Customer and staff retention in contact centres are linked. The drive for efficiency is essential but it can also be self-defeating. The OECD's global framework of corporate governance principles aims to improve performance by combining the most efficient allocation of scarce resources with an ethical regard for their value and rights. It might just be the recipe for contact centres, too.

As marketing professionals, we are probably involved in the growth of direct sales and distribution. It's a trend that distances customers from their suppliers, and it is clear that success can be vanishingly short unless we close the gap with effective customer service.

As consumers, subscribers and council tax payers, few of us are without some personal experience of service through contact centres.

Happy?

Is it a happy experience? Not enough to stick in the mind, according to Callmedia's survey in 2006. Just one in 25 of us claims to have had a good experience with any contact centre at all. And it does not appear that the experience of contact centres' potential employees is any different. In fact, guidance for the BTEC Introduction to Contact Centres course assumes that staff have negative experiences of contact centres as customers, as well as positive ones.

Last year, the writers of a cross-sector report for The Institute of Customer Service found high customer satisfaction reflected in high employee satisfaction. The reverse was also true – high employee satisfaction motivates them to give good service and produces high customer satisfaction. If this is contact centres' aim, what's the level of achievement?

Worrying

Worrying. Aston Business School's 2004 study found 84% of UK contact centres using management principles "more akin to manufacturing assembly lines than service operations designed to create positive interactions with customers." Loosely translated, it means that contact centres aren't treating properly one group of vital stakeholders, with the effect that another group of vital stakeholders isn't being treated properly either. It's no surprise that ORC International's Perspectives survey found that contact centre staff are the occupational group that least like the work they do.

Also, a significantly smaller proportion than in the working population as a whole believe they are making good use of their skills and abilities. And this from people who are recruited on the basis of their determination, empathy and intelligence to explore new opportunities, understand issues, listen to points of view and sustain and exploit customer loyalty. Applying such qualities in the context of budgeted wrap-up times and a variety of performance targets puts some pressure on every individual's moral and physical strength. Contact centre staff want to give great service. But they see barriers.

Attrition Rates

In 2006, a Sanderson & Neale attitudinal survey found 72% of employees of Welsh Contact Centre Forum members having no commitment to their employer and nearly half of these expecting to leave. Other studies covering the UK as a whole showed 23 – 30% of contact centre staff remaining with their employer for one year or a shorter time, compared with a UK average of 18%. Contact centre employers stand to benefit less from the experience of their staff.

Staff attrition has a negative impact on brand reputation, day to day. Where a centre is working near capacity, the loss of even one operator seriously affects waiting times. It isn't a theoretical issue – unauthorised staff absence is at 5.8%, according to ContactBabel, and is understood as being much higher than that in some large centres.

Of course, not everyone leaves for negative reasons. But with its adverse impact on customer service and with recruitment costs which can be £5000 per person, staff attrition represents a significant business risk to be kept in check. Recruitment provides no easy answer. For more than half of contact centres, recruiting staff of the right calibre is a problem.

Is the right response operational or strategic? If the prime cause is strategic, then the operational efficiency of current staff can't make up the deficit, other than in the very short term. Dealing with the cause means having to achieve conditions which make it possible to maximise efficiency – a larger, stable and motivated resource pool.

The Northwest Contact Centres Project applied Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to structure an approach to maximising the impact of health, safety, welfare and other conditions of employment. Given that the most basic of motivations demand the most immediate response, it is easy to see the positive impact of getting employees' first year right – staff churn reduced by a minimum of one in five leavers.

Getting the Basics Right

At the most basic level, faced with a constant need to perform, staff have to feel physically comfortable and free of unreasonable stress.

It is a legal requirement, defined in health and safety law and in the good practice guidelines for work in contact centres. These require staff to be given an understanding of the issues and knowledge of what they ought to be doing to help themselves. In conjunction with a feedback loop for reporting problems, this understanding enables staff to share responsibility for compliance in the working environment with management. That, on its own, gives them a stake in the success of their organisation.

The next step up in terms of being in control of one's surroundings is knowing one's way around and "knowing the ropes" in what can be a very large workplace.

Formal communications fail because of their formality. Official guidelines, po-faced instructions and handbooks don't engage this generation of twenty somethings, any more than their parents. Finding the right tone of voice is essential if training materials' message is going to register, and "buddying" provides reassurance in a personal way that handbooks don't achieve. A multi-sector study by Crystal Interactive found that feeling part of a team was more important than pay and flexible working, in terms of its effect on morale.

Battle of the Giants

Nowhere is the competitive pressure for suitable, local staff greater than between regionally concentrated contact centres employing many hundreds of operators, often using converted warehousing on the edge of town. This puts the centres relatively close to each other, as far as prospective employees are concerned, but also far from local services.

Various initiatives are underway. Some extend conventional thinking to the task of increasing the resource pool.

Offshore outsourcing does this, and it lowers costs, too. But customers' response to the language gap has brought about some well-publicised policy reversals.

Bussing in people from outlying market towns has been tried for similar reasons. But tolerance of 40 minute commuter journeys varies across the country, and the anticipated influx of fresh staff has not always been there.

Flexibility in the deployment of existing staff actually increases the resource pool. Call blending increases call-time availability by enabling suitable inbound operators to make outbound calls when inbound volumes are lower.

Belonging to Each Other

Other initiatives address the motivations of Maslow's middle range – stability and belongingness. Their aim is to root employer and employee in each others' respective operational and family systems, to their mutual advantage.

They include teleworking, the progressive flipside of bussing. It is proving successful for the AA and others in terms of overhead reduction and makes it possible to call on additional staff with little notice. It is also a family-friendly policy – important in an industry, where many employees have young children.

Another example comes from one of the several telecoms centres in Warrington. During 2006, it ran monthly "open days". These gave local college students space in the central canteen area to provide staff with a variety of wellness-related services. While staff obtained greater value from their scheduled breaks, the initiative provided positive exposure for the contact centre's working environment among the student population.

There is a need for initiatives which challenge the idea that staff are there for the short-term only. It is done by demonstrating the employer's commitment to the staff's wellbeing over the longer term. A biodiversity scheme, for instance, can improve the contact centre's surroundings, and it will offer opportunities for involvement and competition, much as charitable schemes do.

Self Sustaining Development

At the top of Maslow's hierarchy are requirements which relate to individuals' ability to achieve their ambitions and recognition of their capabilities. The industry's established system of vocational and professional qualifications facilitates both, and multi-site operations can offer greater development potential. Building the team's skills is an essential part of motivation. Without it, sustaining a service proposition as the foundation of competitive advantage isn't possible.

Argos' multi-brand centre at Widnes interprets the call blending approach dynamically, designing variety into the staff's workflow and giving them the authority to see many issues through to resolution. By maintaining staff skills across process areas, Argos is developing management potential.

The application of corporate governance principles is developing, as in every other business sector. They may appear to be a diversion from the industry's traditional focus on efficiency. By reducing attrition and increasing call-time availability, they are ingredients in a recipe for success. But how many contact centres apply them in a structured fashion from the bottom to the top of a hierarchy of needs?

Max Klein
Director, Inside Track Media
email: max@inside-track.co.uk
website: http://www.insidetrackmedia.co.uk/piprinf.html