Reduce agent turnovers by improving your employee engagement strategy

Monday, January 15, 2018

Employee turnover is the bane of the customer service industry. The high-stress environment of working in a call center, sometimes coupled with overwhelming workload, cause force workers to leave. But what if you're the opposite of those things? You give reasonable work demands and pay your employees accordingly, yet your workforce is still shedding. What are you doing wrong?

Here's where employee engagement comes into play. It's an indication of your call center agents' emotional commitment to your company. It also shows your workers' willingness to achieve your contact center's goals. While it's somehow related to employee satisfaction, they're not the same at all. A happy and contented employee can have low engagement. A satisfied and fully engaged employee exudes passion in their work, often putting in high discretionary effort in their work.

So, how can employee engagement affect your call center? Here are some ideas.

1.   Turnover is expensive.

It's pricier to recruit employees than to retain them, much like customers. According to Dale Carnegie Training, recruitment can cost approximately 1.5 times an employee's annual salary. Not only that, the US Bureau of National Affairs also said that American businesses incur losses up to $11 billion because of employee turnovers. That's how expensive it is to lose employees.


2.   It promotes loyalty.

Employees will be less prone to absenteeism, tardiness, or other attendance concerns. It also has a great effect on employee retention. If your employees have great experience working in your company, they'll stay, according to Towers Watson's 2012 workforce study. In it, the research company said that more people are likely to stay based on the overall relationship of the employee and the business.


3.   It drives productivity.

Fully engaged employees don't produce half-baked outputs. Like mentioned before, such call center agents work with passion and commitment. That, in turn, results in higher customer satisfaction ratings. They commit less mistakes, and can also work beyond their beck and call if they need to. Overall, they perform better, and engage customers better.


4.   It creates a relationship built on trust.

The company takes care of their employees, and in turn they help the company reach its goals. The business relationship nowadays of the company and its workers is built on trust. In a sense, if employees trust their superiors, they're more likely to stay and be engaged.


Employee engagement isn't just a buzzword human resources developed to make work more fun. It's not just about parties and perks, or incentives. Engaging your call center agents shows how much you value your employees, creating a lasting relationship with them. Simply put, it shows that you care and that your employees matter.