In the world of call centers, metrics are king. Resolution time, first call resolution, CSAT scores, and average call duration, to name a few, are meticulously tracked, recorded, analyzed, and then acted upon. The goal, typically, is to use these metrics to increase customer satisfaction, yet it’s often at the expense of call center employee satisfaction – which in the call center industry, is quite a problem; in an industry where a 60% turnover rate is considered good, one must ask – how useful is customer service training if you can’t retain employees? Are we an industry too obsessed with metrics?
The good news for those in the call center world who enjoy the feedback of metrics, is that more metrics, albeit internal metrics, just might be the solution to help decrease turnover rates and raise customer satisfaction through improved employee satisfaction. According to the emerging field known as “work-force science,” previously held assumptions that have governed hiring practices in call centers and tech are being turned on their head. By using “big data,” a.k.a, hundreds of thousands of aggregated metrics and reports, researchers are unearthing new correlations in data to guide HR departments in their hiring practices.
A recent New York Times article entitled “Big Data, Trying to Build Better Workers,” profiles the burgeoning industry of work-force science and highlights some of the findings that have been found to decrease turnover rates and improve management styles, specifically in call centers. One of the work-force science startups, Evolv, found that certain traits in management and in employees resulted in less turnover churn and helped lead to improved call center employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction rates.
Many HR departments at call centers put a great deal of focus on their hiring assessments of the employees themselves. It’s true that employee temperament and work styles will certainly have an impact on the worker’s job success, but in analyzing “big data,” Evolv researchers found that supervisors and management are one of the keys to decrease turnover rates and improve job performance. Specifically, the communication styles and warmth of a manager or supervisor were strongly correlated with higher call center employee satisfaction and lower turnover.
Additionally, through analysis of personality assessments with successful managers, researchers found that some of the most important factors predicting innovative and happy leaders come from those individuals who have a strong sense of mission and who have personal autonomy in their jobs.
So if call center employee satisfaction begins with the attributes of the management team, what should call center HR departments look for when it comes to finding employees who will work productively and remain satisfied in their job? Surely some aspects of an employee’s work history still matter, right? Well, according to the new research from work-force science, looking merely at the traditional guidelines of previous job length or unemployment gaps is actually not a great indicator of future results or success.
Evolv applied work-force science and big data to a large call center, Transcom. Using personality characteristic tests, and correlating the results with job performance and turnover, the researchers found that traits such as honesty could result in a worker staying in the position 20 – 30% longer than those employees who scored lower on the honesty trait. Additionally, researchers in the work-force science field found that those who are most successful at sales have an attribute of “emotional courage” – the ability to be persistent after first being told no.
In light of the most recent studies using big data and work-force science, the findings show that to decrease turnover rates and improve call center employee satisfaction, the effort begins at the top, by looking carefully at management temperament and with customer service management training. When it comes to call center employee recruitment and screening practices, instead of simply looking at work history, for example, a more thorough interview process, reference checks, and team interviews can help the HR staff identify temperament characteristics such as honesty and how people handle stress.
Hopefully, by focusing more on hiring practices, management training, and customer service training, companies can start evaluating internal metrics to find their own correlations with call center employee satisfaction, which should lead to decreased turnover rates.