Ease Agent Stress – With These 15 Top Tips!

Customer service is the heart and soul of any business, but let’s face it, the stress can pile up quickly – from handling difficult customers to meeting stringent targets and navigating complex technology.

To help you face this challenge, we asked our panel of experts for their top tips and strategies for keeping agent stress levels under control.

Here’s what they said…

1. Flag Tense Calls So a Supervisor Can Jump in and Offer Support

Use tools that identify common stress triggers and difficult interactions.

By analysing conversations, organizations can provide real-time feedback and guidance, helping agents navigate challenging situations more effectively.

This allows agents to adjust their approach or even pull in a supervisor for support to de-escalate potentially tense calls, helping agents stay calm, focused, and motivated.

Contributed by: Frank Sherlock, VP of International, CallMiner

2. Don’t Let Occupancy Go Above 90% – It’s a Recipe for Stress!

Occupancy* that is consistently above 90% is recipe for stress, since agents barely have time to catch breath between contacts.

You should constantly monitor occupancy level, and if it’s too high, take steps to bring it into a sustainable range.

*Occupancy is the percentage of agents’ logged-in time that is spent on contact-related activity. There’s no ‘industry standard’ occupancy level, although a Call Centre Helper survey revealed an average of 83%.

Contributed by: Chris Dealy, WFM Evangelist, injixo

You should also look at how you manage agent shifts, as explained in the video below, where Ray Agar, SaaS Solutions Consultant at injixo, outlines how increasing agent freedom and flexibility can help reduce agent stress:

3. Make It Easier for Agents to Cope in Loud Working Environments

In loud, fast-paced contact centres, noise and low-quality sound on calls impact both the customer and agent experience. Jabra’s research reveals that 71% of UK employees find loud environments mentally exhausting, and 50% are stressed by office noise.

Managers can mitigate this with professional noise-cancelling headsets that help employees concentrate. In fact, nearly three-quarters (72%) state that clear, high-quality sound enhances their focus.

Contributed by: Nigel Dunn, Managing Director, EMEA North, Jabra

4. Encourage Open Communication With Regular Check-Ins

Building a culture of mutual support and understanding can significantly reduce stress.

Encourage open communication by having regular check-ins and feedback sessions.
Also, ensure that supervisors are approachable and actively listen to their team’s concerns.

One way to support this is to implement AI to automatically review and score calls, freeing up supervisors’ time to provide personalized coaching and support to agents.

Contributed by: Tatiana Polyakova, COO, MiaRec

5. Give Agents Extra Support With Difficult Customers

AI can transform agent work, reducing workload and stress. For example, AI can serve as a by-their-side assistant, monitoring employees in real time and offering guidance based on optimal interactions to lead to successful outcomes.

AI tells employees exactly what to say to quickly resolve customer issues, including with difficult or emotionally charged customer contacts.

This not only helps customers but also boosts employee confidence and morale, and eliminates the potential roadblocks to employees meeting their targets.

Contributed by: Elizabeth Tobey, Head of Marketing Digital & AI, NICE

6. Balance Productivity With Fair Task Distribution

Balancing productivity with fair task distribution is crucial for preventing mental fatigue.

This can be achieved by implementing advanced distribution algorithms that ensure equitable workloads.

Contributed by: Thibault Gilardoni, Product Marketing Manager, Odigo

7. Take Proactive Steps to Cut Down Wrap-Up Time

AI-powered summarization tools provide unbiased, comprehensive call summaries that underscore crucial details and suggest actionable steps, thus streamlining post-call workflows.

This not only decreases wrap-up time after calls but also cuts down on preparation time for future interactions with the same customer.

Contributed by: Dane Smith, Global Learning and Development Manager, Enghouse Interactive

8. Quickly Tackle Long Queues With a Real-Time Playbook

The main focus of intraday management is identifying deviations from plan – like call spikes and elevated sickness levels – then taking action to defend KPIs like service level. But real-time management has a role to play in managing agent stress, too.

You need a real-time management ‘playbook’ that defines thresholds for KPIs beyond which action is triggered, a pre-agreed escalation plan, a list of corrective actions that will be taken, in priority order, and how changes will be communicated to colleagues.

Putting the playbook into action should quickly and effectively reduce queue length – and agent stress levels.

Contributed by: Chris Dealy, WFM Evangelist, injixo

9. Give Agents Live Coaching to Help Them Feel More Confident

Agents must feel confident and trust that their technology will support them in doing their job effectively.

Giving agents the ability to receive real-time feedback on how a call is going and providing live coaching to manage a difficult situation creates a positive, supportive environment.

Software-as-a-service solutions make this possible by providing feedback uniquely based on human tone.

Managers can offer immediate guidance as well as praise, giving employees a boost and helping to reduce stress for positive mental wellbeing.

Contributed by: Nigel Dunn, Managing Director, EMEA North, Jabra

10. Double-Check Your Forecasting Isn’t Contributing to Agent Stress

Envision an understaffed contact centre: phones ring incessantly, emails accumulate, and a surge of chat and SMS enquiries overwhelms agents.

Amidst this chaos, a few overwhelmed agents handle frustrated customers while struggling to keep pace. This stems from ineffective forecasting and is a common cause of stress.

Outdated tools like spreadsheets, Erlang calculators, or inflexible systems fail to adapt to sudden fluctuations in demand, such as unplanned marketing campaigns or staffing shortages, leading to excessive workloads and increased stress.

Workforce management (WFM) software can help as, unlike traditional tools, it factors in numerous variables to forecast demand accurately and facilitate balanced scheduling.

Contributed by: Dane Smith, Global Learning and Development Manager, Enghouse Interactive

11. Strip the Emotion Out of Your Customers’ Voices

You’re probably already familiar with speech-to-text technology, but did you know it is now also capable of removing the emotion or converting it into a female voice?

This is bringing about a whole new era for voice conversion, as this speech can now be rendered into different tones of voice almost instantly – and this can be used to help reduce agent stress levels.

For example, this technology can be used to take the emotion out of the customer’s voice, in a way that is more pleasant for the customer service agent to listen to.

(Of course, it’s important to consider that there may be instances when some customers become frustrated with this technology in use, particularly if their emotions are misunderstood and not responded to correctly.)

Contributed by: Uma Challa, a Senior Director Analyst in the Gartner Customer Service & Support practice

12. Focus Your Training on Technical AND Soft Skills

Comprehensive training equips agents with the skills and knowledge they need to handle any situation with confidence.

Focus on both technical skills AND soft skills (like communication and emotional intelligence).

The more prepared your agents are, the less stressful their job will be.

Contributed by: Tatiana Polyakova, COO, MiaRec

13. Automate Loathsome Tasks So Agents Can Focus on More Fulfilling Work

AI takes mundane, repetitive work off agents’ plates.

AI automates loathsome work so agents can focus on higher-value and more fulfilling work like building stronger customer relationships.

This empowers agents to do the work they want to do.

Contributed by: Elizabeth Tobey, Head of Marketing Digital & AI, NICE

14. Equip Agents With Essential Context BEFORE They Accept a Call

Provide agents with essential context before they accept a call, including customer history and CRM data. The same applies to transfers: include automatic summaries of previous interactions.

This preparation enables agents to respond confidently and efficiently. In addition, it also helps when handling dissatisfied clients or complex requests to offer contextual guidance and AI-suggested knowledge articles.

Well-prepared agents who don’t need to scramble to understand a situation experience less anxiety and can handle interactions more smoothly.

Contributed by: Thibault Gilardoni, Product Marketing Manager, Odigo

15. Celebrate Achievements and Let Agents Know Their Hard Work Is Appreciated

Provide regular feedback and recognition, and incorporate gamification. Constructive feedback helps agents improve, while recognition and rewards boost morale.

Celebrate their achievements and let them know their hard work is appreciated. Introducing gamification elements, such as points, badges, and leaderboards, can make routine tasks more engaging and fun, fostering a sense of achievement and competition.

Contributed by: Tatiana Polyakova, COO, MiaRec

For more great insights and advice from our panel of experts, read these articles next:

• Is AI Really a Game-Changer in Knowledge Management?
• Is Your Scheduling in Need of an Overhaul? Try These 8 Top Tips
• 10 Changes Set to Redefine the Future of Self-Service

Author: Robyn Coppell
Reviewed by: Xander Freeman