Call Center Scheduling Featured Article
Build a Positive Contact Center Culture with Scheduling and Perks
While contact centers are admittedly expensive to run, a properly run contact center can result in a net gain for any company. This is where customers are soothed, placated, informed, influenced and upsold/cross-sold. It’s in the contact center’s best efforts to keep customers happy, and the best possible way to do that is to keep employees happy. Call centers with high turnover with not only bleed cash, but they’ll always have rookies on the phone with customers: not an ideal scenario.
Reducing turnover in the contact center is the best way to turn a cost center into a profit center. When you keep your employees for longer, you’ll reduce what it’s costing you to recruit, hire and train workers, and your veteran contact centers will be able to wield their skills and knowledge to provide customer support excellence.
A good workforce management and call center scheduling solution can work wonders in reducing turnover. When agents are stressed, they’re more likely to leave, according to a recent blog post by Monet Software (News - Alert) CEO Chuck Ciarlo.
“Workforce management software can get the forecasts and the KPIs [key performance indicators] under control,” he wrote. “Angry callers will always be with us, and they may be one of the reasons why agents leave. Since disgruntled customers can never be completely eliminated, the best way to reverse those high turnover numbers is to give agents a reason to stay.”
While ensuring agents have the time and tools to do their jobs correctly is at the core of reducing turnover, there are other ways companies can do this, mostly by building a positive and supportive contact center culture, showing employees they are valued, and reducing some of the stress that comes with an agent’s job.
“What is the culture like at your call center? How does the workspace look? How do agents feel when they start their shift every day? There are steps that can be taken to boost workplace culture and morale and help to keep spirits up, even when the work itself can be tedious and challenging,” wrote Ciarlo.
Some of the steps companies can take to improve the workplace culture include an open-door policy with managers, social events with agents and their families, birthday celebrations and extras such as a nice break room with comfortable seating, good coffee and entertainment. Ciarlo notes that social events with families are particularly important, because it builds a sense of kinship between agents and their employers.
“By arranging family events throughout the year – bowling tournaments, visits to local attractions or amusement parks – agents will get to know each other better and you’ll meet their families in a relaxed setting,” he wrote. “Socializing in this way contributes to a positive culture, and encourages agents to think of their coworkers as a second family – and that will keep them around longer.”
Above all, ensure your efforts are genuinely, so find that perky happy and positive person to put in charge of the events. Halfhearted attempts will be met with halfhearted responses, and won’t do anything to keep turnover numbers down in the long run.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi