How to reduce contact center attrition & minimize its impact with customer-led voice assistants
Discover the reasons behind increasing contact center attrition and how to address them with customer-led voice assistants
The repetitive nature of an agent’s role, combined with a lack of development, high pressure, low pay, and unpleasant calls, are just some of the reasons the employee turnover rate in contact centers remains 30-45% above the average of other occupations.
Attrition costs companies as much as $10,000 to $20,000 per contact center agent. In a contact center of 100 agents, attrition costs between $300,000 - $900,000, impacting their ability to scale operations, increase productivity, and improve service quality.
In this blog, we will explore some of the reasons behind increasing agent attrition rates and how customer-led voice assistants can manage increasing call volume, help contact centers scale, and empower agents.
What is call center attrition?
Call center attrition refers to the rate at which employees leave their positions within a call center over a specific period, typically measured annually. High attrition rates can significantly impact the efficiency and effectiveness of a call center, leading to increased costs associated with hiring and training new employees, decreased service quality, and lowered employee morale.
Why are call center attrition rates so high?
Common reasons for increasing agent attrition rates include the following:
- The high workload is causing agent burnout and stress – 15% of employees say their role has changed negatively since the pandemic due to burnout and stress.
- Agents experience low engagement – Only 38% of non-managers are highly engaged. Those that aren’t engaged attribute this feeling to a lack of support, motivation, and incentives.
- Agents are dealing with demanding and abusive customers – 60% of customer-service workers have experienced hostility .
- There isn’t adequate training and career development – 24% say their role has become more demanding since the pandemic, and 12% say it now requires skills they do not have.
What is the impact of agent attrition on the contact center?
Almost 50% of all contact center employees plan to leave their current role within a year and a half. Attrition is a major problem and is having an impact on contact centers in the following ways.
It weakens customer service
With a lack of capacity to handle calls, customers face longer wait times and increased time to resolution. Some customers will struggle to get through to speak to an agent at all, increasing call abandonments.
The standard of service drops and has the potential to impact brand reputation, increase complaints, and cause lower CSAT scores. Newer agents require more time to gather information and respond to customers. When customers don’t receive the standard of service they expect, many will share their negative experiences.
Hiring costs go through the roof
Onboarding and training a new agent is estimated to cost between $10,000 and $15,000. Getting an agent to a stage where they are ready to take calls can take months, during which they aren’t contributing productive minutes on the phone. Each non-productive week costs the contact center thousands of dollars.
Existing call center agents suffer from low morale
When agents resign, the remaining staff have little choice but to pick up the increased workload. Talking to frustrated customers who have spent a long time on hold contributes to low agent morale. Low morale can lead to decreased productivity, increased absenteeism, and further agent turnover.
How to reduce agent attrition & minimize its impact with customer-led voice assistants
As companies search for ways to retain staff, many are turning to customer-led voice assistants to automate the voice experience and alleviate the pressure on the contact center. Gartner predicts that conversational AI will automate six times more agent interactions in 2026 than today.
1. Reduce call volume
By handling routine queries and FAQs, customer-led voice assistants alleviate the pressure of high call volume on the contact center. This gives much-needed time back to agents so they can take comfort breaks. This helps make the call agent job more pleasant, which can help reduce attrition and burnout.
2. Scale phone support
Customer-led voice assistants enable contact centers to scale their phone support more efficiently. Unlike legacy technologies, deploying a voice assistant is achievable in weeks. Companies can adopt a usage-based pricing model, allowing them to only pay for the services they use, managing peaks in call volume effectively.
Customer & PolyAI success story
Landry’s Golden Nugget Hotels & Casinos scaled its operations at a time when hiring agents was a challenge. They launched a PolyAI voice assistant that saved them from missing out on $600,000 in revenue in just one month by handling front-desk calls and hotel reservations.
3. Empower agents
Agents empowered with the right resources resolve customer problems with greater satisfaction. Customer-led voice assistants work with agents by providing an efficient handover with structured information, dramatically reducing call duration and improving experience.
Ready to transform your call center with conversational AI?
High attrition rates can be a significant challenge, but they don’t have to be insurmountable. By leveraging customer-led voice assistants, PolyAI can help transform your call center operations, leading to higher job satisfaction and better retention rates.
Call center attrition FAQs
Are customer-led voice assistants difficult to implement?
Customer-led voice assistants are not difficult to implement. PolyAI provides robust support and integration capabilities to ensure seamless implementation, designed to quickly adapt to your existing infrastructure and start delivering value promptly.
How can customer-led voice assistants improve retention in contact centers?
Customer-led voice assistants can significantly reduce attrition by handling repetitive queries to free up agents for complex tasks, reducing wait times, and enhancing the overall work environment by decreasing workload stress.
How can AI improve call center agent performance?
AI improves productivity by automating routine inquiries so agents focus on complex issues, providing real-time assistance during calls, and analyzing performance metrics to help managers provide targeted coaching.
