4 Ways to Counter Contact Center Attrition

As front-line team players for any organization's customer experience strategy, there's a lot of pressure on contact center agents to deliver seamless, consistently engaging interactions to customers. Their importance cannot be understated. Yet, as a job classification, contact center agents produce a perennially high attrition rate. Between agent burnout, lack of access to modern contact center software, and perceived limited opportunities for career growth, attracting and maintaining a top-notch staff can be difficult. In fact, according to Aberdeen, 32 percent of contact center leaders cite finding and retaining qualified staff to be a top challenge.

Furthermore, this issue is amplified during periods of low unemployment. The most recent estimate from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics placed national unemployment below 4 percent – good news for the U.S. economy, but an important indicator for contact center leaders that competition for talent is fierce. While there isn't a single solution for reducing attrition in your call center, there are a number of proven investments in the agent experience that can have a dramatic increase in agent engagement and retention:

  1. Look for the skills, give them the tools. Without the right set of soft skills, potential hires are unlikely to find a role as a contact center agent fulfilling. Empathy, problem solving, and stress management are critical if they are going to make human-to-human connections that form the basis of exceptional customer experiences. Once you find the right soft skills, ensure your agents are armed with the technology they need to create those connections. For example, the average agent has to juggle five to seven screens to do her job effectively. Consolidated desktops streamline the agent experience so she can put the customer first.
  2. Offer proactive coaching and incentives. Quality monitoring can sometimes be a divisive tool among agents, especially if they feel it isn't objective. However, when speech and text analytics are incorporated, managers can offer unbiased and fact-based coaching and recommendations. In addition, tying in gamification strategies that emphasize friendly competition give agents a deeper motivation to take coaching recommendations to heart.
  3. Embrace the mobile workforce. Like many jobs in today's digital economy, often all you need to be productive is a laptop, headset, and internet connection. This is a massive opportunity for contact centers to retain staff, especially those who desire more flexibility in their work /life balance. This is also a great way to scale up your staffing around high-volume seasons like the holidays.
  4. Demonstrate a clear career path. Understandably, few people want to stay in the same job forever. Even if you have a stellar agent, if she feels that there aren't any new opportunities within the organization, it could lead her to the door. Make sure your team sees and believes they have multiple upward career options. This could include moving into other parts of the business, supervisor roles, or expanding skills and expertise.

Agent and customer experiences are intrinsically connected. In building powerful customer experiences, companies need to ensure agents can provide authentic, transparent communication while meeting and exceeding expectations. That's what creates devoted, life-long customers. Agents have the same needs, so prioritizing those needs is a must to create a devoted, best-in-class staff in the contact center.

Chris Bauserman is vice president of product and segment marketing at NICE inContact.