Recruiting and Retaining Customer Service Agents with a Work from Home Approach

Trevor Butterworth is founder of the UK Contact Centre Forum (UK CCF), a networking and support group for professionals working in the contact centre and customer service industries in the UK. We spoke with him about how offering the ability to work from anywhere is now essential for contact center managers.

8x8: In a buoyant job market, do contact centers still have a recruitment problem?

Trevor: Yes, recruitment and retention are both big issues, and with around 4% of people in the UK working in contact centers, it’s an issue that affects a lot of people. There’s pressure from all sides. Internally, people tend to use an agent role to get into a company and then move on into marketing, HR or finance, etc. Externally, there’s demand from an influx of new contact centers opening up as a result of more business coming through digital channels.

We’re also seeing a trend of onshoring, where organizations are bringing back contact centers that were previously located abroad. So it’s highly competitive, in a market with agents who will typically move for very small increases in money.

I saw this recently when a large number of UK energy companies went out of business. There was a significant increase of contact center job seekers onto the marketplace, but the people were quickly getting snapped up. Some of them were contacting me on a Monday for advice, but by Friday they had three interviews lined up, and were starting a new job on the following Monday. Which is great for candidates, but not for contact center managers competing for talent to fill a growing number of vacancies.

8x8: How much of an effect is homeworking having on contact center staffing?

Trevor: It’s no different to other businesses, Now that people have experienced flexible working, not everyone wants to go back to office working, and contact centers that try to enforce it will suffer. Many people found a better work-life balance in recent years and they simply don’t want to go back to working full-time in a traditional contact center environment.

Some people want to continue with 100% homeworking, others want to do one or two days a week at home. It depends on individual circumstances. For example, homeworking has made people appreciate being able to drop kids off at school, be home in time to start work, then do the afternoon school run and log back on later for an evening of calls. The flexibility is not something they want to lose again.

8x8: How important is technology as a factor in recruiting and retaining contact center staff?

Trevor: It’s essential, but many contact centers already realize this. By 2023, employee experience is predicted to overtake customer experience, at least temporarily, to lead contact center focus and investment. It’s not just about where you are located, either. The perception is that agents spend miserable days trying to pacify “Mr Angry,” but this rarely happens if you can deliver smooth interactions for customers and if your agents have the information they need to answer the question or solve the problem without passing the customer around. This is something that 8x8’s CCaaS and XCaaS solutions enable you to do, whether you’re in the office or at home.

This same technology also enables contact centers to retain good, knowledgeable staff by turning an agent role (traditionally a short-term option) into a step in a career progression. Agents can apply for that next step up, with more responsibility or a higher salary, even if the opportunity isn’t in their local office, because their company offers them a great employee experience working from anywhere.

8x8: Remote work was said to be enabling companies to recruit with more diversity and inclusion. Are you seeing this in contact centers?

Trevor: Yes, it’s much easier for organizations to work with groups of people that they might not have been able to before. This is important for a number of reasons aside from the general fact that the more diversity, the better in general. Firstly, because we should be encouraging businesses to be more diverse—research shows that diversity and inclusion deliver positive business results—and, secondly, because it helps to broaden the pool of people you are recruiting from.

Traditional contact center environments can be hard on some people, perhaps those who struggle in large groups or with excess noise or who don’t have the ability to get to out-of-town sites or locations with infrequent transport links. Adopting work-from-anywhere enables you to recruit people who have exactly the right knowledge and skills for a contact center role, but may be uncomfortable or unable to work in the traditional environment.

8x8: Does anyone still want to go back to work in a traditional contact center now?

Trevor: Yes, definitely! Many people still prefer to go into a contact center to work. There’s the social aspect, meeting people face-to-face or going out for lunch or evening drinks with your work colleagues, that sort of thing. But there’s also the practical aspects. Homeworking can be very hard if you don’t have a dedicated room to work from, or you’re in shared accommodation, or even living at home with parents. It would be a lot to manage for any job, but when you’re regularly on the phone it can be doubly hard. People in this situation can prefer to have a workplace to go to.

Many of the companies we work with are finding an increase in the number of people returning to the workplace. But ultimately, what we’re seeing is that there’s no single solution. Contact center operators need to meet the expectations of their staff, and that’s to be treated as an individual and given the flexibility to work where is best for them.

If you missed it, you can find out the top reasons why contact centers are implementing work from anywhere solutions in part 1 of this series.

8x8 has also published advice for those looking to make the most of remote working. Discover more here.