Silver lining in grey climate

The recession might make it a gloomy time for most businesses, but the sun is shining in the contact centre industry. Daniel Pilkington discovers that one of the traditional bugbears – staff recruitment and retention – is being aided by the flat employment market.

KATHRYN Starr, chair of Contact Centre Institute of New Zealand and general manager at PHONEplus, says recruitment for contact centre agents has never been better, with the recession bringing more applicants  through the door. “New Zealanders are seeking additional income through part-time work,” she says. “The flexible hours and  part-time options available in the Contact Centre industry are attractive to job seekers right now.”Not only had the number of applicants stepped up; the quality had also increased – which Starr put down to  the high number of experienced sales and customer service people looking for work.Although they lack specific contact centre experience, they do have skills which transfer readily into a contact  centre environment, she says.Massey University contact centre manager Tina Hilliam reported they were also receiving a greater number of applicants. The Massey University contact centre has 32 staff, with one manager, three team leaders, one support staff  and 27 agents. The contact centre processes 2000 interactions per day, which include 0800 number calls,  campus calls, and the remainder in email or texts, she says. However, this can rise to 5000 interactions at peak periods of the year. In an environment such as this, staff  turnover can have a major impact, and while it is always a issue for Massey University, Hilliam says she has  put methods in place to minimise the effect.“Staff turnover has a very direct  affect on the productivity of our contact centre,” she says. “Experienced  agents in our contact centre are agents with 12 months’ service or more and certainly are more productive and  give a higher quality interaction with our customers than newer staff; therefore we focus onhaving a  healthy level of turnover.”For Starr, losing an experienced member certainly impacts on contact centre dynamics. “If a contact centre  does lose a star performer it will certainly impact on productivity, due to the volume and quality of that  individual’s output,” she says. “In most contact centre teams, it usually takes at least six months for someone  to start producing consistently high results.” According to the 2009 New Zealand Contact Centre Industry Benchmarking Report, the cost of replacing top  staff is still significant – $17,300. This is why staff retention is also very important to all contact centres, says Starr.  Luckily, the economic climate is also proving to be a deterrent to agents leaving jobs, says Starr. “Employees increasingly value their job security as unemployment rises,” she says. “Maintaining a profitable  business is the central commercial imperative and this is more obvious to staff at all levels than it may have  been 12 months ago. “Retention levels are generally very good in the company, as the business has actively worked to develop a  positive employer brand,” she says. “Staff retention in the past 12 months has been stronger than in previous  years.” Starr believes “not all individuals are driven by money” and that many are more willing to grow their  experience in a business.  “This definitely adds depth to their CV and makes them more marketable in the long run,” she says. “It also  provides a platform for them to grow within the business rather than exiting.”According to annual callcentres.net research, fi gures show that agent tenure has increased in 2009.In 2008, the average tenure of a full-time agent was 26 months, whereas a part-time agent was 24 months.   This increased to 33 and 28 months respectively for 2009. With team leaders/supervisors, tenure increased from 40 months in 2008 to 47 months in 2009. For contact centre managers, this increased from 49 months in 2008 to 60 months in 2009. Starr says this is the same trend that has been witnessed in Australia – one that could be linked to the global  financial crisis. “There is uncertainty in the marketplace, and hence staff are less likely to move from their jobs and are  staying in their jobs longer – resulting in a higher tenure.” But staff retention can often depend on both identifying and nurturing talent, and having systems in place to  encourage retention. For Starr, the first indication of a star performer comes shortly after first contact. Contact centre recruitment processes are generally very robust, and reference checking with previous  employers can reveal the first indications of star quality, she says. “People who have a proactive approach and willingness to engage are noticeable, even at the induction stage,”  she says. “The level of commitment and attitude to learning is something a seasoned team leader will be able  to gauge very quickly.” Aside from the personal element of recruitment, Starr says that individual agent statistics are reviewed often,  so good productivity and sales/service skills are picked up and recognised. In order to best gauge the performance of its employees, Auckland contact centre PHONEplus engages an  external consultant to carry out monthly benchmarking on individual agent performance, says Starr. As a result of these monthly reviews, PHONEplus provides awards to top performers. At the Mercury Energy  contact centre, one of the retention plan activities is based around having a  development team. According to contact centre manager Ruth Turnbull, the best customer service representatives are selected for  inclusion in the ‘development’ team, where they are given escalated development from approximately six  months. “The development team includes agents with a higher skill level who might be selected when a special  outbound customer contact programme is needed,” she says. “After six to eight months in the development team, these agents go back into one of the customer services representative teams, adding a higher level of  experience and support to that team.” Mercury Energy has an inbound staff of 34 agents taking an average of 2500 calls per day. In July 2009, Mercury Energy introduced a reward programme for its contact centre agents, based on  ‘mystery call’ results over a three-month period. For calls measured independently during the mystery call process, there is a major reward for the best call, a reward for all calls that exceed KPI, and a team reward,  says Turnbull. She says Mercury Energy had its first rewards presentation ceremony in early October 2009, with the general  manager presenting the awards.  Starr says this reward-based system is part ofa wider global trend in contact centres. “An international trend sees leading organisations responding to the economic conditions by reshaping their  contact centres from cost centres to profit centres for their business, and driving measures such as net  promoter score through contact centre improvements,” she says. “There is a convergence of sales and  marketing in contact centres, so that future benchmarking will link contact centre operations directly with business outcomes.”