Grow your contact centre from the inside out

Magnus Geverts, VP Product Marketing at Calabrio, shares his essential guide to turning workforce wellbeing into competitive advantage.

Many of the changes to define the last two years are having a lasting impact. Customer loyalty is up for grabs – not just because the pandemic transformed buying habits, but because it opened consumers’ eyes to a new standard of seamless, personalized customer experience (CX). However, as companies strive to meet and exceed these higher CX demands, dwindling staff numbers and a demotivated workforce can threaten to derail even the best-laid business plans.   

For those of us in the contact center world, this probably comes as no surprise.  Our own research at Calabrio indicates that stress levels among agents are rising sharply with 96 percent claiming to feel stressed at least once a week while one third of agents in the UK say they are considering leaving their current job within a year.  It is a worrying thought because without enough talented and engaged frontline staff, customer satisfaction levels plummet.  

Employee mental health takes center stage

On a positive note, it is a big wake-up call to take agent wellbeing seriously.  Today, nearly all (86 percent) of employers say that mental health, stress and burnout are a top priority; however, half (49 percent) have not yet formally articulated a wellbeing strategy for their workforce and only a quarter have already articulated and adopted a wellbeing strategy. It appears that while successful leaders recognise that investing in agent wellbeing is critical to the health of their business, there is still a long way to go.   

Five ways to power workforce wellbeing in the contact center  

In order to turn today’s serious workplace challenges into a competitive advantage, contact centers need to put together a combination of people-process-technology-powered thinking and solutions that support all parts of the organization and at all levels including agents, management and operations staff as well as CX leaders. 

Here are five steps to get started:  

1. Model a culture of wellbeing from the top down. As a CX leader, you have a direct, personal role to play in shaping work culture. Ask yourself: ‘what are my own stress triggers and how do I handle them?’ Lead by example. Be open about taking lunch breaks and holidays so these new norms of wellbeing behavior cascade down throughout the organization. Learn to delegate. Trust supervisors and operations managers to set their own wellbeing agenda and encourage them to build measurable wellbeing-oriented goals into performance reviews.
2. Focus on and prioritize key sources of agent stress. It is impossible to fix everything all at once so take a step back and identify the most pressing stress factors first. When Calabrio interviewed contact center professionals recently, the results shed light on the three biggest stressors for agents today: ‘managing their work-life balance’ (41 percent), followed closely by ‘being expected to deal with complex customer problems’ (36 percent) and ‘having too many calls to manage’ (34 percent). What are the stressors specific to your team?  If you do not know, just ask. Agents will respect you more for showing you care.   
3. Build better teams with smarter coaching and training. Help agents achieve the perfect work-life balance to stay energized and better able to cope with complex customer issues and high call volumes.  From experience of listening to our customers, most agents want training to be more frequent, personalized and flexible.
   Adopt a data-driven approach to performance coaching made possible by modern AI-infused analytics. Adding automation to monitor performance and identify skills gaps enables leaders to deliver effective, personalized coaching programs to motivate teams, wherever they are.
   Next, build trust to boost confidence and a stronger sense of engagement. Start with an open-ended self-assessment where agents say what they think they are doing well, where they are struggling and need extra support. Let agents do the talking and let them take the lead in developing their own self-improvement plans.     
4. Introduce self-service automation. The first essential step towards a better work-life balance. The latest tools allow agents to take charge and reduce stress levels in one go. They are able to work extra hours on unscheduled days and at different times. In short, they can build their own schedules to fit around their life rather than the other way around. Meanwhile, make the most of smart call routing platforms to help balance the load of too many calls. This avoids the all-too-common scenario where your top performers – the most talented and valuable employees, are also your most overburdened.
5. Give agents their very own DIY de-stressor kit. That offers both technological and lifestyle support. There are some surprisingly simple steps agents can take to reduce their stress levels but most people need a little help and guidance to steer them in the right direction.  Provide an insight into personal performance using the latest voice, text and desktop analytics tools. Ensure the information is easy for agents to access. Offer tips for boosting energy levels such as getting a good night’s sleep and drinking enough water throughout the day. For a healthy work-from-home regime, equip agents with the tools and knowledge to create an ergonomically friendly workspace, suggest ways to signal when they are “on” or “off” duty and allow them time to connect with colleagues.

For more ideas and inspiration, download Calabrio’s interactive guide: Workforce wellbeing recovery toolkit: practical strategies & resources to turn workforce wellbeing into your competitive advantage.