Jabra: We're More Than a Headset Company

Jabra is more than a headset company. If offers a higher level of service and aims to transform people’s lives with the power of sound.

“It’s kind of what separates us from the competitors,” said Karl Bateson, Jabra senior manager of marketing, pr, product placement and social media.

The company pays attention to how contact center agents are working and behaving, said Bateson, and helps address that with the appropriate solutions. For example, new open office concept workplaces make for a lot of noise and distractions, he added. Indeed, Jabra’s recent survey of 3,200 call center workers indicated that distraction and noise are the top challenges they face in doing their jobs. Helping address these problems is important, said Jabra, because call center agents are the front line in working with companies’ customers.

“Conversations on the phone are rare, yet are often a key moment when customers find that other methods have failed,” according to Jabra. “Yet for those responsible for those conversations, as many as 36 percent think there are too many interruptions from colleagues throughout the day, and on average 34 percent find noise levels in their working environment too distracting. These are rated far higher than factors such as number of calls per day or too few breaks between calls.”

Bateson added that customers want to get their questions resolved in one call, have friendly service and be able to talk to a human. If you use too much automation, he added, you spend the first few minutes with customers just calming them down because they’re so mad by the time they get to you.

Businesses spend 12 percent of their budgets on existing customers, according to Bateson. That’s a problem if they churn, of course. So Jabra is looking into whether that 12 percent is enough, he said, noting that the answer is probably no.