How to Retain Call Center Employees

It’s a fact that one of the main challenges that a business faces is the ability to retain quality call center employees. This is not surprising considering that they have to deal with demanding calls and the monotony of taking calls for hours up on end. Now, many call centers are attempting to stop the high turnover of employees in order to save money and time.

Here are some tips to retain great call center employees for your contact center:

Invest in your employees

In order to be successful, your call center employees should have the proper training they need to excel. While most are probably not going to make a career out of calling customers, employees still need an adequate amount of support for career advancement. Offer training and coaching programs as well as mentoring programs.

Offer praise and incentives

Everyone likes compliments! Your employees deserve to be told that they are doing a great job and that you appreciate their hard work. Offer contests and incentives with cool prizes to keep them motivated to continue their dedicated work in the call center. They have to work long hours with a virtual smile on their face, but it can be easier when there are incentives involved to show that they are appreciated by management.

Consult your team

Communication is key in the employee-manager relationship, so ask everyone their opinion when it comes to improving the contact center workplace. Don’t just ask for the sake of asking; act upon their suggestions. Make them feel valued.

Accommodating schedules

Consider giving your employees the option to telecommute. This will be effective in keeping your costs low and reducing agent turnover. Give them the opportunity to make their own schedules if you can as long as you can still maintain service capabilities.

Staff turnover is inevitable at times, but you can do whatever you can to keep your employees happy and productive. It’s a win-win for everyone!

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Tips for Agents to Communicate Better

In a call center, communication is king. It’s a fact that effective communication will lead to a more productive and satisfied staff of agents. It sounds easy enough, but there are actually quite a few mishaps that can occur in an attempt to communicate to clients and customers. If your agents know how to better handle these situations, they can serve callers faster and with more confidence.

Here are some tips to help your agents communicate to customers more effectively:

Listen to the caller. Many agents may be so eager to serve the caller that they begin to answer before the caller has even finished talking. It’s best to wait until the caller has finished stating their question or concern before jumping in to remedy the problem. It’s easy for agents to get sidetracked with their own concerns about the call while they should be listening to the caller instead. Be present so that you can let the customer communicate their concerns. Failure to do so can result in callers feeling unimportant.

Speak slowly. Remember that callers are hearing the agent for the first time, and they may not always be clear on what you are saying. They should slow down and speak slowly. It is natural to tend to speed up after repetitive calls, but advise your agents to mindfully slow down and treat every call as if it’s the first one of the day.

Breathe. An agent’s breathing can affect a call. For instance, if they are sighing, they can come off as annoyed. If they hold their breath, it can mean they are tense. And we all know what yawning means! Teach your agents to be aware of their breathing during a call, and to take deep breathes in between calls.

Stay present. Make sure your agents know that when they stay on the phone, they should be present in that moment. While it’s easy to space out at their desks, agents should take breaks when they are feeling sluggish. Teaching them to stay in the moment will help their focus, even on trying days.

What about agents who work from home? As a call center manager, you can use video and chat in order to monitor their communication abilities in real-time. In order to do this effectively, you must communicate to your agents the importance of staying engaged and focused during customer calls.

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The Key Elements of Knowledge Management in Call Centers

There is more to knowledge management than finding and acquiring the right tool. Of course, tools are helpful and play a significant role in making the call center successful; however, they should be complemented with a properly organized knowledge management program.

A good knowledge management program will ensure guaranteed results. So what are the key elements of a call center knowledge management (KM) program? Here are a few things you need to consider while designing your call center's knowledge management system:

The objective of knowledge management is to enhance agent productivity and customer service. This requires the proper utilization of software. It also involves the analysis of key metrics.

The key elements of your KM program are people, technology, and processes. All three are equally important. That said; the fundamental aspect of any knowledge management program is knowledge itself.

When it comes to call centers, the knowledge can be broadly classified as operational, strategic, human capital, and technical. The objective of call center knowledge management is to ensure that the right people can access the knowledge and manage the day to day operation of the center. Knowledge management also involves the protection of knowledge against unwanted access. In addition, knowledge has to be kept current, comprehensive, and accurate.  This requires investment in the right technology and tools.

Strategic knowledge

This includes the information about important clients, future plans, and organizational goals. Only the top management team should have access to this information. That said; parts of the knowledge can be shared with agents. This will give them a better idea about the goals of the organization.

Operational knowledge

This includes information about daily operations in a call center. For example, information about important client contracts and customer contacts come within the purview of operational knowledge.

This information is usually monitored by middle management executives. However, it should be accessible to top management and agents as well. Top management requires this information for making strategic decisions. And when agents have access to this information, they can ensure effective service delivery.

Human capital knowledge

This is the information that the call center maintains about its agents. It includes training records and individual productivity metrics. 

Technical knowledge

Call centers cannot operate without the right technology. This includes both hardware and software, routing equipment, skill based routing, telephone networks, and software for workforce management. There should be an analytics software tool. Operational manuals and help ticket resolution data also come within the purview of technical knowledge. It is important that the call center invests in technology that is current and up to date.

In most call centers, the common practice is to send some staff members to receive direct training from the vendor. These trainers will then train other members of the staff.

Since attrition rates are high in call centers, this might lead to knowledge dilution, when the trainers who received training from the vendor leave the company. This also reduces productivity. The call center might have invested in expensive software, but due to the lack of technical knowhow, many features of this software will remain unused. As a result, many tasks that can be automated will end up being performed manually. If budget permits, all agents should be given the opportunity to learn directly from the vendor. In this case, even if some employees leave the organization, there will still be enough people possessing the right knowledge.