The report of Selling power The Digital Skills Index helps us know how the digital divide is evolving in Spain in the workplace and the truth is that this year’s edition did not bring good news. 76% of employees feel unprepared for the future job: Three out of four respondents do not feel confident enough to operate in a digital world, and only 28% actively participate in digital skills training.
There’s still a lot to do, but some organizations are already well on their way to closing the digital divide. Only 17% of Salesforce respondents consider themselves “advanced” in digital workplace skillswhile almost half (49%) still consider themselves “beginners”.
There is a significant gap between everyday digital skills and those needed for work, especially among young professionals. It is said that the most important digital skill in the next five years will be related to the use of collaboration technologies, and customer service areas and field services are no exception to this need for collaboration. And the fact that the vast majority of the population uses social networks should not mislead us. That doesn’t mean they’re ready to work with collaboration tools.
Companies that operate with customer service agents and field agents have seen how their business has changed dramatically in recent years, due to the consolidation of multi-channel marketing. Employees need to be trained on new tools that ensure first-time resolution of cases with a service that concentrates all activities in a single console and operates in real time. Companies have a great opportunity ahead of them to change the way they operate and introduce collaboration through digital tools that speed up the resolution of these procedures, while increasing customer satisfaction. This new way of working can generate a real competitive advantage.
Digital headquarters in a contact center
The pandemic has shown us the importance of ensuring work from anywhere. At Salesforce, we talk about the importance of having a digital headquarters (Digital HQ): that remote working is a viable and secure option, and that distance does not limit collaboration between employees. Here, Slack becomes the cornerstone of the collaborative enterprise. In the case of customer service, “Slack for Service” allows customer service teams to automatically identify the right experts to handle each case.. How is it possible that someone who really understands your problem can help you? Here comes into play a disruptive phenomenon that is difficult to translate into Spanish: swarming. This involves finding experts in matters related to the incidents to be resolved (technicians, networks, finance, marketing, etc.) With these experts, multifunctional teams are created in real time that collaborate to resolve themLaura Abarquero, RVP cloud service of Salesforce Iberia sees customer cases in the most effective and efficient way.
In this selection of experts and throughout the resolution process, flow automation and artificial intelligence assisting managers will benefit the customerbut always relying on collaboration as an additional accelerator, translating into the average operating time and therefore the associated operating cost, as well as customer satisfaction.
Finally, add that another of the star data of the latest digital skills index is that 94% of professionals say they would stay with their company longer if it invested in their training. Without a doubt, it is time for companies to understand that the most profitable investment they can make is to train their employees in digital skills, with the aforementioned consequences on the stability of the workforce, critical in the customer service world.
Item Pictures: Photo by Kat Smith