Low Employee Attrition

Call Centre Helper Forum » Strategy

(6 posts)

Does anyone know of

- any companies that have got a low employee attrition rate
or
- any schemes that could help to bring down employee attrition?

Posted 2 years ago

james bell

Jonty

I've not visited these sites, but as a regular reader of the magazine I think that it may be worth you trying Call Connection in Ipswich.

They mentined in one story that they have been able to bring down sickness rates. This would presumably have reduced their attrition.

James

Posted 2 years ago

DaveUKLee

I visit a lot of call centres as part of role and find there are a lot of them that are running well below the average 30% attrition rate. The ones with low attrition tend to have more mature agents with fairly complex and varied calls to handle. They also seem to focus on building good personal relationships with their customers and delivering to customer expectations rather than meeting traditional call centre metrics (AHT, speed to answer, etc). Some great examples are in the gambling/gaming industries, debt collection (yes, really!), and smaller specialist insurance companies.

As far as retention or incentive schemes, there doesn't seem to be any special ones that stand out - the most common thing from the low attrition contact centres that I have visited tends to be that the agents are treated as real people not robots answering calls. The best ones have a really positive vibe - fun, competitive, focused, busy.

My personal opinion is that one key to retention is respect for the individual - treat them as individuals, reward them for success, work with them to manage failure, and help them develop in the way they want. I guess that's what we all need, really!

Dave

Posted 2 years ago

David

Jonty,

Not sure how to respond without advertising ... but Agent00 was developed in the USA 3-4 years ago and has had remarkable success in delivering huge reductions in attrition.

The concept is that instead of using systems and process to deliver performance data to managers who then act upon it, Agent00 takes the same performance data and delivers real time performance feedback direct to the agent - right through their shift.

The "self-motivation" and associated rewards mean that attrition rates plummet as well as productivity and customer service shooting up.

It has now come to the UK and Europe.

David

Posted 2 years ago

DennisBarker

I wrote an article recently which deals with several of the major issues with staff retention in call centres. My personal experience is that if the wage rate is reasonable and the management treat their staff as people rather than just numbers then the good staff will stick around.
It also helps if there is some kind of clear career progression available.
There are many 40 or 50 year olds out there working in systems which are designed for 20 year olds to work in.Would you stick around in those circumstances?
If you look up "Call Centre Survival Guide" on google you should find the article.

Posted 2 years ago

pdinys

Best way to assess your morale level to create a baseline is quite simple.
Organise a team meeting ( pref 15 - 17 agents ) draw a simple line starting with 0 - 10 ( ten being high morale).
Give each agent a sticky note (no names). - leave the room while this is done - approx 2 min.

Re enter the room. I

If the majority is high - ask the staff why is the morale high, what do we do as a team that is great ?

If it’s in the middle then ask the team how can we improve it to 10 and the same if the result is low.
List down all their concerns. (at this stage do not solve the problems just write them down)

After every team has been completed the exercise get the leadership team to break down their concerns and ideas into:

Short Term Fixes - Completed within 7 days
Medium Term Fixes - completed within 45 days
Long Term Fixes - Completed 12 - 18 months
( remember to share your successes)

The idea is to solve the short term fast and get back to your staff. This will give your agents the confidence to express their ideas as these concerns are quickly dealt with. You’ll be suprised the positive feedback you receive from your teams )
Medium and long term fixes - update your staff on a weekly or fortnightly or even monthly .

Some of the simple things create high attrition / UPA’s. It’s not all about the money.

I regularly conduct these sessions with my staff on a quarterly basis and I know what morale level is on a regular basis.

Also i find that when we do conduct staff surveys there are no suprises.

My attrition has been 3 agents YTD with the total FTE of 92. My UPA (unplanned absences are under 2.1%) - whien first stepping into the role the figures were attrition of 7 per month and UPA of 29%

Posted 2 years ago

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