5 Tips to Improve Morale in Your Contact Centre

How to boost engagement whilst keeping turnover low

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Contact Centre Morale
Contact CentreInsights

Published: February 26, 2021

Anwesha Roy - UC Today

Anwesha Roy

Employee engagement and motivation in a contact centre can be difficult to assess.  

On the one hand, agents mostly meet their targets, strive to do better and participate in healthy competition with their colleagues. On the other hand, attrition or turnover in contact centres is higher than most other industries’ average.  

According to Cisco, agent turnover was a top 5 challenge for 2020, faced by nearly 3 in 4 contact centres. Another study confirms this, reporting that while the majority of agents are satisfied with parameters like salary, recognition, and their boss, dissatisfaction stemmed from lack of job security, a perception of low job status, and complex working hours/conditions.  

In short, while agents themselves are hardworking individuals working for talented leaders, the nature of the job makes it difficult to stay engaged for a prolonged period of time.  

By adopting these five tips, you can improve morale in your contact centre and boost engagement, keeping turnover low.  

  1. Break objectives down into micro, achievable goals

It can be overwhelming to face a large, monthly target at the beginning of the month. It often seems insurmountable and puts added pressure on the agent to figure out how to achieve it. Even if the agent meets the target, they are likely to feel a sense of fatigue which bleeds into morale. That’s why it is advisable to set micro, achievable goals taking the agent’s past achievements as a benchmark. Personalising targets makes them feel more achievable, as agents aren’t striving for an arbitrary golden standard.  

  1. Keep technology clutter to a minimum

As much as it is important to equip agents with cutting-edge technology, overzealousness in this regard will only confuse the agent experience. “Too many applications” was cited as the no.2 technology-related hindrance causing agent frustration in the Cisco survey. In contrast, a clean toolkit (preferably hosted on the cloud for back-end integration and unified dashboards) will motivate employees to focus on the tasks at hand and not get distracted by unproductive efforts.  

  1. Listen to agent feedback

As contact centre agents are contractual (non-payroll) employees, paid by the hour, they are often left out of employee surveys. As a result, their workplace grievances, productivity bottlenecks, and interpersonal issues are overlooked, making them feel demotivated and undervalued. You can address this through short, pulse-surveys that quickly check on agent sentiment/mood at regular intervals.  

  1. Empower your agents and offer autonomy

If you look at the top causes of dissatisfaction, most are related to factors outside of the agent’s control. Issues around job security, job status, working hours, and working conditions will leave contact centre employees feeling stripped of their agency. You can counter this by offering empowerment wherever possible – whether it is through optional WFH for 4-5days a month, self-service scheduling, or self-motivated upskilling.  

  1. Invest in your CSR footprint

Pride in the company you work for is often the biggest motivator, and this can be a concern for contact centre agents due to the perception of their job status. A company that invests in CSR activities like volunteering, carbon footprint reduction, and charitable donations are more likely to inspire its agents.

 

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