Credit Union Call Center: 5 Reasons Your Agents are Disengaged

By Steven Holmes, AnyHour Solutions

You stroll into the call center this morning to find two of your agents called in sick….yet again, another 10% are tardy, and most of the others are either texting a friend, swearing under their breath, or yawning into their keyboard – or all of the above.   You ask yourself, “What am I doing wrong?”

If it makes you feel any better…you’re not alone.  Many call centers are plagued with high agent burnout rates and frequent turnover.  Some call center managers feel these high levels of disengagement and resulting agent attrition are a natural, unavoidable consequence of the call center environment.  Not true.

There are numerous call center operations that experience success creating an environment where agents want to come to work and want to do a good job; in some cases they even love coming to work and are committed to doing a great job.   The result for these centers is high agent retention rates, greatly reducing the highly-underestimated cost of agent turnover.

If you have agent disengagement issues in your call center, here are some possible contributing reasons:

1. Coaching and training take the back seat.  Agents typically are eager to develop their skills and add value to the organization.  But your supervisors find it hard to carve out the time needed for effective coaching and training.  Your center needs to explore effective ways to fit vital coaching and training into the schedule: such as incorporating e-learning materials, implementing a peer mentoring program, utilizing third party coaching/training companies, and empowering agents to take on some supervisory tasks – which will free supervisors up to conduct more coaching and training.
2. Too much emphasis on the wrong key performance metrics can erode passion.  Part of the reason your agents came to work for you was the mental picture you painted for them of a “member-centric” culture they were eager to be a key part of.  But as soon as they begin you’re hammering them with statistical objectives such as AHT (Average Handle Time), calls per hour quotas, meeting credit union sales objectives, and reducing call abandonment rates.  You might benefit by emphasizing metrics like Member Satisfaction, Quality of Contact, and First-Call Resolution before both your agents and your members defect.  Do so, and you’ll be delighted with how metrics like AHT and calls per hour begin to fall in line.
3. You’re not fully embracing a culture of Agent Empowerment.  Your call center has failed to recognize and act upon the fact that agents know your members better than anyone and possess a wealth of insight into member’s desires.  It’s time to start empowering your agents to utilize that knowledge to improve existing processes and develop new ones.  This is likely the best path toward continual quality improvement of your call center while simultaneously showing your agents they are respected and of great value to the organization.  You will be amazed at the positive impact their insights and suggestions will have on operational efficiencies, revenues, member satisfaction, agent engagement, and agent retention.
4. Agent reward programs are either uninspiring or non-existent.  Your agents are no longer motivated by your stale, outdated, lame incentives.  Pennies and cookies will not get them to “raise the roof” performance-wise.  It might be a good time to revamp your rewards and recognition programs with initiatives like: a Wall of Fame that recognizes good performance; nominations for external industry awards; opportunities to contribute to important projects or committees; an increase in responsibilities with a commensurate increase in pay; fun happy hours where agents are recognized and receive praise in front of their peers and the public; and serious monetary incentives that actually drive agent motivation and performance.
5. You’re simply hiring the wrong people.  Maybe you are actually incorporating all of the suggestions made in this article, but STILL struggle with agent disengagement and attrition.  You may need a close review of your recruiting and hiring practices.  Regardless of how well you train and empower your staff, if you are selecting candidates who aren’t a fit for call center work or your corporate culture, you’ll have problems with agent commitment, engagement, and achieving a level of performance required to be a world-class member contact center.  One good option, in addition to employing an outside recruiting firm, is to evaluate the various call-center-specific, employment simulation products now on the market that allow your candidates to take an internet screening test customized to your environment based on historically-successful attributes in your center and those based on industry experience/knowledge.  These solutions have gotten markedly better in recent years and can save you much time, headache, and revenue.