A recent popular industry conference had a seminar offering a panel Q&A discussion with five industry experts and authors on reducing the attrition rates and improving the morale and productivity levels of contact centre agents. The packed audience of contact centre managers and team leaders asked the same questions of the panellists that their predecessors were asking ten years earlier. And with very minor exception, the panellist's answers were exactly the same as those given ten years earlier. There wasn't a science-based answer in the bunch... either from the panellists or from the audience.

Contact centre managers have been receiving data reports every day for the past ten years.   Better recruitment strategies helps. Improved induction and training is important. Yet overall, agent attrition is not falling, and agent productivity is not much better. The Association of Support Professionals recently said: "Over the past few years, software companies have struggled to keep the cost of telephone-based tech support under control. Thousands of hours of consulting time, conferences, and operations research have been spent on finding ways to deliver support more efficiently, without cutting service quality to a level that might send customers to the competition. So what has all this effort accomplished? Sadly, not much."

According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), staff turnover in contact centres averages 30.4% and it takes 7.4 weeks to recruit new staff in the customer service sector. They also report that the total cost of recruiting induction and training is £6250! The average cost of recruiting and training a call centre representative is between £2,500 and £9,000 according to BenchmarkPortal.com.

Agent00 helps contact centres keep their experienced agents longer through positive behavioural conditioning and therefore reduces the number of new hires required each year. Experienced Agents = Increased No. of Calls Taken. Even the most talented new agents lack the intuition and skills that come only from experience. A staff of experienced employees translates into less time spent on each contact, and, as a result, greater overall productivity.

Research Director of Aberdeen Group, Harry Watkins, Ph.D. reported: "Agents with veteran experience are able to immediately recognize customer needs and act decisively and appropriately to satisfy them. These veteran agents are far more likely to resolve issues on the first call or contact than less experienced agents with the same skills."

The real key to reducing agent attrition rates and increasing agent productivity in a sustainable manner lies in automated (behavioural science) conditioning of your agents. Behavioural science turns "knowledge" into "human action." With a positive response by agents to Agent00's PIC conditioning, attrition cycles could reasonably expand beyond 24 months -perhaps even well beyond. If experienced agents do not have an artificial ceiling and can frequently receive regular bonus money, meaningful respect, and trophy-like awards ... they may desire to stay in their agent jobs for several years. So long as they stay productive and above company margins, this would certainly be a big advantage to contact centres because they have the capacity to generate a much higher ratio of revenues to cost.

Through the automated assistance of Agent00's Pavlov-esque behavioural conditioning process, as agents become more productive and continue in their contact centre jobs at least six to twelve months longer revenues will significantly increase.

Attrition rates are the number one profitability problem in the worldwide contact centre industry today.  Being able to earn daily PICs (respect, bonus pay and awards) in an automated and totally objective method is behavioural science at work (not art or artifice), and the foremost key to keeping agents longer.

Forward to the next page on increased productivity.