One of the most challenging aspects of running a call center is keeping its agents. Indeed, a generally high staff turnover is found in these work places.

But why do agents quit so often? Recent industry studies on the subject reveal that inconvenient work hours, repetitive tasks, a stressful environment, scheduling conflicts, cultural differences, management issues and the accumulated frustration of dealing with unhappy callers all day long are often cited reasons, as well as a myriad of others.

The loss of agents is a costly scourge. Taking into consideration the amount of time and money invested by your organisation in recruiting, hiring and training new agents, the cost can be significant. This is why the retention of these agents should be a priority.

Proactive customer-focused call center managers should address this problem head-on. Their strategies focus on a variety of tactics that can improve retention rates :

• improving the hiring process to get the right candidates the first time;
• improve agent management;
• develop agent career paths;
• improve training and coaching;
• make better use of automation;
• build agent teamwork;
• improve facilities;
• giving agents the appropriated powers to enable them to meet customers' needs.

In addressing the challenges of retention, it is also important to anticipate or identify agents’ potential needs before they make the decision to move on. Automation tools such as NovoLog and NovoCoach help to detect early warning signs. These indicators include such events as declining or fluctuating productivity, increased absenteeism or tardiness, reduced call quality, drops in voice tone during calls, increased off-phone time, visible signs of frustration and a multitude of other indicators.