Workforce Management Featured Article
Combating Burnout in the Call Center
Burnout is not something to take lightly. From time to time we all need to take a “mental health day” or employ practices to combat the drain from out day to day and recharge the batteries. The contact center is an incubator for burnout – lots of hours, addressing angry customers, keeping an eye on KPIs, etc.
Fret not, there are ways to avoid the pitfalls of burnout in the contact center. For starters, challenge agents responsibly. Not too easy, not too challenging, know your team and dole out duties intelligently. And to avoid monotony, allow team members the option of different duties now and again.
Eager agents will volunteer for additional shifts, and won’t necessarily feel the drop in quality of their customer interactions. It’s crucial to ease off the throttle, select technology wisely as to do much of the heavy lifting for your customer service squad. Echoing the above, allow agents the versatility to switch up routines, duties and hours for a fresh perspective.
Nobody likes to be micromanaged – Fact. Loosen the grip on the script. Yes, compliance is key but beyond the basics, allow agents to show-off their sterling personalities and be people. Trust me, saying the same thing over and over again can quickly become soul sucking. Intern, by empowering your agents to be people, customers will respond positively to the personal response.
Selecting the appropriate workforce management tools will certainly put your team in a position to succeed, but that is only the beginning. Call center management must remember agents are people too, and burnout is an all too common phenomenon in customer service.
How do you combat agent burnout in your contact center?
Edited by Maurice Nagle
