7 Simple Mistakes That Hurt Contact Centre Morale

Feel like you’re putting lots of effort into making your contact centre more fun, but still seeing glum faces everywhere you look?

Perhaps it’s time to take a deeper look at what’s hurting morale, as our Editor – Megan Jones – explores with Alex McConville, Marianne Withers, Sarah Graham, and Stephen Pace.

1. Focusing on Nice-to-Haves When Your Team Is in Fight-or-Flight Mode

Stop trying to fix everything with sweets and ice cream! If your team are already stressed out in fight-or-flight mode, that fun gimmick just won’t work the way you hoped!

“Just like you wouldn’t expect an ice cream to instantly cure a screaming toddler who has cut their knee, if you are trying to motivate a group of anxious and underperforming agents with a cash incentive or dress-down Friday, you’re missing the point!

We are all human beings. It doesn’t matter how old we are. These things should be seen as a nice-to-have when everything else is working well – not for trying to put out fires!” – Stephen Pace, Strategic Partnership Consultant at Optymyse

2. Cranking Up the Pressure Just When Your Agents Need You the Most

Some shifts are more stressful than others. There’s no avoiding it! For example, if a lot of people have called in sick the same day a new marketing promotion has driven sky-high call volumes into your team.

In such situations, it can be tempting to try and motivate agents by sharing key stats and putting the pressure on. Unfortunately, this common mistake can result in even more people calling in sick the next day.

Instead, what can be most effective is to take the metrics away, because, let’s face it, they aren’t going to help! This is where managers should switch tactics to be as supportive as possible by saying “Just do your best” and “Thank you” to their team.

For more ways to help your agents deal with stressful situations, read our article: Arm Your Agents in the Battle Against Stress

3. Letting Toxic Employees Rule the Roost

Tolerating toxic employees can bring everyone down – no matter how hard you try to boost the mood with fun games, prizes, and treats!

Whether you find yourself working alongside “The Moaner” who can sap the joy out of the room, “The Wheelbarrow” who only works when they are pushed and never shows initiative, or even “The Glory Seeker” who readily steals others’ ideas and passes them off as their own – it’s important to nip this behaviour in the bud, and fast!

For advice on stopping toxic employees compromising agent morale, read our article: How to Identify and Manage Toxic Employees

4. Putting Too Many Restrictions in Place

When agents are restricted by rigid processes, low-quality resources, and even lack of flexibility and creative thinking, it inevitably compromises the customer experience and agent morale.

To fix this, take a long hard look in the mirror and even ask your agents “what restrictions are making your life harder right now?”. This will help you take away some of the barriers that are compromising your agents’ enthusiasm for the job!

It’s not just about your core processes either! For example, are you restricting food and drinks at desks to the detriment of your agents’ hydration and energy levels? Or restricting internet access so much that agents can’t even see the fun marketing campaign customers are talking about?

“We’ve recently taken the decision to whitelist YouTube for our advisors, so they can have more freedom to engage with our marketing campaigns. It’s made an immediate difference to building rapport, as they can reference these videos and now know what customers are talking about when they say, ‘I’m loving your new adverts’.” – Sarah Graham, former Senior People Development and Training Manager at Ocado

5. Offering Blanket Incentives That Are Insensitive to Individual Needs

Stop offering blanket incentives across the team! You risk being insensitive to personal needs and having the opposite effect to what you’d hoped.

The same is true for food and drink. For example, if you’re putting goody bags together with an array of drinks and snacks for a staff party, you could upset someone who can’t drink alcohol for religious reasons, or someone who is vegan and can’t eat gummy sweets.

So, stop and think where your goodwill gestures might be having the opposite effect and try to give people more choice and flexibility around the food and incentives that will really feel like a treat.

If you are looking for ideas on incentives to offer your agents, read our article: 100 Great Staff Incentives to Motivate Your Team

6. Setting Goals That Are Too Hard to Reach

Agent morale can also be compromised when targets feel continuously out of reach.

“It is about setting clear goals that are achievable but challenging, so the team feels that rush of success.

Always celebrate wins, whether big or small, as sometimes the small wins can be the greater motivation.” – Marianne Withers, Business Partner, Atombit

Also, if targets move – even on fun games and competitions – this can quickly undo any positivity gains.

7. Assuming You Have a “Skill” Problem When It’s Actually an Issue of “Will”

Do you know the difference between “skill” and “will”? It’s important to find out, as agents who lack “skill” need very different support from those who lack “will”.

A good way to overcome this is to conduct a thorough skill/will assessment across all agents to evaluate both the will – their intrinsic motivation – and the skill – the specific competencies and expertise required to progress and do well.

Once you know this, you can tailor your motivation tactics to give them what they really need and keep morale high.

What Lessons Have You Learnt the Hard Way?

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With thanks to the following people for sharing their thoughts and experiences for this article:

• Alex McConville, Contact Centre Consultant and author of ‘Diary of a Call Centre Manager’
• Marianne Withers, Business Partner, Atombit
• Sarah Graham, former Senior People Development and Training Manager at Ocado
• Stephen Pace, Strategic Partnership Consultant at Optymyse

For more advice and information on improving agent morale in your contact centre, read these articles next:

• Kick-Start Your Next Team Engagement Day
• 15 Surprises for Boosting Agent Morale
• How to Keep Morale Up in a Short-Staffed Contact Centre

Author: Megan Jones
Reviewed by: Jo Robinson