Tweet

Factors to beat the Agent Churn in a Call center

Guest post by: Ivana Lewis

Article Overview: Agent churn is something which is common in the call centers these days. Now agent churn creates a lot of annoyance. Most studies show that the average call center agents lasts close to 6 months or so while these service centers include an average of about 40 percent of the annual rate of turnover.

Factors to beat the Agent Churn in a Call center

Agent churn is something which is common in the call centers these days. Now agent churn creates a lot of annoyance. Most studies show that the average call center agents lasts close to 6 months or so while these service centers include an average of about 40 percent of the annual rate of turnover. As per an estimated report, the replacing of the customer service center representatives can cost something around $10000 to $15,000 on an average. In a report, it was indicated that the lower figure of close to 25 percent of the turnover can cost a service center with 100 agents and $250,000 each year. This does not include the huge costs like that of reduced business and reduced customer satisfaction due to the inexperienced agents.

Are you aware how companies are found to fight back the call center churning? Well, money is something which is important at all stages. The report suggested on making sure that the salary on offer is close to the 75 percentile for the comparable openings in your own location.

There are few factors that need to be considered when looking to beat the agent churn in your own call center. Let’s find out those factors in the next few lines.

Reviewing all your offering options

First and foremost, on thing that you can provide your service center agents is the choice of work conditions and hours. This is because it is flexibility that lets the agents to fit into the job better and to meet the requirements of the particular situation.

One probable option for agents is to work from home as a virtual call center agent. By the use of the VoIP technology, all agents will be able to work from their own home. All the more, the choice to start and also to end the workday will also be important. Try to consider working in a center situated in the Pacific Time Zone but which covers the whole of United States. This set up will be staffed from 5.30 am to 6.30 pm. On a whole, flexibility will be the cheapest ways of structure the morale and also to retain the agents.

Removing boredom:

Tediousness is deadly. A bored agent should be an unproductive agent and one who will be probably going around long. Now it will be cross training that can be the right way to fight back boredom. By means of teaching the agents different jobs and thereby switching them all around in regular intervals, you will be able to help out the agents to relieve stress and hence keep them fresh all time.

Putting value to all your representatives:

Your agents should always feel that all are well noticed and that is what is very important. Praising the staff is not that effective as recognizing them individually and offering them some attention.

It should be taken into account that it is personalized feedback that is considered to be the very first step towards the agent recognition. If it is found that no one is paying attention to what you are doing then it will be hard to believe that it is significant.

Related Articles
  Why do organizations outsource the call center functions?
  Call Center Exam for Job Seekers
  Saving Time and Money with Remote Agents
  The Call Center Agents Help in Solving Customer Problems
  Virtual Call center and its all round benefits
  Choosing an Outbound Call Center Service
  Motivating Your Call Center Agents- Few tips to follow
  Learn about the virtual call center jobs
  Home Based Call Center Job- Few Equipment Requirements
  Learn More About An Advanced Call Center Service
  The Next Generation VoIP contact center solutions
  How to Start a Call Center
  Experience the best of UK Call center firms
  Best Travel Agent Programs
  Call Handling - What Steps An Answering Service Goes Through To Handle Your Calls
  Explaining Call Center Services
  Call Centers Benefit Businesses
  Call Center Scripts- The successful way to boost the conversion rates
  Starting a business...what options are available?
  Importance of the BPO Workflow Management

Article Tags: bpo, business process outsourcing, call center, call center bpo, call center services, call centers, call centre, Contact center, customer care, Customer services, inbound call center, process outsourcing



Related Forum Posts
Re: Franchise of a popular call center - [quote="robsam":gti19tnp]Hi All, I was planning to setup a franchise of a popular call center services company . They are giving several services to their customers like - knowledge management , workforce management [/quote:gti19tnp] Franchising an outsourcing business, well if you have a lot knowledge and experience about the business then why not? Call center is a boom business tho.
Re: Franchise of a popular call center - [quote="robsam":1feiaya2]Hi All, I was planning to setup a franchise of a popular call center services company . They are giving several services to their customers like - knowledge management , workforce management , Business Process Automation etc. Now I need to know that from where and how I should start and who must be my targeting customers.[/quote:1feiaya2] Call center is a popular business nowadays and I'm sure you're good in that business, sounds like!
Disaster Planning - [quote="jvprosperity":3o70alwf]In my previous job the company had a manual that listed all the backup procedures so that business go go on as usual without much disruption. e.g. if something were to happen to the call center what steps needed to be taken so that agents can go t a new location to continue taking calls. Also, once a quarter or so the organization would practice the Call Tree notification. e.g. the VP would call their directs and advise that this is a test and those directs would then call their people and so on till it hit the front lines.[/quote:3o70alwf] THose are the kind of things I would think should be done in businesses to prepare for the unexpected. I used to be a department supervisor at a local hospital and we did quarterly disaster drills -- every supervisor was involved and we had to report back to our departments about what was expected of others. Made very good sense that hospitals would do this and there were repercussions for problems in the drills - if there is a disaster, the hospital has to be ready. It made for a tense couple of days for everyone in the building. Shri
Re: Matching competitors prices - beware - While I agree that getting into a price war should be avoided if possible... on rare occasions, it's not a bad idea to match someone's price (or even beat it) if you're doing it "one time" to land a new customer. For instance, I was recently looking for the best price on a [u:2rhwa2wg]specific[/u:2rhwa2wg] flight to NY and a customer service rep from Flight Centre ended up taking zero commission to help me book my flight. In fact, she even beat the price by $5 in the hopes of creating brand loyalty for the future.
Re: The 3 Factors That are Limiting Your Productivity - Hi Evan, Thanks for a great article and video on 'The 3 Factors That are Limiting Your Productivity'. I think that no matter whether you are self employed like myself or a CEO with staff, it is so important to manage your time so as to maximize the benefit to your business. Your expression Eliminate; Automate; Delegate is easy to remember and will certainly stick in my mind. There are many good business ideas out there but they will ultimately run into difficulty without proper planning and execution so these tips will certainly help. I have also left this comment on the article and will place a link to it on my blog. regards, Mal.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Anger Solutions at Work: Why Customers Get Angry

The Digital Diet by Daniel Sieberg

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.