Recently FurstPerson conducted research based on job analysis work conducted with contact center organizations. We blogged (Part I, Part II, and Part III) about this research but have consolidated the blog postings into a white paper.

Based on recent extensive job analysis research in the contact center industry, FurstPerson has found that there are common competencies which are often important across all job families and industries. While it makes sense that some competencies would be critical for any contact center regardless of type, the reality is that job families and working environments within each organization have critical competency differences that drive successful job performance.

Until now, little information has been publicly available on these topics in general, let alone broken down by call type or environment. Data recently gathered by FurstPerson from over 1,100 job analysis survey participants across 29 different organizations, employing agents in both brick and mortar and home agent environments, consistently found that Compliance is the competency most often rated as #1 in importance for successful customer care performance.

Our survey research also found some key competency differences between customer care environments (i.e., brick-and-mortar vs. at-home). Accountability and Openness to Feedback are two competencies rated as important for successful customer care performance in a brick and mortar environment, but were not nearly as important for customer care agents working from home. Our survey results also confirmed the conventional wisdom that Autonomy and Time Management are two competencies rated as more important for successful customer care performance in an at-home environment than in a brick and mortar contact center.

Read FurstPerson's whitepaper Who Should You Hire? Job Analysis Research Findings for more information.

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