UK contact centre operations have always had an infamously high turnover of staff. In fact, in a study from Blue Sky Consulting, it was revealed that staff turnover in contact and call centres across the UK, costs the industry over £1.1 billion each year. That’s a cost of around £2,244 for each of the estimated 500,000 staff employed in the industry. We’ve listed 5 free ways that your contact centre or customer experience operation can start to try and combat this perpetual ‘revolving door’.
1. Reward and praise
Staff performance appraisals are an integral part of effective management of teams, but often these will only occur once a year. If it’s not already a key part of your operation, why not look to hold more regular reviews with team members to give them more feedback on how they’re performing? Sharing positive feedback about individuals amongst the rest of your team can be another way to ensure that your team know that they’re on the right track.
2. Ask for their feedback
Asking directly for feedback often doesn’t yield the desired results, so it’s important to be as creative as possible here. Feedback from your team could relate to an inordinate number of topics, but whatever you’re looking to achieve, it’s about testing and trying out new ideas to obtain as many accurate results as possible. If you can, try to look at including your team in wider operational decisions and gather their feedback and ideas here. They’ll likely relish the invitation to get involved and appreciate the opportunity.
3. make goals smart
SMART goal setting is about quantifying the objectives that you want to achieve to make them clear and reachable for your team. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Agreed upon, Realistic, Time-Based. By creating SMART goals and KPIs, you will help your team feel more comfortable that they will actually meet their goals and as a result they will be more motivated to hit targets.
4. encourage social events
This is another chance to be creative by devising team-building activities for your staff. This doesn’t have to be a day or two out of the office, but simply 10 or 15 minutes once a week where everyone gets together. Find a space where you can talk freely and maybe even invent games to help break the ice. Better yet, install a turn-based system where each week a different team member comes up with a game or topic to discuss. It’s not about embarrassing individuals here, it’s about motivating them through trust, entertainment and value.
5. challenge your teams
As a combination of the above, you absolutely have to keep pushing your teams to want to better themselves. A well-motivated team should always be hungry to achieve more, so don’t feel like presenting challenges should be a bad thing. New skills will aid personal growth, so any opportunity to help motivate your team in this way will reciprocally progress you, your team member, and the wider organisation.