Agent
What is agent?
An agent in an in-office or remote contact center is someone who handles incoming or outgoing customer contacts for an organization. They might handle account inquiries, customer complaints or support issues. Other terms for agents include Advocate, Ambassador and Customer Service Representative (CSR).
Agents are the people customers reach when self-service cannot answer the question, or when an issue needs judgment, empathy or the authority to act. A single agent may handle voice calls, email, chat, SMS and social messages in the same shift, often moving between several business applications to find customer records and complete requests. How easily they can see context and act on it shapes both resolution speed and the customer’s impression of the organization.
Contact centers typically measure agent performance through resolution, handle time, quality scores and customer feedback, balanced against workload and schedule adherence. Increasingly, agents work alongside AI that drafts responses, summarizes conversations and surfaces knowledge, while the agent stays accountable for the outcome. Good tooling cuts the time agents spend searching and re-keying information, which leaves more attention for the customer.
Related: Agent Solve Rate, Agent Assist, Omnichannel Agent Desktop, Totalix.