The benefits of keeping your employee happy and excited are manifold. For instance, their happiness will rub off on your callers, which means more constructive and positive experience for anyone who comes in contact with your call center. Also, happy employees are more stable, which means they will stay with you for a long time to come. Lastly, happy employees are more productive, which invariably has a positive impact on your bottom-line.
So why not keep them happy and make the most of their happiness. Given below are few tips on how you can keep your agents happy.
- Implement a Call-Back Feature
Call-backs feature is one of the best ways to lower abandon rates and give a much needed boost to your agents’ morale. In fact a recent study found that call-backs reduce abandon rates by 37% and also make call center agents feel better by giving them a chance to handle the queue of calls as per their convenience. Furthermore, it gives an opportunity for agents to focus on building relationships with their callers rather than be on their heels to end one call and receive another.
- Allow Agents to Work Remotely
Typical call center environments can be extremely stressful and can take a toll on agents. Hence opt to revitalize them by providing some work-from-home options. This way you will not only be able to keep them happy and excited at work, but also increase their productivity by leaps and bounds. In fact, as per recent studies, agents who work from home are more productive than those who work in a typical call center environment. This is because they have greater autonomy at home and face fewer interruptions, which can translate into better focus on their work.
- Use Gamification to Drive Success
When customer service associates feel low and unmotivated, they start making errors without quite realizing it. This is where gamification can be a huge difference. According to a recent report, games stimulate competition and increase the energy levels of the workforce. It dramatically raises the performance levels of these employees and makes them more engaged. Introduce games like fussball, table tennis and other video games now to keep your agents in good spirit.
- Offer Professional Advancement
Call centers have earned a reputation of being flat organizations with little or no opportunities for growth leading to attrition and difficulties in drawing fresh talent. However, things can change drastically if the call centers opt to provide better advancement opportunities. This will serve as a win-win situation for both parties.
- Don’t Hire Toxic Agents
You have invested a lot of time and energy in creating a certain culture at your call center. To sustain this environment you have to hire like-minded agents. This is because, just as it takes one rotten apple to spoil the rest, a crooked agent can break down your existing culture and bring in negativity of the kind which can even affect your happiest agent.
Remember, keeping your agents happy and excited at work doesn’t just elevate your call center environment to a new level, but is also financially worth your time. Even if you have to churn out some extra bucks to implement some of these steps, the money you save on reducing your employee turnover is worth the cost. And, what’s more, you can ensure your employees come to work everyday with a smile.
