CP Wire

It’s not hard to imagine how a contact center agent could burn out. The work can be repetitive, and dealing with frustrated or angry customers all day can take its toll, even on someone with the most even temperament.

Interestingly, agent burnout is generally caused by the repetitive nature of the work, not the interactions with volatile customers. Fortunately, that means the cure is manageable. In fact, addressing some of the agents’ basic needs can leave them feeling energized and ready to work.

Consider the following tips to help keep agents engaged:

Let agents take control. Almost no employee is managed more tightly than a contact center agent. Involving agents in a customer experience road-mapping project gives them the chance to examine and influence every part of their work. At a minimum, agents will better understand what drives existing policies and standards. The best case would be that agents may change something that helps them enjoy the job more as well as becoming more productive and customer-focused.
Make agents feel like a contributor. An informal assignment as a mentor to a co-worker reinforces an agent’s sense of maturity and value. This could be managed through IM, seating arrangements or scheduling, as long as the assignment doesn’t negatively impact the mentor’s productivity.
Provide variety. Brief meetings to practice newly learned skills or discuss their application in real calls can be just what the doctor ordered.
Provide relief, allowing agents time away from the phones. It’s not easy to take calls all day if they involve customers with problems, pressure to complete sales, talk time constraints and countless other issues. Managers can balance the negative by offering “debriefing” sessions where agents can vent about problem calls or other issues and get advice from supervisors and colleagues on how to better manage them in the future.
Encourage agents to build relationships with co-workers. Even though agents work in the middle of a 200-person call center, they are still working in isolation. That reduces the sense of camaraderie and shared purpose needed to engage employees. Asking an agent to lead or participate in a brief skills practice or application session enables some face time with peers and managers.
Provide training. Agents who are provided with training that teaches both technology skills and soft skills will have the confidence needed to be able to provide quality service.
Provide room for growth. Involve agents in projects that provide opportunities for professional development. The intellectual stimulation and the additional portable skills can be powerful motivators. Structure projects to assist with process improvement efforts such as “road-mapping” a customer interaction to identify areas for training or new tools. The end result is a win-win-win, as the agent has increased job satisfaction, the organization has more productive employees and customer interactions improve.
Show respect. Back to the idea of a customer experience road-map project: this type of assignment demonstrates the value that frontline expertise brings to big-picture organizational results. To be meaningful, such a project needs input from people who can relate to customers, who know potential solutions, who know what’s been tried and hasn’t worked and who know what can’t be solved through individual responsiveness. Contact center agents aren’t often given credit for the expertise they have, so this creates an opportunity for management to acknowledge them.
Revisit your retention strategies. If you’re seeing burnout becoming a problem, take a look at what you’re currently doing to keep employees happy. If it’s not working, there’s room for improvement.
Offer rewards. Managers often overlook low-cost recognition, inside and outside of regular performance reviews. Many opportunities to recognize and reward don’t involve money: giving an employee the spotlight, writing a thank-you note or providing a mentoring opportunity. These motivational efforts may seem minor, but can go a long way to keeping agents positive and engaged.

While agent burnout can be the silent killer of contact center productivity, the good news is that engaging them does not have to be difficult. With the right strategies in place, contact center managers can foster a culture of retention that produces long-term payoffs for the organization, its employees and ultimately, its customers.

By Sharon Daniels, CEO of AchieveGlobal (www.achieveglobal.com), international provider of skills training and consulting services in customer service, sales performance and leadership development.


Issue 127: October 3, 2007
10 Tips for Combating Agent Burnout
It’s not hard to imagine how a contact center agent could burn out. The work can be repetitive, and dealing with frustrated or angry customers all day can take its toll, even on someone with the most even temperament. Interestingly, agent burnout is generally caused by the repetitive nature of the work, not the interactions with volatile customers. Fortunately, that means the cure is manageable. In fact, addressing some of the agents’ basic needs can leave them feeling energized and ready to work. Consider the following tips to help keep agents engaged: Let agents take control. Almost no employee is managed more tightly than a contact center agent. Involving agents in a customer experience road-mapping project gives them the chance to examine and influence every part of their work. At a minimum, agents will better understand what drives existing policies and standards. The best case would be that agents may change something that helps them enjoy the job more as well as becoming more productive and customer-focused. Make agents feel like a contributor. An informal assignment as a mentor to a co-worker reinforces an agent’s sense of maturity and value. This could be managed through IM, seating arrangements or scheduling, as long as the assignment doesn’t negatively impact the mentor’s productivity. Provide variety. Brief meetings to practice newly learned skills or discuss their application in real calls can be just what the doctor ordered. Provide relief, allowing agents time away from the phones. It’s not easy to take calls all day if they involve customers with problems, pressure to complete sales, talk time constraints and countless other issues. Managers can balance the negative by offering “debriefing” sessions where agents can vent about problem calls or other issues and get advice from supervisors and colleagues on how to better manage them in the future. Encourage agents to build relationships with co-workers. Even though agents work in the middle of a 200-person call center, they are still working in isolation. That reduces the sense of camaraderie and shared purpose needed to engage employees. Asking an agent to lead or participate in a brief skills practice or application session enables some face time with peers and managers. Provide training. Agents who are provided with training that teaches both technology skills and soft skills will have the confidence needed to be able to provide quality service. Provide room for growth. Involve agents in projects that provide opportunities for professional development. The intellectual stimulation and the additional portable skills can be powerful motivators. Structure projects to assist with process improvement efforts such as “road-mapping” a customer interaction to identify areas for training or new tools. The end result is a win-win-win, as the agent has increased job satisfaction, the organization has more productive employees and customer interactions improve. Show respect. Back to the idea of a customer experience road-map project: this type of assignment demonstrates the value that frontline expertise brings to big-picture organizational results. To be meaningful, such a project needs input from people who can relate to customers, who know potential solutions, who know what’s been tried and hasn’t worked and who know what can’t be solved through individual responsiveness. Contact center agents aren’t often given credit for the expertise they have, so this creates an opportunity for management to acknowledge them. Revisit your retention strategies. If you’re seeing burnout becoming a problem, take a look at what you’re currently doing to keep employees happy. If it’s not working, there’s room for improvement. Offer rewards. Managers often overlook low-cost recognition, inside and outside of regular performance reviews. Many opportunities to recognize and reward don’t involve money: giving an employee the spotlight, writing a thank-you note or providing a mentoring opportunity. These motivational efforts may seem minor, but can go a long way to keeping agents positive and engaged. While agent burnout can be the silent killer of contact center productivity, the good news is that engaging them does not have to be difficult. With the right strategies in place, contact center managers can foster a culture of retention that produces long-term payoffs for the organization, its employees and ultimately, its customers. By Sharon Daniels, CEO of AchieveGlobal (www.achieveglobal.com), international provider of skills training and consulting services in customer service, sales performance and leadership development.

Complimentary Webcasts You Won't Want to Miss
October 11, 1:00 Eastern: Validating and Maintaining the Optimum Customer Experience for your Voice Business Solutions. Presented by IQ Services. This Webcast covers voice functional testing and how it can be accomplished to insure your business solutions work as designed and continue to work as they are tuned and your infrastructure is changed. October 16, 1:00 Eastern: Next Generation Workforce Optimization—why it is needed now. Presented by OnviSource. It’s time for a paradigm shift in the way solutions are offered to this industry. The solution for today’s call centers is the “next-generation” WFO product, is far from the traditional approaches. This webcast discusses the next-generation solutions on three major offerings. October 18, 1:00 Eastern: Calibration 101: Best Practices in QM Calibration for Contact Centers of All Sizes. Presented by Verint. Calibration of scoring is a critical component of any successful quality monitoring program, but calibration sessions are all-too-often inefficient and difficult to measure, not to mention challenging to find the time for in the first place. In this webcast, we’ll discuss the what’s and how’s of calibration between call evaluators. October 23, 1:00 Eastern: The High Performance Contact Center. Presented by NICE. This webcast examines the issues surrounding organizational performance in today’s complex business environment. Looking at performance at three levels – employee, operational and enterprise – we learn how they interrelate and the keys to successfully managing performance at each level and overall. October 30, 1:00 Eastern: Improving Strategic and Tactical Call Center Planning- Learn from Fidelity Investments. Presented by Bay Bridge Decision Technologies. Geoff Meester of Fidelity Investments will outline his experience of radically improving strategic and tactical call center planning at Fidelity’s brokerage contact centers.

News and Commentary
Train to Retain Want them to stay? Send them back to school. Here’s how three companies are using training opportunities as an employee retention tool. Guide to Buying Call Center Software At its best, call center software can make your business stronger and your customers happier. Changing Channels Airline distribution strategies are evolving in some unexpected directions. Building Sales Pick up the phone to promote your goods and services. Aflac: All it’s Quacked Up to Be The public face of Aflac may be a duck, but when it comes to motivating, recognizing and incentivizing 4,500 corporate employees and 69,000 independent licensed agents, the Columbus, GA-based provider of supplemental insurance is very serious. The Profit-Minded Contact Center: Building an ROI Case for Customer Interaction Solutions Read this white paper to learn how contact centers in financial services can deliver differentiated customer service while building more profitable customer relationships and demonstrate the ROI on customer interaction solutions. Online-Offline Fusion Marketing Recipes Explore this white paper to learn how marketers are embracing fusion marketing, the new frontier of online and offline marketing. Find out how to utilize web analytics for turning insight into results.

Smart Quote
"Ignorance doesn’t kill you, but it does make you sweat a lot." -- Haitian Proverb

About Contact Professional and CP Wire
	Contact Professional magazine provides useful management tools and resources to the contact center professional. Written for executives, managers and directors of contact centers, the editorial focuses on real world solutions to issues faced on a daily basis. From hiring and training to technology implementation, each article emphasizes ROI and increased efficiency within the contact center. CP Wire, the electronic counterpart to Contact Professional, is delivered biweekly and focuses on daily obstacles facing the contact center professional, offering firsthand opinion and expertise in a brief, entertaining format along with the latest news affecting contact centers around the world. Some links in CP Wire are time-sensitive. These links may move or expire as the news changes throughout the day. Sponsorships or product announcements appearing in CP Wire are paid advertisements and do not reflect actual CP Wire or Contact Professional endorsements. The news and advice reported in CP Wire or Contact Professional magazine does not necessarily reflect the official position of CP Wire or Contact Professional magazine. The information contained herein has been obtained from services believed to be reliable.
Subscribe
	Click here to continue receiving this e-newsletter, or to receive a complimentary subscription to Contact Professional magazine.
Privacy
	Click here for information regarding your privacy.
Unsubscribe
	Click here to unsubscribe from CP Wire.
Feedback
	We're always looking to improve CP Wire, the Contact Professional website and Contact Professional magazine. The best way we can do that is to get feedback from you, our readers. Click here to let us know how we're doing and how we can help make your job easier. We look forward to hearing from you.