Call Center Management

13 Reasons Why Call Center Agents Resign

by: Ms. J. Lovo

Working at a call center is like being in a sea of penguins — you’re surrounded by many people just like you. Frontline agents often find it difficult to stand out from among the myriad employees who perform the same job. Also, in many call centers, the levels of authority are very visible, managers and supervisors seem to hold all the cards, and there is little flexibility for expressing one’s creativity or individualism. This is why it is critical to pay attention to your employees’ subtleties; to know and to acknowledge what is important to each individual and act on it.

Causes of Agent Attrition

Frontline turnover is one of the biggest headaches for call center managers. There are many reasons why agents quit. The following are some of the most common, along with suggestions for boosting your retention rates.

Highly Structured Job Environment

Call centers typically have in place strict rules on when to be on and off the phones, when to take breaks and lunch, as well as talk time and call volume goals, and call monitoring. Em­ployees without previous experience working in this type of environment often have a difficult time adapting to it.

TIP—Make realistic job previews a part of your hiring process. Explain and describe a day in the life of a call center representative. If possible, have candidates sit with a senior rep while he or she takes calls. Be sure not to oversell the job in the hopes that the positives will outweigh the negatives for the candidate.

Changing Bonus Structure

Compensation continues to be a top cause of call center attrition. Frequent changes to the salary and bonus structure are typically in­tended to reflect shifting company objectives in a demanding market — yet they leave agents feeling out of control. And if employees begin to make less money on bonuses and incentives, it is the kiss of death.

TIP—Try to make modifications over time to minimize the impact of drastic changes. Com­municate often with agents to ensure that they have a clear understanding of the bonus structure and what they can do to impact their compensation.

Benefit Changes

Changes in benefits can range from the price of healthcare to doing away with free coffee in the break room. When employees feel that the company is taking away from what was originally promised when they were first hired, it leads to distrust and bitterness.

TIP—Communicate. Offer a full and honest explanation of the changes and involve staff in the discussion via an open forum. The key to acceptance is to understand the reasons behind the company’s decision. Even though employees will be upset, they will appreciate the fact that you took the time to speak to them and address their concerns.

Low-balling the Employee at the Time of Hiring

Pay agents what they’re worth. Don’t offer a candidate what he or she asks for if it’s below what everyone else is making.

TIP—Employees always talk about how much they make so don’t take ad­vantage just because the candidate did not ask for much and did not counter-offer. When employees find out that they’ve been low-balled in their salary offer, they will feel betrayed.

Call Burn-out

The repetitiveness of the calls, coupled with the stress that comes with dealing with difficult callers, leads to burn-out.

TIP—Create a bonus structure that will keep agents focused on reaching their goals. Continuously encourage and motivate your employees with small but meaningful gestures to let them know you care and appreciate their hard work.

Lack of Growth Potential

In employee surveys, the lack of career opportunities frequently lands in the top five reasons for leaving a job. Experienced agents often feel like they’ve hit the glass ceiling when they’ve acquired all the skills they need and, no matter what they do, there is no chance of promotion.

TIP—This is where very open and honest communication comes into play. Make sure that you have the pulse on your group. Be aware of those agents who have been with the company for a long time. How do they feel? What do they think about the progress that they may have made? If they’re interested in a leadership role, how can you help them to develop for the next open spot?

If supervisor positions or promotions are scarce in your company, then perhaps you can offer the opportunity to work on or lead a project. Senior-level agents want to be in a role where they can feel empowered and responsible. Con­sider delegating some of your managerial tasks to veteran agents to provide them with new challenges — ask them to run a team, represent a training session, create a contest, lead the team for a day, etc.

Attrition

It is ironic, but attrition creates attrition for two reasons: Agents get recruited by former coworkers or, worse, they leave because everyone else is leaving, which must mean that something is wrong with the company. Constant turn­over has a negative impact on the agents who stay because of in­creased work loads.

TIP—Work closely with your staff in trying to anticipate the changes that a fluctuating team might cause. Involve your agents in centerwide changes at the planning stage. Let them know that their feedback is valuable. Most of all, keep them informed. Communicate frequently and honestly — make sure that the news they hear comes from you, and not from rumors.

Lack of Professionalism in the Work Environment

Some employees are excessively comfortable in their work environment, which can make others feel ill at ease. Lack of professionalism can include the way that agents dress, how their individual work areas are decorated, or just a lack of courtesy in how they speak to and treat one another — any or all of which might cause some employees to look for a better work environment.

TIP—Ask agents to emulate the same professional and courteous behavior that they use with callers with each other. Set internal customer service standards for the work environment and uphold them. Consistency is crucial in managing staff expectations regarding the work environment.

Rumors about the Company’s Stability

Most employees either know someone who has been laid off or have been through the experience themselves. When a company fails to communicate, makes too many unexplained changes or is undergoing a merger, employees will choose to leave rather than risk being let go. Even if the rumors are not true, by the time management catches wind of it, a good number of employees could easily be lost.

TIP—The lack of communication sparks most rumors, so communicate as much information as possible. Make sure your agents know the organization’s current status and strategy, leadership direction and reasons behind any recent or upcoming changes.

If you keep your agents in the dark, they’ll start to assume, theorize and come up with their own conclusions. Your employees will not only be misled, they’ll also influence anyone who listens.

Low Morale

There are many factors that produce low morale in the call center: high call volume, lack of or poor leadership, high absenteeism, low pay and dealing with irate callers are just a few. Stress also comes from working in an environment where the supervisors and managers are always tense and focused on the numbers.

TIP—Don’t let the stress and worries of your job filter down to your agents. Your main role is to encourage agents to do the best they can. Remember to praise your staff frequently and find ways to keep motivation levels high.

Inadequate New-Hire Training

In the rush to fill empty seats, many times, new agents are rushed through the training process and expected to produce results in a relatively short amount of time.

TIP—Don’t set employees up to fail. Keep in mind that character over com­petence has the highest pay off in the long run. Candidates with the personality traits that you’re looking for, and who fit well within the culture of the call center, are worth the time investment. Make sure new-hires have all the necessary tools to hit the ground running and succeed. Track the effectiveness of your initial training process and try to customize it as much as possible to each new-hire.

Fear of Retaliation following a Conflict with a Supervisor or Coworker

Employees will only share information when they believe that they can tell their manager about workplace concerns without fear of retaliation. If a dispute with or complaint against a coworker or supervisor arises, in many cases, the employee will choose to leave rather than risk facing an uncomfortable situation at work.

TIP—Open communication is the foundation of a positive workplace culture. Create an environment in which agents feel that they can speak their concerns directly with their manager without the fear of retaliation. Make sure that all of your supervisors have a clear understanding of the company’s policy on handling complaints and disputes, and that HR has a strong presence within the call center.

Ambiguous Job Performance Feedback

Agents want to know how they’re doing and to be recognized for their contributions. Fuzzy feedback during performance evaluations contributes to low morale and poor performance. A classic example is the agent who hits and even exceeds all the performance measures, but isn’t promoted because he is just not “management material.”

TIP—Give agents specific information that can be used constructively. De­scribe the behavior, not the personality or attitude, and give specific examples of what they can improve on. Ad­dress areas where improvement is needed, outline your expectations for improvement and how you intend to help the employee meet them.

Being honest and direct adds value for the employee. Although it may be uncomfortable to have the conversation, as a manager you have nothing to gain and a lot to lose by not letting the agent know exactly why he keeps getting turned down for the next level.

Your goal should be a positive culture

The costs involved with continually replacing agents can cripple a call center. Although you can’t always control all of the reasons why employees leave, in today’s market, it’s imperative to hold on to your valued agents and continue to develop and motivate them.

TIP—Focusing on opportunities to create an environment where our employees enjoy coming to work each day should not only be our goal, but our responsibility as employers.

Bill walks around the call center with all of the enthusiasm and charm of a meat inspector.

“How you doing?” he asks in a monotone. “It’s your turn, I guess.”

He has just invited a phone rep to a coaching session. Three calls will be played and Bill will share his evaluation of each one with the rep.

Spying his checklist Bill remarks, “You left out your close in this one.”

“But otherwise, it’s fine. You’re mostly staying on the presentation, and this is good. Any questions?”

And with that, another “deep and meaningful” coaching chat concludes.

What’s wrong with this picture?

At least 5 things are askew:

(1) The session is one way: Bill’s. He talks, you listen. This is no way to create a sense of mutuality of purpose or ownership of calls.

(2) Bill scored the call but the rep didn’t. Reps should be trained to score their own calls and then share responsibility for the conduct of and results of coaching sessions.

(3) For this to happen, so-called “quality checklists” must contain more than hollow terms. They need definitions. The phone phenomena that are discussed need to be defined objectively and behaviorally. For example, I’ve seen numerous score sheets that use the term, “sincerity.” This is a dumb category to begin with, because the link between someone sounding sincere and getting great customer results is tenuous, but more important how can Bill tell when someone is sincere? Is he omniscient, all-seeing, able to enter others’ hearts and souls at will? If we define sincerity objectively, however, as the rep’s VOICE behaving a certain way, doing certain things while avoiding others; or as a customer’s VOICE doing certain things or saying certain words, in response, we move onto more solid ground.

(4) There is no assurance Rep A will be coached the same way as Rep B. Fairness in interpreting and applying the checklist criteria isn’t audited or objectively defined or scored, either. Bill could punish Megan, but praise Audrey for doing exactly the same things, but his discrimination or favoritism would evade review and correction.

(5) Most recording and monitoring are done secretly. Reps should know exactly when they’re being observed. We want them at their best at all times, so when we tip them off they’re being scrutinized they try harder, showing themselves and others what they’re REALLY capable of doing. What could be better than that? It’s instant improvement.

Why don’t call centers enhance their coaching techniques? Every one I’ve encountered that remains stuck in the muck claims “We don’t have time to do a more thorough job!”

The same folks then prepare to waste their efforts on yet another generation of phone workers that will turn-over in short order.

They miss the point that a stitch in time saves nine.

Pay full attention to the people you have on board now, be fair and thorough in your evaluations, measuring the right things the right way, and you’ll go a long way toward remedying the turnover and underlying motivational problems that plague calls centers and the people who work in them.

This is a VERY good article published in the Harvard Business Review…

Absorb it….

The 10 Questions Every Change Agent Must Answer

As leaders, we have no control over how fast markets grow or how wisely banks lend. But we do control our own mindsets — the phrase coined by John Maynard Keynes in the depth of the Great Depression. If all you’ve got is a spreadsheet filled with red ink and dire forecasts, it’s easy to be paralyzed by fear and resistant to change. But if you can summon some leadership nerve, then hard times can be a great time to separate yourself from the pack and build advantages for years to come.

Indeed, when it comes to creating the future, the only thing more worrisome than the prospect of too much change may be too little change — especially in an economy where there are too many competitors chasing too few customers with products and services that look too much alike. Now is the time to rethink long-held strategic assumptions inside your company, to challenge decades of conventional wisdom in your industry, and to push yourself to learn, grow, and innovate. As Albert Einstein famously said, “Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them.” Or, in the spirit of some unknown Texas genius: “If all you ever do is all you’ve ever done, then all you’ll ever get is all you ever got.”

It’s time to do — and get — something different. Here, then, are ten questions that leaders must ask of themselves and their organizations — questions that speak to the challenges of change at a moment when change is the name of the game. The leaders with the best answers win.

1. Do you see opportunities the competition doesn’t see?

IDEO’s Tom Kelly likes to quote French novelist Marcel Proust, who famously said, “The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes.” The most successful companies don’t just out-compete their rivals. They redefine the terms of competition by embracing one-of-a-kind ideas in a world of me-too thinking.

2. Do you have new ideas about where to look for new ideas?

One way to look at problems as if you’re seeing them for the first time is to look at a wide array of fields for ideas that have been working for a long time. Ideas that are routine in one industry can be revolutionary when they migrate to another industry, especially when they challenge the prevailing assumptions that have come to define so many industries.

3. Are you the most of anything?

You can’t be “pretty good” at everything anymore. You have to be the most of something: the most affordable, the most accessible, the most elegant, the most colorful, the most transparent. Companies used to be comfortable in the middle of the road — that’s where all the customers were. Today, the middle of the road is the road to ruin. What are you the most of?

4. If your company went out of business tomorrow, who would miss you and why?

I first heard this question from advertising legend Roy Spence, who says he got it from Jim Collins of Good to Great fame. Whatever the original source, the question is as profound as it is simple — and worth taking seriously as a guide to what really matters.

5. Have you figured out how your organization’s history can help to shape its future?

Psychologist Jerome Bruner has a pithy way to describe what happens when the best of the old informs the search for the new. The essence of creativity, he argues, is “figuring out how to use what you already know in order to go beyond what you already think.” The most creative leaders I’ve met don’t disavow the past. They rediscover and reinterpret what’s come before as a way to develop a line of sight into what comes next.

6. Can your customers live without you?

If they can, they probably will. The researchers at Gallup have identified a hierarchy of connections between companies and their customers — from confidence to integrity to pride to passion. To test for passion, Gallup asks a simple question: “Can you imagine a world without this product?” One of the make-or-break challenges for change is to become irreplaceable in the eyes of your customers.

7. Do you treat different customers differently?

If your goal is to become indispensable to your customers, then almost by definition you won’t appeal to all customers. In a fickle and fast-changing world, one test of how committed a company is to its most important customers is how fearless it is about ignoring customers who aren’t central to its mission. Not all customers are created equal.

8. Are you getting the best contributions from the most people?

It may be lonely at the top, but change is not a game best played by loners. These days, the most powerful contributions come from the most unexpected places — the “hidden genius” inside your company, the “collective genius” of customers, suppliers, and other smart people who surround your company. Tapping this genius requires a new leadership mindset — enough ambition to address tough problems, enough humility to know you don’t have all the answers.

9. Are you consistent in your commitment to change?

Pundits love to excoriate companies because they don’t have the guts to change. In fact, the problem with many organizations is that all they do is change. They lurch from one consulting firm to the next, from the most recent management fad to the newest. If, as a leader, you want to make deep-seated change, then your priorities and practices have to stay consistent in good times and bad.

10. Are you learning as fast as the world is changing?

I first heard this question from strategy guru Gary Hamel, and it may be the most urgent question facing leaders in every field. In a world that never stops changing, great leaders can never stop learning. How do you push yourself as an individual to keep growing and evolving — so that your company can do the same?