4 Ways To Minimize The Costs Of Call Center Attrition

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Call Center Attrition

Looking for ways to drive business growth? Reduce the call center attrition rate of your inbound call center.  It’s a business strategy you may be overlooking. Attrition is a leading indicator of your call center’s health. It tells you not only how effectively your inbound call center is run, but also how likely it is to deliver happy customers.

Delivering service that matters is key. It drives up NPS score and boosts customer retention.

These in turn increase business growth.

Put simply, cutting attrition can help transform your call center from a cost center to a profit center.

Call Center Attrition & Impact On Costs

Call Center Attrition impacts your business in two ways. It cuts costs and boosts revenues. Costs associated with attrition fall into five categories—recruitment, onboarding/orientation, governance, fill-in, and productivity lag.

Ultimately, each cost category impacts either spending on salaries or costs associated with productivity. Other costs like severance pay exist.

But these costs are typically business/company-specific or are governed by the local regulatory environment. So there’s little you can do about them.

Normally, the degree and range of attrition costs depend on company size. Recruitment and onboarding impact costs the most. They generally account for anywhere from 60% to 70% of the costs associated with attrition.

Call Center Attrition & Impact On Revenues

Revenue leakage is also associated with attrition. Leakage is driven by the efficiency gaps created between the existing CSR and the replacement CSR.

One research report estimates that revenue leakage of 1.6% to 2.6% is typical for an attrition rate of 30% to 50%. This rate of leakage amounts to considerable revenue.

For example, for an organization with 500 inbound call center agents, steady-state attrition of 30% to 50% can lead to a potential loss of about U.S.$ 0.04-0.6 million annually.

Put simply, attrition increases the organization’s cost base and decreases its revenue contribution. Together, they lead to a drop in net value-added that no business can afford to have.

Ways To Minimize Costs of Call Center Attrition

Understanding how attrition impacts your organization is a significant step in better managing your inbound call center’s business outcomes. Here are four additional things you can do to minimize the impact of attrition:

  • Identify the attrition level that’s feasible/desirable for your organization. Then plan for it in your annual budgeting and financial planning activities. This can help ensure that resources are available to fill gaps and that revenue targets are appropriately identified.
  • Target those gaps between when an agent gives notice and when a new agent reaches full productivity. Work toward minimizing these costs. Investing in agent training that anticipates changes due to seasonal cycles is a good example of this type of action.
  • Hire stronger candidates than previously targeted. Ideally, you want to build a highly leverageable recruitment process that focuses on overall cost-savings through operational efficiency and higher quality hires.
  • Identify and implement attrition-reducing best practices. These will not only lower costs, but they’ll also bump up revenues.

Given this information is it any wonder that more and more managers are carefully scrutinizing the impact of attrition on an organization’s business outcomes.

Reducing the rate of attrition at your organization can help transform your inbound call center from a cost center to a revenue generator.

If operating a call center isn’t your strength, outsourcing call services represents a viable option. That will allow you to concentrate on areas where your strengths shine.

Let us put our proven experience in providing tech support for small and medium-size companies to work for you. Contact outsourcing IT help desk service provider  to discuss your specific needs & we can help your company scale new heights.



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