How do knowledgeable agents impact customer experience?

Customer experience goes beyond simply analyzing how customers feel about your brand and their journey with it. Customer experience can transform into your biggest growth engine if done well. Your employees are also a key part of CX; isolating them and ignoring their importance is a big mistake. 

The employee experience is vital for your business's CX to thrive, so you need to treat your employees with care. Some companies create a culture of quality where everything needs to be taken care of, and this is the best you can do for your employees as well. Remember, they are the ones dealing with customers, so their feelings will be visible to customers.

We believe it shouldn’t be too hard to transform your philosophy, as the outcomes will speak for themselves. Happy employees = happy customers, which is why we take care of our agents. So, if your business is suffering from poor CX, you need to evaluate your internal environment; your agent experience might be showing signals that something is wrong. 

The truth is, how do you expect your customers to feel cared for when you are not making your employees happy and feel valued? If you want to understand the role of employee experience in your overall customer experience strategy, then you’re in the right place!

What is Agent Experience (AX)?

First, we must define Agent Experience (AX) as the sum of all interactions, tools, and cultural touchpoints that an agent encounters within a contact center. While Employee Experience (EX) is the broad umbrella of working for a company, AX is the hyper-focused subset specifically looking at the friction or ease of a support agent's daily workflow.

The role of knowledge in the agent experience and CX

A knowledgeable agent goes beyond understanding the company’s products and services; they are able to comprehend customer needs and read between the lines. You cannot have a knowledgeable agent without a centralized "source of truth." A modern Knowledge Management System ensures that information is:

• Searchable: Finding answers in seconds, not minutes.
• Standardized: Every agent gives the same (correct) answer.
• Dynamic: Updates to products are reflected in real-time.

Now, the non-negotiable knowledge that your company must share with every agent is:

• Product expertise: Agents need a deep understanding of features, use cases, and common issues to recommend solutions.
• Policy and process awareness: Clarity on company rules, workflows, escalation paths, and compliance regulations to accurately respond to customers and avoid issues.
• Problem-solving ability: The capacity to analyze situations and deliver practical, tailored solutions. Agents need to improvise when needed and be able to analyze a situation quickly. 

Knowledgeable agents show confidence, know how to make informed decisions, understand how to adapt their tone, and are able to navigate routine and complex situations with ease. But knowledge doesn’t come from reading articles and customer experience best practices; it is your responsibility to train them. 

Trained agents will be up-to-date with the resources they need to perform at their best level, and that translates into increased productivity and customer satisfaction. 

The impact of knowledge on a customer experience strategy

1. Faster resolution (FCR) through reduced friction: When agents receive constant training, they are updated with information that helps them improve their resolution speed. They can also collaborate with an AI bot that retrieves information from the business’s knowledge base, improving the customer experience.
2. Building trust through confidence and emotional connection: Trust is earned, and customers know when an agent knows what they’re saying. If the agent shows confidence in what they say, that feeling is transferred to the customer, improving their trust. Taking the time to understand what the customer needs and providing a great explanation shows you care about them.
3. Personalization through understanding: While scripts are great for entry-level tasks, they limit the ability to adapt and personalize the experience. Training agents and reinforcing their knowledge allows them to adapt to the customer context, enhancing the interaction’s value.
4. Proactive support through problem prevention: Knowledge allows the agents to anticipate customer needs. When agents master critical thinking skills, they can recognize patterns and reach out to customers who will potentially experience an issue, improving the experience through proactive support.

Knowledge is a great way to reduce uncertainty and friction, two of the most common issues that damage the customer experience. An experienced agent avoids eroding customer trust by providing accurate solutions and reducing friction by lowering the effort customers need to solve a problem.

When an agent doesn't know an answer, their brain is in "survival mode," searching for information. This creates a high cognitive load, leaving no room for empathy. When knowledge is second nature, the agent can stop focusing on what to say and start focusing on how the customer feels. This is how "Knowledgeable Agents" actually drive emotional connection.

Why knowledge alone isn’t enough

It is well known that training improves the agent experience by empowering them to exceed expectations. Companies assume that training alone can improve the customer experience as well, but you need more than that.

Training agents improves their efficiency, but being efficient will not improve your company’s CX. Even trained agents struggle when the business environment is not favorable, so taking your time to ask feedback from them is the best course of action. This ensures that your culture is built to empower your agents. To do so, you need to avoid:

• Tools that are fragmented across multiple systems
• Workflows that are overly complex or unclear
• Burning agents out from excessive workload
• Limiting the autonomy to make decisions

If your agents are working under these conditions, then knowledge is not the only solution to your problem. Collaborate with your agents and create feedback workflows that allow you to transform their insights into actionable steps that will transform their experience. The price your CX will pay is catastrophic: interactions become slower, more mechanical, and less empathetic.

Agent experience refers to the overall environment in which agents operate. To evaluate it further, you must analyze their experience regarding the following:

1. Tools and systems: the technology stack

Modern customer support outsourcing companies rely on a range of technologies: AI copilots, integrated CRMs, knowledge bases, and unified desktops.

Modern customer support outsourcing companies rely on a variety of technologies to improve the agent’s experience: CRMs, knowledge bases, unified customer profiles, AI bots that provide context, and real-time analytics. When these systems are well-integrated, the experience improves by:

• Allowing agents to access information quickly.
• The customer context is preserved across interactions.
• Having streamlined workflows.

When they are not, friction increases, making technology useless:

• Agents switch between multiple platforms
• Information is duplicated or lost
• Resolution times increase

2. Training and development opportunities

When your company builds a culture of continuous training and development, your agents feel motivated. This keeps them engaged and aligned with your CX goals. Training enables them to deliver high-quality and consistent support, but developing their skills is what truly empowers them. To do so, you need to build a well-structured program that includes:

• Keep agents aligned with evolving products and services
• Strengthen both technical and soft skills
• Reinforce confidence in handling complex or high-stakes interactions
• Focus on development opportunities

Make space to invest in your employees’ careers, opening growth opportunities and creating new opportunities for them will make them feel valued. By doing so, your employees will treat your customers with care. 

3. Autonomy and decision-making power

One of the best ways to make employees happy is to let them make decisions by themselves, but we understand your concerns about this. It doesn’t mean that you’ll leave them on their own; this means that you train them and share knowledge constantly so they can make informed decisions. 

This empowers them by making them feel how valuable their insights are while performing their tasks, also pushing them into gaining more experience. When you control them too much, it can lead to burnout as they’ll feel trapped when it comes to important decisions.

Autonomy allows agents to:

• Resolve issues faster
• Personalize solutions based on real-time context
• Build stronger, more authentic customer relationships
• Take ownership of their work

There’s a strong link between autonomy and engagement, supported by this study: McKinsey suggests that happy and engaged agents are more likely to feel empowered to resolve customer issues better.  

4. Human-centric culture

Human touch is important for a great CX and agent experience. Your employees are not replaceable, so every tool you hire needs to optimize and improve their experience, just like you would do for your customers.

Improving the agent experience shows they are far more than operators. You must recognize their importance when it comes to your business strategies; they need to be strategic partners that bridge the gaps between customer feedback and great CX. Organizations need to prioritize:

• Recognition
• Well-being and mental health
• Continuous learning and professional development

81.9% of employees agree that recognition improves their level of engagement, and companies that prioritize recognition report 21% greater productivity.

5. The impact of AX on CX quality

A great agent experience reduces the workload of employees, so they can focus on complex cases that require their unique expertise. To understand the true impact of agent experience in CX, you need to collect and analyze feedback. To do so, you must evaluate some metrics. 

Measuring metrics like: Agent effort score (AES), internal quality score (IQS), employee net promoter score (eNPS), agent utilization & occupancy rate, and Agent Attrition can help you get a holistic understanding to correlate them.

Forrester’s Customer Experience Index highlights that declines in CX are often tied to weaker employee experience. When internal conditions worsen, customer outcomes follow. Poor agent experience introduces stress. As Zendesk notes:

“Poor agent experience can lead to poor job performance, or worse yet, a high turnover rate… eroding a support team’s knowledge base and its ability to better serve customers.”

Knowledge determines what agents can do, and agent experience determines how well they’re going to do it. When you mix a well-thought-out strategy with both, you get elevated performance. Understanding this is vital to improving CX, and your business must apply a practical model that allows you to spot differences between similar teams and know what to do.

The model we’re talking about is the following: “The CX equation”, which allows you to segment the variables that end up mixing to determine an agent’s performance.

• Agent knowledge = Helps you measure their capability.
• Agent experience = Helps you measure the conditions they’re working on.
• CX quality = The outcome of knowledge applied through a positive experience.

The environment and the culture in which agents operate must support the application of the knowledge you share with them. For leaders, this framework highlights a critical insight: improving CX starts by investing in your employees. 

Agent Experience elevating customer experience

M&T Bank example

A practical example of this can be seen at M&T Bank. Facing fragmented operations across multiple contact centers, the organization streamlined its systems and unified its technology stack. 

By investing in training, leadership development, and creating a more supportive environment, they significantly improved engagement and performance. Agents were given the training and culture they needed to thrive, enabling them to deliver more consistent and confident customer interactions.

As their leadership emphasized, the turning point was clear:

“One of the first things in our vision was that employee experience drives customer experience.”

How to improve customer experience by investing in AX and knowledge

Improving customer experience requires a balance between the investments made for training and agent experience. As we stated, knowledge is not enough for agents to thrive; they also need an environment that empowers them to succeed. 

If companies don’t find a balance, then they’ll burn out their agents. To avoid it, you must provide the necessary resources for agents to perform their tasks. This means training them, offering the right technology to support them, unified systems, and a culture that supports their career growth. 

Unfortunately, studies show that only 26% of customer support agents feel they have all the tools and resources they need to succeed, and 6 in 10 report that a lack of customer data leads to negative experiences. 

When you focus on reducing agent friction, you’ll directly improve both agent performance and CX outcomes. The top 3 strategies you can implement in your business right now are:

1. Hire AI tools to support your agents. AI is really effective in enhancing knowledge, agent experience, and customer interactions. These tools are great for sharing customer context and real-time insights that help agents strike a balance between efficiency and human connection. PwC’s Future of Customer Experience report says that speed, convenience, consistency, and friendliness englobe a great experience. 
2. Empower your agents to improve the CX strategy. Stop restricting your agents and start trusting in their judgments. Create training programs that keep your agents updated with the latest trends and your specific customer needs to boost their confidence into taking their own decisions. Allow a safe environment where they can fail (PD: only when they’re not facing a high-risk scenario).
3. Ensure employee well-being and long-term growth. Mental health and wellness programs are just as important as creating new growth opportunities for your employees. Ensuring they are feeling safe and protected means a lot. Stress and anxiety can be increased when facing tense situations constantly.

If you take care of them and allow them to grow in their career, they are going to stay loyal to your company.

Your company depends on your employees’ performance, and only when you see it that way will you start investing in the agent experience. Some employees have customer-facing roles, and if they are not feeling valued, then their lack of motivation will be perceived by your customers, turning into negative experiences.

At Horatio, we understand the importance of investing in your employees' development and well-being. Which is why we built a culture that lives through the employee-first philosophy. By doing so, we ensure our employees enjoy their jobs, a feeling that’s transferred to your customers. 
Contact us and let's build a team where agent experience and knowledge merge to improve your overall customer experience.

1. How do knowledgeable agents impact the customer experience?

Knowledgeable agents improve CX by resolving issues faster, providing accurate information, and building trust. They reduce customer effort and deliver more personalized, confident support.

 2. What is agent experience (AX)?

Agent experience (AX) refers to the tools, training, workflows, and work environment that shape how effectively agents can do their jobs and support customers.

3. Why isn’t agent knowledge alone enough for great CX?

Even highly knowledgeable agents struggle without the right tools, support, and autonomy. Poor working conditions limit their ability to apply knowledge effectively.

4.  How do agents impact the customer experience?

Agent experience shapes the environment in which agents operate, through training, tools, and a culture that values their work. When agents feel supported and equipped, stress and cognitive load decrease, enabling better communication, empathy, and consistency. Happier, more engaged agents deliver higher-quality interactions, which leads to better customer experiences.

5. What is the difference between CX vs EX?

CX (Customer Experience) focuses on customer interactions, while EX (Employee Experience) focuses on the work environment. Strong EX directly improves CX outcomes.

6. How to improve customer experience through your support teams?

To improve customer experience, companies should invest in both agent knowledge and agent experience, through training, better tools, AI support, autonomy, and employee well-being, so agents can deliver faster, more personalized, and consistent service.