Turnover is natural in a contact center and in any business. However, when employees are unsatisfied with their working circumstances, the business faces an unwelcome high turnover rate. The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) estimates that 3 to 4.5 million Americans leave their jobs each month. Most employees are willing to stay at their current company if they are given opportunities to gain new skills. This phenomenon is even more pronounced in the call center industry.

So, what are the primary factors that contribute to contact center turnover or attrition? How do exit interviews aid in gaining a deeper understanding of agents’ daily lives? And what strategies, technologies, and tactics may be implemented to avoid excessive agents turnover rate in a contact center?

Attrition is the gradual decline or loss of a certain number of persons over a specified time period. Churn rate is a metric used to determine the rate at which consumers or subscribers abandon a product, service, or brand. It is used to determine a business’s capacity to retain consumers. As a result, this indicator is more consumer-oriented, yet we occasionally hear about a company’s attrition rate. In this context, it refers to the loss of staff, whether natural or not, as a result of fatalities, retirements, or an abnormally high rate of attrition. It is typically computed on a yearly basis and is as follows:

Attrition rate = (Number of customers or workers lost / Total customer or employee base at the start of the period) × 100.

On the other hand, turnover is a result of attrition. It is a term that refers to the turnover of employees inside a business. Additionally, it is referred to as job turnover. Employees quit their companies on a daily basis. This is a natural component of a business’s life cycle. A high turnover rate indicates that the attrition and turnover rates of the company’s staff are significant. This results into a high volume of exits (layoffs, contract terminations, and resignations) followed by a high volume of recruitments. This turnover might be desirable by the business or, on the other hand, it can be detrimental.

Turnover is sometimes expressed as a percentage over a certain time period, which is referred to as the turnover rate. It is typically computed over a 12-month period.

To determine this rate, several critical data must be gathered: the number of departures during the year N, the number of arrivals during the same year N, and the total number of workers on January 1st of the same year N.

Here’s the formula:

Turnover = [(Number of departures from N + Number of arrivals from N)/2] /Staff on January 1st of the current year

The turnover rate is then calculated by multiplying this value by 100.

When a company’s turnover is less than 5%, it is deemed low. On the other side, if it surpasses 15%, it indicates a high rate of staff attrition and a negative social atmosphere at the organization owing to a variety of factors.

Management and the human resources department should carefully study these indicators, as they will provide insight into the environment, working conditions, and employee attrition. When personnel turnover becomes excessive and the firm is unable to regulate it, it can have a detrimental effect on the company’s financial health. It might result in enormous expenditures associated with numerous recruitments and staff attrition (resignations, training for new positions, time spent looking for a new candidate). It is therefore vital to understand the underlying reasons in order to take appropriate actions to address employee wear and tear and significant job turnover.

• Inadequate recognition

• A toxic work environment

• A conflict with management

• Lack of advancement opportunities in a position

• Inadequate management within the company

• Inadequate communication among staff

Employee unhappiness does not manifest itself instantly. Employee attrition and discontent can develop over time, and their work-related well-being might worsen further if the business does not intervene. Even a little trigger can eventually result in an employee quitting the organization if he or she has been exposed to a negative social atmosphere for an extended period of time.

A company’s management or human resources manager must conduct regular interviews with workers to ensure their general well-being before attrition rates deteriorate and result in a high turnover rate.

This is the critical first step towards resolving the contact center turnover issue. It is the one in which you must spend time in order to identify potential and talent and avoid hiring by default in order to fill a vacancy. Do not be afraid to invest a bit extra time up front to save time afterwards. Be certain of your mission, your aims, and the everyday realities of your job. Consider the many personalities, experiences, and potentials that may be concealed underneath the more junior profiles. Because the contact center’s objective is to establish a human connection in order to solve a problem or answer a question, this value must also be emphasized during recruiting.

Building team loyalty demands an effective integration within the organization, both in terms of mission and social integration. While there should be a common foundation for everybody, you may also tailor the training by selecting certain courses. Certain profiles will be at ease with technology but less so with objections, and others will be the polar opposite. Adapting your training to the reality of the field, the market, and the demands of your new workers is a proven strategy for fostering engagement and motivation.

BenchmarkPortal CEO and Senior Research Executive Bruce Belfiore believes that call center training is a crucial component of any company’s long-term success. From our podcast series Stories of the Call Centers, Bruce provides his ideas on effective and correct remote training and how to utilize the appropriate strategy and tools.

Clichés are notoriously difficult to break. The picture of the contact center, with employees lined up next to one another, eyes fixed on a computer, in a constant state of chaos, and under constant pressure to be heard and watched at all times by their supervisor, does not contribute to the creation of a tranquil work atmosphere. To address this, consider adapting your workplaces to improve noise distribution, increase natural light and décor, provide appropriate work equipment, encourage frequent or occasional telecommuting, and foster engagement, trade, and sharing of best practices among telecommuters.

A good agent may be identified by his tools. In a contact center, the situation is identical. Provide your staff with the tools they need to accomplish a good job. Decision trees, scripts, customer journey modeling, integration with sales, ERP, and CRM tools… a comprehensive and adapted software package will streamline your call center agents’ work and optimize your internal processes, including those for new hires.

By allowing your agents to interact with your customers on their preferred communication channels (voice, web chat, email, SMS, and social media. You can anticipate your customers’ needs and bring customer experience excellence from the first interaction. Across all communication channels, your contact center can deliver an intuitive and efficient agent team for your clients with our CCaaS Solution NobelBiz Omni+.

Nowadays, running a contact center is like riding a rollercoaster with thrilling and occasionally deadly loops. To keep delivering in such an erratic business environment, managers and owners had to adapt by implementing new and untested solutions. Solving one set of difficulties resulted in a new set of problems that we are only now beginning to comprehend. Learn more from our Webinar on Solutions for Turnover, Technology & Culture for Contact Centers.

Employees that work remotely are not only performers. They are stakeholders in your organization and offer suggestions and suggestions for changes. Involve your staff in your company to demonstrate your appreciation for their efforts in a positive co-creation process that benefits both your operation and your consumers. Attend to their suggestions and promote initiative, even if it extends beyond the boundaries of telephone contact or customer relations.

It is critical to know who to contact in the event of inquiries or issues. To do this, communication channels must be built that are completely transparent. Whether it’s a technical, administrative, or sales issue, an operational inquiry, or a customer concern, your staff needs to know who to contact for optimal efficiency and transparency.

Successes, whether individual or group, should be appreciated. Whether it is the accomplishment of a goal, the provision of great customer service, an employee’s engagement or contribution to a significant change, each success adds to the development of a work environment that nurtures employee loyalty.

A comment, a present, a reward, a delicious dinner, a bonus, a raise, training in a nice atmosphere, a gift card, or increased flexibility in managing work hours… there are several methods to recognize accomplishment.

For businesses that specialize in customer service, the employee retention rate is a critical measure of the call center’s reliability. This KPI demonstrates the company’s commitment to staff retention in order to increase efficiency and competitiveness. A business argument that can be the deciding factor in a new client negotiation. From our guide, learn more about the most essential Key Performance Indicator for Customer Services.

For NobelBiz, Success start by delivering a complete set of solutions from redundant and robust global voice carrier service to a high-quality Software Solution. That is the craft and expertise of NobelBiz. For 20 years we helped contact centers bring all their communication together for seamless customer experience.