Call Center Turnover: Avoid These Reasons for Agent Attrition

Agent turnover is still one of the most serious challenges faced by the call center industry. On average, the turnover rate of agents is  30% and 45%. There might be several reasons for call center turnover, like stress, poor management, and micro-management.🤯

Retention of the best talents should be a top concern in call center business since replacing the existing employee with a new hire can be costly and degrade the quality of service. So, it is important for call centers to retain agents and understand why employees leave. By doing so, businesses can reduce call agent attrition, turnover, burnouts, and absenteeism and create a professional image.💼

In this blog, we have discussed the reasons to avoid for agent attrition in call center and provided you with some valuable tips for reducing call center turnover. 🔄

Let’s get started!! 🏁

What is Call center turnover?

Call center turnover refers to the rate at which employees leave a call center and are subsequently replaced by new hires. This metric indicates the frequency of employee departures within a specific period. Turnover is calculated by dividing the number of employee resignations by the average number of employees present during that period.

High turnover rates can signify issues within the call center environment, such as low job satisfaction, inadequate training, or poor management practices. Monitoring turnover rates helps organizations identify and address these issues, ultimately aiming to improve employee retention and overall operational efficiency.

What are the major reasons to avoid for agent attrition in call center?

Here are the major reasons for call center agent attribution:

1. Insufficient training

Generally, call centers today place new hires directly to work without any training. This is a very bad practice for call center companies. Dealing with customers in a call center can be really a stressful job and when the new hired is directly placed in the work right away they get underconfident and stressed. This can result in poor customer experience and call center agent attrition as well.

Without proper training, new hires won’t be able to deal with customers and find it difficult to handle and solve the issues of the customers. Also, the hires must be familiar with new tools and software before starting the job otherwise, they will be clueless and struggle to meet performance metrics, which can be demotivating and make them feel like failures. Thus, This can lead to frustration and a feeling of inadequacy, ultimately pushing them to leave.

🔍You might also like Mastering the Art of Training New Contact Center Agents: Expert Tips for Success

2. Micromanagement

Employees these days, no matter where they work, want to feel like they can do their jobs their way and that you trust them to get things done well. They prefer freedom while working; they don’t want someone looking over their shoulder all the time when the teams in a call center are Micromanaged and convey messages that agents are untrustworthy and incapable. 

In an already demanding job, when the management team sets rigorous standards and micromanages staff, this results in staff turnover and call center attrition. Micromanagement is one of the major reasons for agent attrition because  Employees who are micromanaged often feel undervalued and disrespected, which can significantly impact morale and motivation. 

Moreover, this hampers the workflow of agents as it does not allow independent problem-solving and decision-making and leads to feelings of being stuck in a dead-end job. Hence, the pressure of being micromanaged adds additional stress to agents, leading to burnout, health problems, and, ultimately, increased absenteeism and turnover.

3. Increased workload

The increased workload is one of the major reasons for call center agent attribution. A call center job is not an ordinary job; it is one of the most stressful and difficult jobs globally. Generally, call center jobs are demanding, and agents have to deal with call volumes, strict performance metrics, excessive workload, and different customers with different moods and mindsets. Also, the call center work is high-pressure work and has a rigid schedule, this factors lead to stress, burnout, absenteeism, and turnover among the agents.

Moreover, call center jobs can be repetitive and monotonous at the time. Dealing with hundreds of customers over the same issue can be draining and stressful. So, if these issues are not addressed, this can cause agents to leave the job in search of a less stressful work environment.

💡This can be helpful for you: How to Reduce Stress in The Call Center? A Comprehensive Guide

4. Less career development opportunities

Growth and development are important factors for any employee. Agents who don’t see a clear path to career advancement are more likely to leave. Without opportunities for promotions or skill development, agents may feel stuck in a dead-end job and feel demotivated, leading them to seek out employers who can offer better career prospects. 

Almost every employee wants growth in their career and has the drive to take on new challenges, learn more skills, and achieve mastery in their work. So, when career progression is not communicated well and isn’t treated fairly because of politics in the workplace, employees will leave your company in droves, resulting in a high call center attrition rate. 

5. Toxic workplace

In a toxic environment, not only does the employee’s performance diminish, but interpersonal interactions and relationships among colleagues in the workplace also deteriorate. This invariably puts negative pressure on other coworkers; it can also negatively impact business relationships with clients, leading to brand damage and, potentially, loss of clients.

In a toxic workplace, tension and stress rise, creating a bad working environment. Such working conditions might negatively affect other aspects of life, including interpersonal relationships. So, a toxic workplace is one of the major reasons for agent attrition.

📖Also read: How to Create a Positive Work Culture in Your Call Center?

6. Lack of manager support

Employees are satisfied when they feel supported, prioritized, and valued. Also, when employees feel like they’re part of something that works well to achieve a common goal, managers play a key role in helping to create a positive company culture. Ineffective management and poor support are significant factors in agent attrition. Moreover, this leads to customer dissatisfaction, high AHT, poor morale, and put pressure on agents.

Managers who fail to communicate effectively, provide inadequate support, or engage in micromanagement can create a toxic work environment. Thus, Agents need supportive and understanding leaders who can guide them, address their concerns, and foster a positive workplace culture. Also, Investing in leadership training can improve manager-agent relationships.

Low compensation and lack of recognition

Paychecks or salaries are significant factors in employee satisfaction. So, call centers should pay or compensate the agents based on demand and the stress of the job. When the expected salary of the agents does not meet the call center’s payment, this can lead to high turnover. Thus, competitive salaries, benefits, and incentives are key to retaining top talent. Also, regularly review and adjust compensation to stay competitive and reduce call center attrition.

When agents’ hard work goes unnoticed, their motivation drops and the agent attrition rate will increase. So, regular recognition and rewards, like bonuses and career development opportunities, are essential for maintaining morale and encouraging high performance.

How do you reduce agent attrition in your call center?

Reducing call center agent attrition in call centers is one of the best tactics for providing high-quality service and creating a positive brand reputation. Most call center agents hop over from job to job for different reasons. This turnover rate can hamper the business’s reputation, and the company fails to provide a better customer experience. Here are some of the valuable tips you can use to reduce attrition in your call center: 

• Proper hiring: Investing in a good recruitment process can reduce agent attrition at call center companies. This will help call centers find the right people with the right skills and personalities that suit the job. Moreover, selecting skilled agents costs training costs as well.
• Provide Comprehensive Training: Before onboarding agents to work, ensure that they receive initial and ongoing training to equip them with the necessary skills and confidence. Also, ensure that they receive adequate training on how to use these tools properly.
• Encourage Employee Feedback: The call center should establish communication channels to ask employees’ opinions. So, make sure to set up suggestion boxes, weekly huddles, feedback apps, one-on-one sessions, and opinion polls to easily gather and share agent opinions. Management should respond to complaints and opinions.
• Encourage a healthy work-life balance: Today’s employees heavily emphasize work-life balance. So, provide flexible work schedules and remote work options to accommodate the personal needs of the agents.
• Offer stress-reducing workshops: The call center should provide enough support for stress management, including mental health resources and reasonable workloads. This helps call centers to keep their agents mentally and physically fit.
• Streamline Work Processes: To make agents free form repetitive and monotonous work, use modern technologies to optimize workflows and reduce unnecessary stress on agents.
• Offer Career Growth Opportunities: To keep agents motivated, the call center should create clear career progression paths and promote them from within.
• Create a Positive Work Environment: The call center should empower agents to make decisions freely. Also, create a supportive culture where they feel valued and engaged and avoid micromanagement.
• Recognize and Reward Performance:  Regularly acknowledge their hard work and show appreciation toward the agents with recognition programs, bonuses, public praise, and incentives.
• Offer Competitive Compensation: Regularly review their performance and adjust salaries and benefits to remain competitive in the industry.

Hence, by following the tips mentioned above, call centers can reduce turnover, reduce agents’ presentism, help create a good working environment, and provide better customer service and experience.

Dialaxy’s Comprehensive Strategy for Reducing Call Center Agent Attrition

Using the Cloud-based contact center solution offered by Dialaxy, businesses can significantly reduce call center agent attrition. In this high-pressure and stressful job, using Dialaxy’s solution and advanced features helps businesses significantly minimize repetitive and monotonous work. Also, with features like Omnichannel support, AI, automation, IVR( Interactive Voice Response), CRM integrations, unified dashboards, and several other call management features, agents can significantly. minimize their workload, and deliver better customer experience with ease.

Moreover, Dialaxy’s contact center solution provides agents with all the communication tools and technology to lessen their workload, increase productivity, increase efficiency, and keep them happy. Also, with the flexibility option offered by Dialaxy, agents can work remotely from anywhere over the internet, balance work-life, and reduce stress, burnout, and turnover rate.