Headsets are a central piece of equipment in telephony-enabled contact centres, powering a large portion of agent productivity. And they also come with a hefty CapEX – a powerful pair of headsets can set you back by up to £100 per agent, making this investment worthy of careful consideration. Always consider the average lifespan or expected age of agent headsets before you make a choice. Follow a set of simple headset management best practices to prolong lifespan and prevent the CapEX from becoming a recurring cost.
What is the Average Lifespan of an Agent Headset?
The notion that hours of use render agent headsets useless beyond a few months is a myth. Business-grade headsets are purpose-built for extended usage in complex scenarios, with mechanisms for durability, comfort, and protection from the elements.
Most headsets ship with a warranty of 2-3 years, during which the vendor will provide maintenance, free of cost (subject to company-specific limitations). Among the popular headset providers out there, Jabra offers 2/3 years of warranty, depending on the product you purchase, Sennheiser products are covered by a 24-month or two-year warranty. For Poly, headset warranties vary from 1-3 years.
In other words, the average age of an agent headset in a contact centre should at least be a year, and this can go up to 10 years.
There are even companies like Koss, which offers a lifetime warranty for its products (including headsets), provided you can demonstrate “normal use.”
Does the Average Lifespan of Agent Headsets Matter?
In a world where consumer and business electronics goods are becoming increasingly affordable – often without a perceptible compromise in quality – it can be tempting to embrace the inevitable obsolescence of headsets and opt for the temporary use route. But this has several downsides.
Not only will you face a mounting recurring CapEX quotient over the years, particularly if you are scaling your contact centre, but it is also bad for your carbon footprint. Providers like Logitech are aware of this and have started to label their headset products with a carbon footprint decoration.
Frequently retiring headsets means that you are constantly imposing a new variant on your workforce, and agents have to again undertake headset usage training. Factoring this training time and ramp-up time to full productivity on a new headset, you could be losing out on business opportunities.
For these reasons, it is advisable to optimise headset lifespans so that they last for at least 3-5 years in a regular contact centre setting.
Tips for Optimising Headset Age
- Conduct a headset inventory at the end of every workday to prevent headsets from being abandoned by agents around the contact centre
- Establish headset ownership. IT teams should lease out headset funds to the contact centre, and agents can be responsible for their own devices’ upkeep
- Strengthen vendor relationships to obtain warranty services with minimal hassles. Request regular onsite inspections for large contact centres
- Monitor headset performance to identify any warning signs of wear-and-tear, so that maintenance isn’t delayed
