Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
Call Center Scheduling Can Help Stem Agent Attrition
When companies sit down to plan ways to improve the customer experience, few of them begin by thinking up ways to improve the employee experience. While it should be obvious that the well-being of agents directly affects the loyalty of customers, many organizations resist the connection: it may mean they have to spend some money.
Agent attrition is a problem in the contact center industry. It’s a high-pressure job, it’s often poorly paid, and burnout rates are high. For this reason, the contact center has some of the highest turnover rates of any other company function. This is a problem: it means that customers are often put into the hands of new and poorly trained agents who aren’t experienced enough to provide great customer service. Think of the most skilled and experienced customer support representative in your organization: you’d clone that person if you could. While that may not be possible, it IS possible to improve agents’ work experiences and tempt them to remain in their jobs longer. And yes…you may have to spend some money. The rewards, which will come in the form of better customer loyalty, should more than cover the expenses.
For starters, you should look around agents’ work environment and see how you can make simply being at work more appealing. Does it need new carpeting and paint? Are workstations old and falling apart? Are agents too closely crammed together? Is there natural light? Do you have a decent break room where stressed agents can relax a bit? All these things can make a difference in how workers feel about their jobs, and trend them more toward the positive, according to a recent blog post by Monet Software (News - Alert) CEO Chuck Ciarlo.
“There are several options available here, starting with sprucing up the office – new chairs, clean restrooms, fresh snack food items in the break room,” he wrote. “Agents are more likely to stay when they can work in a clean and welcoming environment. Also, try to inject a little fun into the daily routine, either by launching customer service contests with small prizes for the best-handled calls, birthday celebrations, or more creative spins on casual Fridays – ‘Fancy Dress Fridays’ or ‘Monday Night Football’ days where agents can wear the jersey of their favorite team or player.”
Where you can really make a difference in agents’ lives, however, is by offering them flexible work hours. Some of the best employees you’ll ever have cannot work 9:00 to 5:00 because they have family obligations. Often, this is the reason agents depart, according to Ciarlo.
“Another reason agents leave is when they can’t reconcile the demands of their job with their home life, going to school or working a second job,” he wrote. “You won’t be able to solve all these problems, but you can build more flexibility into your schedules to better accommodate agent preferences. For example, consider introducing a shift that finishes at 2:00 pm to help those who need to pick up their children from school.”
With a flexible scheduling solution, you should be able to easily accommodate the special needs of workers with family or school obligations. You may find that the parents of young children are great for the early morning hours, while college students adapt best to late afternoon or even nighttime hours. With a great scheduling solution, it shouldn’t be that much of a challenge to build a schedule that ensures the right amount of coverage at the proper times while still allowing workers to have some flexibility. When workers have jobs that fit their lives, they’re more likely to stay. And customers are the ones who will benefit most.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi