Robotic Process Automation and its effect on contact center agents’ work and resourcing

Abstract

The aim of this study is to understand and answer how robotic process automation (RPA) in back-office tasks affects agent work and resourcing in contact centers. The questions are approached from the sociotechnical perspective of information systems theory by looking at seemingly two separate issues as a singular joint-optimization problem that can have both instrumental and humanistic objectives.

Literature about robotic process automation is reviewed to understand the technical component of the study, the automation tool of choice alongside with contact center forecasting and resourcing to provide the context of the study. Other focal areas of the thesis are knowledge work, mindless and mindful actions, and work engagement which shed light on this thesis’ social component, the customer service agent and subsequently their humanistic objectives. Resourcing focus is on understanding the potential instrumental objectives, such as operating efficiency and service level performance.

After the literature review the study continues with a qualitative case study of a Finnish insurance company and its contact center operations. In the case study, semi-structured interviews are conducted to both development advisors and agents to understand how RPA has affected agent work and contact center staffing, forecasting, and performance. The interviews were thoroughly analysed with focus on situations pre- and post-automation, and the changes ensued in the contact center. User observation of the planning process was conducted, and Case Company’s internal material was used to understand RPA processes.

After the data analysis, it was possible to understand the agent work pre- and post-automation and analyse how the introduction of RPA has affected their work. The study shows that reducing mindless activities from agent work can offer higher engagement and reduce excess strain, subsequently offering agents more time in their main activity, serving the customers. Similarly, the data suggests that RPA can simplify the contact center workforce management processes and help the contact center serve their customers, especially reducing complexity and offering help with seasonal peaks in demand.

As the study shows RPA can enable more mindful workday designs for customer service agents and thus affect their work engagement in a positive way. RPA can also offer help simplifying the staffing process by reducing skills in the contact center’s skill matrix, and reducing the required workload by taking care of back-office tasks on its own or alongside with the agents. Based on the existing literature and the case study, the findings are combined to a table and divided per humanistic and instrumental objectives. These findings offer new insight to task automation and how it affects the employees who work alongside the robots, which managers can utilize when choosing new automation targets.