Contact Center Solutions Featured Article

December 07, 2007

New Report Examines UK Contact Center Performance:

By Susan J. Campbell


High attrition is not a new problem for a number of contact centers throughout the global industry. What many organizations may not realize, however is that it does not have to be an accepted hazard of the industry.

The UK Contact Centre Operational Review examines the attrition problem in UK call centers and how organizations can fight against it. According to findings of a similar report on the contact center industry in the US, low wages was the single major cause of staff attrition.

For UK contact center agents, the lack of opportunity and the repetitive nature of some contact center work are more important. UK agents did cite low pay in third place, with more than 25 percent of respondents reporting this as a major issue around attrition. 

Given this data, contact center managers can examine the pay, opportunities and job flow for agents to determine where improvements can be made. Measuring satisfaction within their own contact center is a great place to start to determine how important money is if other aspects of the job improve.

It is often easy for those outside the industry to peg the career choice of the contact center agent as one which offers only a dead-end. The lack of opportunity to move up the career ladder is marked on average as being the single greatest case of staff attrition in UK contact centers.

Those organizations that provide their agents with the opportunity to gain external qualifications still deal with high levels of staff attrition in 45 percent of cases. The contrast is that those contact centers that do not offer outside opportunities have problems with attrition in 74 percent of cases.

This report indicates that some attrition can be positive. In the UK, 21 percent of agents leave for a job within the same company. On the flip side, more than one third of agents leave for a job entirely outside the contact center industry, which means they are taking transferable skills and knowledge with them.

Although it is not always the most important factor in their job choices, the amount of pay they receive is still important for UK agents. Inflation in the UK has risen by 8.4 percent in the past four years, but new agents’ salaries have risen by only 8.5 percent over that time, indicating there has been next to no increase in pay in real terms. Over the same period however, managers’ salaries rose by 27 percent.

The industry that the contact center serves can also determine the level of pay. IT and telecom agents tend to be paid the most, with those in outsourcing receiving the lowest salary.

Interestingly, the report also found that those contact centers experiencing staff attrition problems pay their agents an average of £1,115 p.a. less than operations which do not have problems with attrition.

Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMC (News - Alert) and has also written for eastbiz.com. To see more of her articles, please visit Susan J. Campbell’s columnist page.

Want to learn more about contact centers? Then be sure to check out TMCnet’s White Paper Library, which provides a selection of in-depth information on relevant topics affecting the IP Communications industry. The library offers white papers, case studies and other documents which are free to registered users. The papers are authored by industry leaders, who, in turn, receive qualified sales leads from interested parties. Check here for the latest in CRM information.



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