Preventing Call Center Burnout: Effective Tips and Strategies

Call center burnout is a real issue in the call center environment. It refers to a state of an emotional, physical, and mental drain due to consistent overworking, which increases stress levels. It is affecting a large number of the workforce in this particular industry.

Dealing with high call volumes and mind-draining customer interactions are some of the causes of call center burnout. Burned-out employees’ experiences are more likely to be less productive and commit more mistakes in the work. Thereby, the risk of burnout is to be treated seriously. 

To address the burnout issue in a call center environment, we’ve developed a list of tips to prevent call center burnout. So, without any further ado, let’s get started.

Definition of call center burnout

Call centers face regular struggles like high call volumes, understaffing, etc., which causes call center employees to work more. This pressure situation over time leads to the risk of burnout.

Call center burnout is a state of severe emotional, physical, and mental fatigue faced by call center agents created by overworking for longer durations. This occurs for many reasons, which we will go into detail later.

Who can experience call center burnout?

Not only agents but call center burnout can be felt by anyone who works in a call center environment. And this feeling is also not affected by a certain age, gender, or personality of people. Anyone can face it.

Due to the demanding work of a call center, anyone can be the victim of burnout. 

Common signs and symptoms of burnout among call center employees

Call center agent burnout is a syndrome that’s categorized by the World Health Organization (WHO) and occurs due to extreme work-related stress. Anyone can be exposed to it; here is how to figure out:

Physical symptoms

• Feeling frequently drained and exhausted even after having a quality sleep.
• Headaches and muscle tension are other high-potential symptoms to consider. 
• Sudden change in appetite.
• Restlessness and facing problems falling asleep.
• Getting more vulnerable to sickness and illness.

Emotional symptoms

• Unable to cope with the high demands of the call center and feeling emotionally tired.
• Cultivating negative emotions in the work environment and towards the people.
• Not being joyful or satisfied even after completing the assigned tasks.
• Being disinterested, frustrated, or easily annoyed at things or people inside and outside the work premises.
• Most of the time, feelings of anxiety, sadness, or hopelessness can come in later stages of burnout.

Behavioral symptoms

• Not meeting deadlines, taking time to finish tasks, and committing more mistakes.
• Taking more leaves or being absent from work more than usual. 
• Going far away from social interactions or prefer staying alone.
• Pessimistic attitude towards teammates, organization, and life in general.
• Ignoring personal care routines and sudden changes in personal habits.

What causes call center burnout?

Various factors lead to call center stress syndrome in the call center industry; here are some of those:

• Demanding performance quotas: A specific target or call volume that is challenging to meet can bring a high level of stress for the agents. 
• Complicated customer interactions: Sometimes, agents must deal with angry, frustrated, or uneasy customers. Such interactions affect the agent’s well-being and can drain energy and stress levels simultaneously.
• Long working hours: Usually, call centers have to operate more hours than usual. It adds stress, which can lead to fatigue and bring negative emotions.
• No control over workload: The nature of work in call centers is unpredictable. So, agents have no control over the call volumes and type of calls they receive. This way, they can feel lost or unhappy with the work. 
• No specific roles and expectations: Unclear work roles or improper communication can confuse agents, and they can’t work correctly.
• Lack of autonomy: A hostile work environment or mismanagement can negatively influence the overall efficiency of call centers. It also reduces the agent’s efficiency, making them demotivated.

Top 6 Tips to Prevent Call Center Burnout

Due to the nature of work in call centers, agents are most likely to face burnout in the long run. Here are some tips to overcome burnout:

1. Getting Involved in Self-Care

Outside of work hours, you need to perform activities you love to prevent burnout. It may be walking in nature, playing football, gardening, etc. This will ensure that you have a healthy work-life balance. 

Aside from that, you need to promote a good diet and sleep quality hours to give your brain enough relaxation. You also need to be involved in daily exercise, maybe yoga or some exercise that keeps your body moving.

2. Take Regular Breaks

You should stop avoiding sitting at the desk and performing work activities all day. Breaks are essential to give your body and mind equal rest; only then you’ll be productive throughout the day. 

You can take both short and long breaks at regular intervals. It may be for taking a walk, performing stretching exercises, having tea, or listening to calm music. 

Remember that taking regular breaks is crucial for promoting your well-being. Breaks make you more efficient in work, not less, and save you from burnout at the same time.

3. Practice Stress Management Techniques

One of the best ways to save yourself from burnout is by practicing stress management techniques. Stress management techniques mean deep breathing exercises focusing on breathing as it goes in and out.

Regularly perform deep breathing exercises or mindfulness meditation sessions to reduce stress to a large extent. This way, you can manage stress to perform work activities better. 

4. Cultivate a Positive Attitude

No matter how bad the situation may be, even a tiny bit of positive exists. Such a positive outlook towards job and life overall needs to be considered. 

Focus on your job’s positive areas to keep you engaged, eliminating the bad aspects. This will cause your dripping productivity to come back again.

5. Create Boundaries

Create a specific boundary between your work and personal life. This means not engaging in other activities after the work hours are done. Once you complete your work hours and go home 

For example, not picking up calls or responding to texts related to work during outside work hours.

6. Look for Support 

If the work is taking a heavy toll on your mental health, then you need to communicate with your supervisors or teammates. Reach out to them and speak about your feelings so they can hear and assist you accordingly.

Final thoughts

And that’s a wrap! In this article, we’ve provided tips and tricks for preventing call center burnout. We hope it helps you.

Due to the demanding work environment, agents fall victim to call center burnout due to prolonged stress and overwhelming feelings. One must take a few actions to avoid exposure to work-related stress in a call center.

These preventive measures are promoting self-care, practicing stress management techniques, and taking enough breaks. By implementing such steps, you can avoid this severe illness called call center burnout.

Improve your call center environment with Dialaxy

Dialaxy is a cloud-based telephony solution ideal for any business looking to uplift its call center environment. It comes up with call center software so that customer interactions can be smooth and efficient. 

With it, customers can connect on multiple platforms to improve customer experience. Automating repetitive tasks like call routing and data entry is achievable, reducing the call center stress.

Features

• Invite team members
• Organize team members
• Export/Import contact
• Call Recording & History
• Character limit indicator

Available Platforms: Google Play Store, App Store

Pricing

• Essential: $16.99/user/month
• Standard: $14.99/user/month
• Enterprise: Custom

FAQs

How do you not burn out in customer service?

To not face burnout in customer service, you’ve to follow a few essential methods, these are:

• Create a healthy work-life balance
• Cultivate a positive frame of mind
• Take enough breaks
• Perform physical activities
• Do proper communication with the supervisor or manager

How do you prevent staff burnout?

To promote staff burnout, you must invest in healthy habits, encourage them to create work-life balance, address workload issues, etc.

How do you not stress in a call center?

It’s hard not to stress in a hectic environment; however, you can reduce it to some extent by following some key steps:

• Cultivating a positive mindset
• Engaging in meditation, exercise, or yoga
• Practicing mindfulness
• Building active listening skills
• Practicing effective communication

What are the symptoms and treatments for call center burnout?

Here is the list to help identify the symptoms of call center burnout.

• Feeling really tired and not wanting to work. When you’re exhausted and can’t sleep well, it might mean you’re experiencing burnout.
• Feeling like there’s no hope and getting easily annoyed. When call center agents are burned out, they might feel very negative, hopeless, or get angry quickly.
• Doing worse than before.
• People leaving their jobs.

Here is the list for treatment of call center burnout.

• Create an environment where people care about each other.
• Make sure everyone knows what they need to do right from the beginning.
• Give enough training and keep providing it regularly.
• Encourage good work with rewards and make it enjoyable too.
• Give agents the tools they need to do their work well such as Dialaxy.

What are 7 tips to avoid stressful situations?

Some tips to avoid stressful situations are as follows:

• Recognize stressors
• Practice relaxation techniques
• Build healthy habits
• Learn to say no
• Stay in the present moment
• Practice proper communication
• Set realistic goals