Navigating Employee Attrition: The Hidden Adversary in Contact Center Performance

Enhancing the performance of a contact center presents a complex puzzle. The focus usually revolves around the usual trifecta: 1) technological advancements for increased efficiency and customer-friendliness, including AI, Bots, and intelligent IVRs; 2) optimal location and solution choices, from on-site versus virtual, to offshore, nearshore, or domestic, and; 3) process improvements that aim to eliminate waste, re-work, and other systemic roadblocks.

While these areas undoubtedly play vital roles and necessitate continuous attention and refinement, they often only contribute to incremental enhancements in efficiency and customer experience. This raises an intriguing question: why do we pour so much energy and resources into marginal business improvements?

In my 37 years of experience straddling both sides of the BPO industry fence, I’ve had a front-row seat to the industry’s evolution – from the emergence of CRM systems and outbound dialers to the prioritization of customer experience metrics through CSAT, CE, and NPS. Add to this the advent of effective omnichannel solutions, responsive social media strategies, and intuitive technologies.

In the pre-tech era, the secret sauce to outpacing competitors lay in recruiting the best talent, offering excellent training, and fostering a nurturing management style that spurred employees to perform better and stay longer.

Even with all the technological transformations we’ve seen, one constant remains: the human factor. At the heart of every interaction is a real person whose task is to achieve a positive outcome with your customer as swiftly and effectively as possible. Of course, we’ve all embraced automation, self-help options, and human-like Bots to streamline processes. However, this means we’ve shifted the more straightforward tasks away from the agents.

Let’s face it – those simple tasks were never the crux of the problem. The harder, more complex issues that truly upset your customers still exist and are too convoluted to automate. These are the issues that demand the most training for your agents and require finesse to transform a detractor into a promoter.

The modern-day agent now faces a more demanding role, dealing with only the challenging calls which can make an already stressful job downright daunting. Coupled with ever-increasing customer demands, it’s unsurprising that agent turnover rates in the industry are alarmingly high – comparable to high-stress jobs like bomb detonation or toxic waste disposal. According to a July 2020 report by CareerAddict, telemarketer and customer service rep were among the six worst jobs one could hold.

The pandemic has temporarily stalled the rise in contact center attrition due to widespread job insecurity, but this only veils the underlying issues. Post-pandemic, a flourishing economy coupled with pent-up workplace frustrations may drive agents to seek greener pastures.

These concerns underscore the critical impact of high attrition rates on business continuity and performance. An 8% monthly attrition implies an annual turnover of your entire workforce, and even a 6% attrition equates to losing nearly 3 out of 4 people annually.

High attrition carries astronomical costs. With a 6% attrition rate and two weeks of training for a 100 Full-Time-Employee (FTE) customer or technical support program, a company will have to spend 5,760 hours annually just on re-training, not including the resources poured into recruitment and hiring. A persistently high turnover results in a perpetual learning curve, hindering steady-state performance. Those companies that can address early-stage turnover effectively are the true game-changers.

As we settle into an era of incremental improvements after a flurry of significant technology and process advancements over the past 3-5 years, employee retention emerges as a key area for potential gains. The focus needs to be on fostering agent competency and retention for the long haul. Engage them, convert them into your advocates and evangelists. Reject the notion that high attrition is the norm and strive to eliminate other attrition drivers, including through agent investment.

Ultimately, the contact center industry hinges on its people. After 37 years, what was old is new again – it’s time we bring the focus back onto the human element, where it truly belongs.