquiries outside regular business hours, while keeping response wait times down to a minimum.

Companies can choose to staff their contact centers with additional agents during the holidays or when call volumes are high, as is the case now for some industries during COVID-19. For example, telemedicine and healthcare providers are experiencing an uptick in customer service calls as doctors meet with patients virtually. Meanwhile, grocery delivery services need additional contact center agents to handle online orders. Other industries may require agents who can tackle complex tech support issues or those who speak another language.

Being able to maintain the highest level of customer service is paramount today. I’ve interviewed a number of CxOs about their business priorities during this COVID-19 pandemic, and the top initiative is ensuring employee productivity stays high but number two is maintaining the highest level of customer service — and that often starts with the contact center. In fact, I would argue that companies need to up their contact center game right now as consumers want to hear proactively from the brands that they use to understand how the business is operating during this crisis. Whether the business is booming or struggling, it’s not a time to go quiet from a customer service perspective.

Whatever the need may be, CXTalent finds the best match and speeds up the hiring process. Talkdesk also works with business process outsourcers (BPOs), which companies turn to for extra customer service support. BPO partners can find qualified candidates through CXTalent to fill open roles or to supplement staff shortages.

COVID-19 created increased demand for contact center agents in some industries, while cutting demand in others. But when looking beyond the current pandemic, platforms like Talkdesk could potentially transform contact center staffing. There will be many opportunities in the future for companies to add trained and certified agents quickly where they currently don’t have the support.