Move the Chains, Not the Goalposts

When a football team needs more offense, the answer isn't telling everyone to run faster. You look at what's slowing the play down.

Contact center productivity deserves the same treatment.

When teams talk about becoming more productive, the conversation can quickly turn to calls per hour or handle time. Those metrics have their place, but there's another place to look first, all the work surrounding the customer conversation.

The call isn't the whole play

Think about everything an agent has to manage around a customer interaction. They listen, take notes, find information, remember what was promised, document the outcome, capture follow-up, and then prepare to do it all over again.

The conversation is the part that actually requires the person. A lot of what surrounds it is administrative work created because information has to move from the conversation into another form.

Sometimes that's necessary. Sometimes technology can do more of it.

Before asking people to do more, it's worth looking at the work they shouldn't have to do in the first place.

A few minutes becomes a lot of time

Saving five minutes on one interaction doesn't sound dramatic. Multiply those minutes across thousands of conversations and the math changes.

The same is true of small interruptions. A minute spent finding information, a few minutes writing a summary, or a manager getting pulled in because an agent couldn't easily find an answer during the conversation.

Individually, those moments are small.

At contact center scale, the pattern isn't.

Move the chains by removing administrative work

IDC's study found customer support agents at the interviewed organizations were 28% more productive, with 35% quicker call wrap-ups.

Before adopting Dialpad on Google Cloud, the organizations IDC studied relied on manual CRM notes, post-call summaries, and information retrieval during customer conversations. All six organizations deployed AI Transcripts and AI Recaps.

Real-time transcription reduced manual note-taking, while AI Recaps generated summaries and action items. IDC also describes Real-Time Assist Cards surfacing contextual guidance during live calls and AI Assistant helping agents retrieve information without putting customers on hold.

The important point isn't that technology made people work faster.

It changed some of the work they had to do.

Productivity should create room for people

There will always be customer interactions that need a person. Some problems are unusual. Conversations take unexpected turns. Context matters, and sometimes judgment or empathy matters more than speed.

That's exactly why reducing unnecessary administrative work is useful.

Time an agent doesn't spend recreating a conversation becomes available somewhere else: another customer, a harder problem, or simply less work to carry at the end of the day.

The goal isn't to squeeze more out of people. It's to make better use of their time.

Don't turn productivity into pressure

“Handle more calls” puts the burden on the employee. “Let's reduce the work that gets in your way” puts the burden on the process and the technology.

Those aren't the same thing.

That distinction becomes even more important when AI enters the picture. AI should assist with routine work, while people remain responsible for interactions that require judgment, context, and human decision-making.

A customer who needs patience shouldn't become an efficiency exercise. The point of reducing administrative work is to create more room for the work that actually needs a person.

Start with the work around the customer

IDC's results reflect the organizations it studied, so every contact center will have a different opportunity.

But the research points to a useful place to look: the work around the conversation.

How much time goes into documentation? How much information do agents have to find manually? How much work remains once the customer hangs up?

Those questions can tell you a lot about where productivity is hiding.

Keep the drive moving

Great teams don't gain every yard on one play. They remove friction, execute consistently, and keep moving.

Before asking how to get more out of your agents, ask what you can get out of their way.

That's a better place to start.

See the complete methodology and findings in the full IDC Business Value Study.