How To Avoid Call Center Burnout

By Author: deborahf jones
Total Articles: 3
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Because call centers have become so vital in the business world today, the employees in this field often experience burnouts. The burnout is usually a factor of overworking someone, being short staffed, too much responsibility, stress, or just the repetition of answering phones over and over again. It is crucial that your call center identifies factors which lead to exhaustion.

Call center employees that experience the highest surveyed levels of burnout include those who are answering calls (CSR's) and any employees engaging in outbound telemarketing. Both types of employees, especially the telemarketing employees, deal with great deals of pressure and stress. For the telemarketers, they usually have strict sales targets and performance metrics they must exceed to get paid. In the case of the CSR, each operator must handle a certian number of calls during any given shift and those calls must be resolved in the quickest time possible. Call centers refer to this as first call resolution percentage. Along with this, they also work long hours and may go through stretches where they are talking to the most irate people. Aside ...
... from offering your employees bonuses or similar rewards to keep them motivated, there are more successful ways to reduce burnout.

When trying to avoid call center burnout, the most important technique is to make sure all of your employees are receiving person praise and recognition. Although being admired as a group is helpful, being recognized for your individual work is much more beneficial. Being part of a workforce that acknowledges the team as a whole, along with personal recognition, provides a positive and productive atmosphere. This type of atmosphere will motivate the employees to keep working and providing outstanding service to all customers, which is essential in the contact centre industry. It is crucial for management to have respect, openness, and trust, which will make for healthy relationships within the workforce.

Employee disputes can also create a hostile workplace which can lead to burnout. If management learns of any warring factions within your operator core, it's important to deal with it immediately. Morale problems and interpersonal trouble in the workplace usually result in employees missing work or arriving late to avoid confrontation. What I am describing above is basically on the job stress. While stress is not burnout, it is directly related to increased burnout rates within call centers.

A burnout can result in loss of motivation to do a job correctly. The employee may also lose confidence in himself and the business as a whole. The sooner management can act on this problem, the sooner it will be resolved. A manager must approach the employee and motivate them as both an individual and an important team member. Keeping an eye on the employee is important to make sure they are not isolating themselves from the workforce. By having conversations with employees throughout the day, management will be creating a relationship with their workers. Ask your employees how they are. Ask them how their weekend was. Bring them in bagels in the morning and ask them how their kids are doing. Whatever the conversation is, make sure it happens and happens often.
Outside of reducing stress and harboring team and individual relationships within the call center, there are a few simple ways for a company to avoid a burned out employee. Providing an employee with longer breaks will reduce stress. When distributing paychecks, writing a note on the envelope complimenting their work. Take your employees out for happy hour after work and organize parties. If you give your workers something to look forward to like a Fourth of July bash, it can help them reach the next milestone.

If the company is able to strategically plan, they will be able to avoid burnout altogether. Make sure you are treating your employees well and you take the time to get to know them. Praise them when you can and make sure the day is not 100% work oriented. Give them a bit of freedom and they will repay you with being a stronger CSR.

For more information about how to run your contact centre, please check out the Answering Service Resource Guides website. There you will find great tips for telephone answering service managers like guides for buying call center leads and ways to improve first call resolution.