5 Tips To Reduce Employee Attrition in Contact Centers

August 8 2022
Stefan Dimikj

Employee attrition in contact centers is one of the biggest challenges that companies face in this industry. Staff attrition can occur due to many things, yet, there’s always a root of the problem.

If your business identifies the root, the challenges can be overcome in a way smoother way. In this article, you will find out what attrition means, what the attrition rate is, and why call center turnover happens.

In the end, you will know how to prevent these things from happening!

Attrition meaning & Attrition rate

Before we dive deeper into the topic, it is important to define the meaning of attrition.

Namely, in this context, we are talking about employee attrition. Well, the most simple definition you can get is the following: “Attrition is the departure of employees from the organization for any reason (voluntary/involuntary)“.

Since now you have a clue regarding what employee attrition means, the next step is to define what the attrition rate is. First of all, when you think of the attrition rate, you can think of it as a key metric that tracks the rate at which employees leave the company. Keeping a clear track of the attrition rate can provide you with a crystal-clear sight of the behavior of the employees.

For instance, the attrition rate can show you whether you deal with internal attrition and (in)voluntary attrition. Or maybe the reason is burnout or demographic-specific attrition. So, what’s the attrition rate formula?

Attrition rate (%) = (number of leavers/ number of employees ) x 100.

How to reduce employee attrition?

In the second part of the article, we will concentrate more on the ways you can reduce staff attrition, so let’s begin right away!

#5 Introduce Flexibility Into Agents` Schedules

Contact centers should not only care about the customer experience but also about their employees. How do they feel? Are they satisfied with the job? Are there any benefits aside from salary?

There are many ways to introduce flexibility into agents` schedules and trust us, they are very important and they do matter! For example, the Friday job can be done from home, and introduce a hybrid model for work. Such things are very important in the modern era.

Or, you can let them set their working schedule. Why? Because people want a work-life balance. After all, they are humans and deal with stress in their private life.

Business Flexibility

#4 Offer Continuous Opportunities For Growth

Creating an environment that guarantees continuous growth will make every business thrive, regardless of the industry. Call agents in the customer service industry are like any other employees. They want stability, continuous growth, and further development in their career.

Hence, your business has to offer them and let them know that there aren’t boundaries for development. There are many models of which you can take advantage to succeed.

First and foremost, continuous training should be one of the most important goals for your company. Or, you can enhance the one that you already have.

Aside from this, you can focus on providing the right mentorship, and praise the work contribution of your employees. Do not hesitate to make them feel appreciated or offer them bonuses after they reach their goals.

Lately, more and more companies offer online courses. The intention is to make their employees cope with the latest technologies.

So, be innovative and never stop upgrading the working environment.

Career Growth

#3 Improve Agent Recruitment

Hiring the right call agent is not the easiest thing in the world, but that’s not something new. Thus, your company has to have a well-structured recruitment process to avoid mistakes.

The first rule is to take a look at the skills, no matter if they are soft skills or not. After that, you should rank recruiting those agents that are compatible with your company values.

What happens in practice is that, companies hire call agents that have a phenomenal portfolio, but they miss some things. Things such as compatibility.

You can have the best possible candidate for the interview, but if he/she does not share your company’s vision or values, employee attrition will happen. Also, when hiring, your company should be straightforward about the position, and not overpromise things. This is bad for you and for the next employee.

What happens in the market is that companies tend to use boring or trendy words like “we are family”. Nope. Or, in the job ad, the tasks are one thing, but in practice, employees get overwhelmed with more tasks that aren’t even close to their job profile.

Recruitment

#2 Encourage Feedback and Appreciate Every Opinion

Nowadays, employees want to feel welcome, and a lot of businesses do pay attention to this segment.

To be more precise, your business should introduce a culture where employee opinion matters. Feedback is also important because you should not only be the one that gives feedback.

Your staff should do it because you won’t have a business if there aren’t employees, right?

For your information, according to a study, 75% of employees believe that feedback is valuable. 45% of respondents also value feedback from their peers and customers. But, less than 30% of respondents actually receive feedback on their work.

Feedback

#1 Grand Autonomy Over Customer Interactions

Using scripts is a standard protocol for most of the contact centers out there. However, most of the time, the conversation between the agent and the customer won’t go exactly as expected.

At the same time, those scripts can drain the employees, because nobody wants to repeat the same words for 8 hours straight. Instead of creating a script, you should create a guideline. Leave the rest to the call agent.

If your employee takes ownership of customer interaction to a certain degree, your business can flourish!

The benefits of granting autonomy over interactions are:

increased productivity
increased motivation
burnout prevention
increased engagement rates
more interest in the job
high satisfaction levels

Sounds great, right?

Give Your Team Autonomy

Conclusion

We hope that by now, you understand the steps to reduce employee attrition at your contact center. Even though nobody can promise you a 100% decrease in attrition, these steps can help you minimize it as possible.

Follow us in the future as well, because we will bring you plenty of interesting topics in the industry.