Reducing call center turnover - Part 1

Turnover rate measures the percentage of call center agents that leave the call center in a given time period. Turnover can include resignations, terminations, retirements, transfers, and promotions. Agent turnover rate is also referred to as attrition, retention rate or agent churn.

Turnover has two significant impacts: Turnover is a critical metric for customer service centers because of its impact on customer satisfaction and budget. Turnover should be tracked in order to:

• control costs
• improve customer satisfaction
• raise employee morale

Cost impacts of turnover

Turnover increases costs in a variety of ways including:

• recruiting and hiring
• training new CSRs
• temporary staffing
• outsourcing (service bureau fees)
• lower productivity of new agents (handle times are higher for new CSRs)
• overtime costs for current staff while the job is vacant
• unemployment insurance premiums

Supervisors confront a major challenge with turnover and cost control. This challenge includes balancing the cost of new hires with the cost of retaining experienced CSRs.

Customer satisfaction

A counterbalance to cost control is the issue of customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction suffers when a steady stream of inexperienced CSRs handle calls and when scheduling and forecasting does not account for unexpected shortages in staff due to turnover. In the end, poor customer satisfaction will impact costs. These costs can take the form of call escalations, repeat calls, and potentially customer attrition.

Employee morale

Finally, turnover is a good indicator of employee morale. Although employee morale is difficult to quantify, it has consequences for customer service levels, productivity, and overall performance.

Areas to consider for reducing turnover rate

Turnover rate can vary greatly between call centers. Factors that can impact turnover are as follows:

1. Recruitment, screening, and orientation programs

Recruiting techniques that simply bring in 'warm bodies' will raise turnover, while targeted recruiting will result in higher retention levels. Screening processes should identify people that are a good match for the job requirements and fully inform applicants about the reality of CSR job tasks. Finally, company orientations that provide CSRs with a positive introduction to the company and an understanding of company values establish a good relationship with employees.

2. Training and support of new graduates

Poor training programs raise turnover when agents don't have the tools to do their job well and have the perception that the company places little value on CSR job tasks.

3. Quality of direct supervision

Good supervision ensures that CSRs have the information to improve their skills, as well as support with challenging job tasks. The degree to which CSRs are treated fairly within the customer service center ties in with job satisfaction. If management is biased, uncommunicative, or hostile to CSRs, turnover will increase.

4. Competitiveness of pay scale

Wages should be competitive with other job opportunities in the area or CSRs will be lost to better-paying jobs.

5. Other employment opportunities in the area

Other job opportunities with better advancement opportunities, challenges, and skill development may cause turnover.

6. Level of job satisfaction and rewards

CSRs regularly deal with a stressful job. Burnout levels are high and can be aggravated if there are few instances of job recognition and reward for excellent performance. Agents also can be unsatisfied with their job when they do not have the tools and work processes to do a good job for their customers.

7. Attractive advancement opportunities within the company

Providing CSRs with career-pathing can often motivate them to stay with a company.

8. Unplanned change

Poorly-managed change can lead to attrition. If new systems, products, services or marketing are done with no advance notice or if CSRs are left uninformed about changes, turnover will increase.

When should turnover be addressed?

In many cases, turnover is a constant concern for customer service centers. Because of the nature of the CSR position, many supervisors consider turnover a necessary evil that needs to be dealt with on a continuing basis.

So how do you know when turnover is severe enough to warrant special focus? In addition to budget considerations, customer service levels, and employee morale/productivity, there are some other factors to consider. The loss of highly skilled employees is one consideration. The attrition of first-rate employees can be an irreplaceable loss for companies. In addition, constant turnover and recruiting can create a negative impression about the company.

Finally, turnover warrants extra focus if a clear pattern begins to appear. For example, if there has been 50% turnover in the past year due to resignations, chances are that some fundamental problems exist at the company and need to be addressed. If employees are always leaving because of negative circumstances, this is a red flag that significant problems exist within the organization and that management practices, training, and HR policies need to be revisited.

How can turnover be reduced?

High turnover is a major problem for many call centers and challenges management to identify causes of attrition.

Know why turnover is happening. It is important to know the exact reasons why agents leave in order to:

• identify 'controllable' reasons why agents leave (to focus attention on reducing the causes of these departures)
• accurately plan ahead for recruiting, hiring, and training replacements at the same pace as you expect agents to leave

Some reasons for agent turnover are beyond the control of management. These departures will occur regardless of how attractive management makes it for agents to stay.

'Non-controllable' turnover includes:

• retirements
• promotions
• transfers to other departments within the company
• illness

'Controllable' turnover includes resignations due to:

• job stress
• low pay
• lack of advancement possibilities
• lack of support and reward on the job

Action steps you can take

1. Evaluate the 8 areas identified in the section "Areas to consider for reducing turnover rate" to determine where the greatest contribution to agent turnover may be taking place.

2. Conduct exit interviews with CSRs to identify why they are leaving.

3. Conduct focus groups with managers, supervisors and employees to brainstorm the root cause of employee turnover.

4. Use the results of the data from steps 1 through 3 to prioritize the root causes for employee turnover. Develop action plans to address these root causes.

5. Implement these action plans and measure the results.

This tutorial is drawn from Porsci's Call Center Measurement Toolkit.

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