Having a successful work culture is important to bring in more job candidates, and it promotes a healthier work environment for your employees. Call center culture is even more important to have since the job requires such high demand from call numbers, dissatisfied customers, long hours, etc. in a low control environment.
To have a top work culture in a call center, the focus must be on the call center agents and their needs since the responsibilities of the job can cause such high turnover. Did you know that the overall turnover averages for the call center industry as a whole range between 30–45 percent, with some centers having almost no turnover, and other centers having turnover in the triple digits? To help you navigate this important topic, we’d like to share five strategies to achieve a top call center culture and what your call center can do to help create a successful work environment.
Why is organizational culture so important? Read here to learn more.
1) Know What Your Call Center Agents Want
Call center agents are the first impression of your company with customers. Given that agents help to make your business a success and their roles are vital in qualifying leads and answering customer questions (among other responsibilities), investing in call center employees is a necessary choice to help lower call center turnover and increase employee satisfaction.
So, you need to think about what the call center agent wants and create a people-first culture to give them the support and recognition for their efforts in leading the company to success. A recent Genesys study on the values of high-performing contact center agents showed that personal responsibility, dependability, and a positive and supportive work environment were among the top attributes that call center agents care about most. To create a positive and supportive work environment, here are a few factors that can help lead your company to success:
Flexibility
A recent study found that 51% of employees wish their company offered more flexible work options. Strict work schedules and call center demands can take a toll on the employees in your company, so giving them the option of flexible schedules, working from home, or more PTO can help to maintain a positive work-life balance and reduce stress and turnover.
Should more customer service reps work from home? Let’s find out!
Opportunity to Grow
Did you know that a LaSalle survey found that 71 percent of respondents said the opportunity for growth was the number one factor when considering a new role? While call center agents may seem like a rigid work environment with few opportunities to grow, giving your agents additional skills, employer-offered training, workshops, and organizational support can help to achieve a positive work environment that invests in their valued employees and allows agents to pursue more work-related education opportunities.
Incept Example: Our own CEO, Sam Falletta, started on the phones as a call center agent, which demonstrates the growth opportunities here at Incept!
Recognition and Rewards:
A 2016 Gallup analysis found that this desire is so strong, workers are twice as likely to quit within the next year if they feel their work hasn’t been recognized. Therefore, rewards and recognition are key elements in retaining employees and making them feel valued.
For example, Incept holds monthly management meetings that announce an “employee of the month” and a prize for the winner. When the winner is announced, upper-level management and other employees are given the chance to speak on behalf of the employee of the month to give their praise and congratulations. Even with this small gesture that Incept provides to its employees, it allows everyone the opportunity to feel recognized and appreciated for the call center operations and hard work that they have done over the past month!
2) Improved Onboarding and Recruitment
Employee development is beneficial not only to your company but also for the call center agents. Your organization can provide thorough and continuous onboarding training which prepares the potential employee with the demanding responsibilities of working in a call center and screen for the emotional components of the job as well. In a recent call center agent survey conducted by ASAPP, 77% of agents surveyed indicated that hands-on training and shadowing are the most effective way to learn and improve on the job. For example, Amazon offers its agents an intensive, month-long training and leadership program at the outset and has a “Virtual Contact Center” to train employees to work from home.
Furthermore, call center agents can be extremely helpful in improving the onboarding and recruitment of potential talent because they are already aware of your company culture and core values! To help manage this task, your company can incentivize training and recruitment by giving referral bonuses or prizes. For example, Zappos’ employees earn “Zollars” for participation in training programs and can redeem them at an internal store. Incentivizing the agents and giving them part of the responsibility of onboarding and recruitment can make them feel important and recognized as a valuable part of the organization!
Incept Employee Review Example:
3) Nurture Core Values
According to a Harvard Business Report article by Andrew Chamberlain, Chief Economist at the jobs and recruiting site, Glassdoor, the culture and values of an organization take the top spot as a predictor of job satisfaction in Glassdoor reviews and surveys – regardless of income level. Therefore, your teams of agents should consist of people who are passionate about their work and have values that are aligned with your organization.
Promoting top call center culture opens up a world of possibilities for professional development and success with your agents, and it is associated with more productive employees and a better brand image. Here are the Incept Core Values that leadership and employees strive for each day:
Integrity
Never Settle
Compassion
Everyone’s A Customer
Present
Tenacious
Related Article: 2021 Year In Review: A Winning Year For Incept
4) Invite Candid Feedback
“Routine feedback is better than none, but meaningful feedback—the kind that helps individuals learn, grow and do their jobs better—is how you improve productivity and performance.”
Meaningful feedback should be the primary part of organizational culture. Call center agents want to feel heard and provide improvements and learning opportunities to do better. In a University of Birmingham study of 20,000 workers, researchers found that the more autonomy a worker experienced, the greater their level of job satisfaction.
For example, Cargill introduced its “Everyday Performance Management” system, which incorporates encouragement and feedback into daily work-related conversations. By giving agents the opportunity to make decisions and contribute ideas through autonomy and candid feedback, it encourages agents to contribute more and talk about the improvements they think would ultimately benefit call center operations and create a positive workplace culture.
5) Culture of Caring
Merijn te Booij, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Workforce Engagement Management at Genesys, said “a strong, effective culture starts with establishing a foundation of empathy where employees feel seen, heard, understood, and valued.”
Your call center is a community. This community works together and supports each other in day-to-day operations, but your organization should put in place a culture of caring to help encourage a continuous, positive work environment. Call center agents don’t always get the “personal touch” of company culture because of the demand of their work requirements, so fostering a culture of caring can shine a light on the valuable work of those agents and give them recognition.
For example, your company can have executives listen to calls side-by-side with agents and turn the leadership of your company into advocates for the voice of your brand: your agents. Also, according to HBR, helping employees feel more valued and supported is important not just for those individual employees’ wellbeing, but also for the organization as a whole. Recognition is such a vital aspect of employee satisfaction, so allowing call center agents to have a positive and safe experience in their organization and the company values as a whole will help to cultivate a better work environment and a top call center culture!
Related Article: 5 Ways to Show Empathy in a Remote CX World
Incept Culture
At Incept, our culture is driven by our commitment to our purpose. Every day, we strive to build our clients, partners, and employees up into the best possible version of themselves. On top of our values, we also believe that defining the core behaviors of extraordinary people has helped to drive our extraordinary culture.
It’s our devoted focus on this purpose that has landed us at the top of multiple awards lists, commemorating our culture, employee engagement, and company growth. We make an effort to prioritize our core values and drive employee recognition, retention, and satisfaction. Incept promotes its culture through several rewards within the company to help spur our top call center culture. Here are some of these activities below (see more here):
Flexibility:
At Incept, we understand that work-from-home is beneficial to employees, especially during the pandemic. Giving your call center agents the ability to have a flexible schedule, take breaks, or walk away from their desks for lunch are great ways to help virtual agents alleviate stress in the workplace.
On-site Counselor:
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Incept has hired an on-site counselor to help manage the well-being and success of its agents. An on-site counselor gives call center agents, and other employees, the ability to have a safe and open space to talk about their concerns in the workplace or in their job responsibilities. This helps make employees feel heard and cared for by our organization along with setting them up for success in their personal lives.
Employee of the Month Award:
Each month, Incept recognizes an employee of the month as well as the most improved employee on their respective team. We do this in monthly public ceremonies so that the employee is recognized by all of their peers, which adds to creating an environment fueled by success and collaboration.
Incentives:
Here at Incept, we are big believers in recognizing hard work so that our people feel valued. Frequently, we provide incentives like extra breaks, gift cards, vending machine coupons, client products, public recognition, supervisors taking the team's calls, and team incentives (i.e., catered lunches, monthly employee meet-ups, and games to be played in the rows). Also, we provide a performance bonus that is based on weekly performance to specific key performance indicators, as determined by discussions with our clients. We make big bets on people early, and our incentives really help to create an environment that proves that behavior.
Call center agents play a vital role in your company by being the first impression to customers or potential customers to help the organization succeed. We believe that these strategies for top call center culture are a good start to learn more about the importance of your call center agents, and how your organization can implement one or two new strategies to help lead your team to success!
Share your thoughts on improving call center culture and we can help you enhance yours!