Happy Contact Centres, Increased Agent Retention

How to build workplaces that your employees want to work in

Contact centre agents are the immediate face of the company whenever they engage with its customers. When contact centre agents display a positive attitude – as well as excellent skills – this has a correspondingly positive impact on customers’ experiences, and helps with client retention.

In fact, Forbes Magazine has previously published the results from a study which revealed that happy employees are as much as 20 percent more productive in the workplace than unhappy employees – so it’s logical to assume that contact centres are no different.

When agents feel valued, equipped and engaged, they’re more likely to provide excellent service, leading to higher customer satisfaction and loyalty. In short, happy employees create happy customers. However, at the same time, high employee turnover can be a significant challenge for contact centres.

In this article, we unpack the benefits of providing a positive experience for your contact centre agents – and how to create it.

Benefits of a Happy Workplace Environment

High staff turnover rates are costly in several ways, including in the consistency and quality of customer service, as well as in the more easily measured costs of recruitment and training expenses. Research has shown that replacing a single contact centre agent can cost up to 30 percent of their annual salary, making retention not just a people issue but also a financial one.

Happy and engaged contact centre agents are important to your business for the following reasons:

• Increased productivity and retention: Happy agents are more likely to stay with the company longer, which improves their overall knowledge and efficiency and, in turn, the customers’ experience. Turnover costs can ultimately be reduced.
• Reduced stress and burnout: When employees are happy, they’re less likely to experience stress and burnout, which can negatively affect their well-being and performance at work.
• Improved customer experience: Engaged agents are more likely to be empathetic listeners and effective communicators, leading to better customer interactions and satisfaction.
• Enhanced customer loyalty: When customers have positive experiences with call centre agents, they are more likely to recommend the company to others.

Having outlined why happy employees make a positive impact on your business, let’s look at some of the particular hurdles that contact centre agents deal with.

Addressing the Challenges Faced by Agents

The specific challenges of contact centre agents include the following:

• High stress levels: Handling escalated customer issues without adequate support can contribute to burnout.
• Monotonous work: Repetitive tasks can make agents feel unfulfilled and undervalued.
• Mismatched expectations: Agents often face pressure to meet metrics like call handling time, which can conflict with delivering quality customer service.

Addressing the particular challenges of contact centre agents requires a proactive approach that includes engagement, empowerment and growth. Measures to keep contact centre agents happy include the following:

• Provide adequate training and resources and ensure that your agents have the necessary tools, technology and training to effectively handle customer inquiries.
• Recognise and reward performance and gather regular feedback from your agents, providing them with opportunities for professional development.
• Consider offering flexible work schedules or remote work options to improve work-life balance.
• Implement programmes that promote physical and mental health, such as stress management training or access to employee assistance programmes.
• Promote a positive work environment and foster a culture of respect, teamwork, and open communication.
• Consider using gamification to make your agents’ work more engaging and rewarding. The idea is to integrate entertaining and immersive gaming elements into a working context to enhance employee engagement. Gamification strategies use game design and features, such as badges, leaderboards, points and rewards, to encourage active participation and make tasks fun and enjoyable.

Smartz Solutions Key Features that Empower Agents

The company understands that agent experience is the foundation of customer experience. Its platform is designed to address the challenges agents face, creating a workplace where they feel empowered, valued and motivated. The Smartz Solutions platform’s key features include:

• Unified dashboards: A single interface is used to manage all channels, reducing complexity and allowing agents to focus on customers, thereby boosting efficiency.
• Omni-channel engagements: Through a unified platform, agents are able to interact across multiple channels. This enhances their efficiency and improves customer service, while also allowing them to maximise their specific skills by matching them with the most suitable communication channels, enhancing their performance and job satisfaction.
• Gamification tools: Engaging features drive performance and keep agents motivated.
• Quality assurance integration: Feedback loops help agents continuously improve their skills.
• Built-in training modules: Easy access to resources helps agents to be always prepared. Even when new agents are appointed, the built-in training modules ensure that each agent receives a consistent training experience and the correct knowledge to perform their duties effectively.
• Integration: By integrating customer relationship management (CRM) or enterprise resource planning (ERP) software into the contact centre, agents have seamless access to customer data, which enables them to be more efficient and productive, and provide a better customer experience.    

Gamification: The Fun Side of Work

Modern technology and data visualisation techniques enable agents to better understand their performance strengths and weaknesses. By incorporating game mechanics, organisations use an element of fun into the workplace while reinforcing performance norms.

Leaderboards, badges and tokens provide examples of real-world colleague achievements. In addition, this data becomes invaluable in facilitating productive and meaningful discussions about career progression, empowering your agents to set achievable goals and strive for continuous improvement.

Culture and Support builds Resilient Agents

Smartz Solutions understands that contact centre agent experience is the foundation of customer experience. By addressing workplace challenges, empowering agents with the right tools, and fostering a culture of support and recognition, organisations can ensure that their contact centres are places where employees thrive.

In turn, businesses can reduce turnover, enhance customer experiences and set themselves apart in a competitive market.

Vox, in partnership with Smartz Solutions, is committed to helping businesses achieve this transformation. With tools and strategies that focus on agent and customer experiences alike, the company is redefining the experiences of both customers and employees in the contact centre industry.