We’ve all heard the adage that happy staff make for happy customers. A cliche, maybe, but one backed up by data. In fact, companies considered as customer experience leaders have 1.5 times more engaged employees than companies who lag behind, according to research by the Temkin Group.
Contact centres are direct points of interaction between businesses and clients, but there are reasons beyond customer satisfaction that make learning engagement management a must-do for those heading up agent teams.
Let’s take a look at a few:
Engaged staff are more likely to have positive customer interactions.1. It’s a real time saver
Contact centres are traditionally flexible environments, and empowering staff to take greater ownership of their schedules is a popular way of increasing agent engagement.
The use of smartphone technology that allows employees to interact with each other, swap shifts and access their schedule remotely not only gives them responsibility for their working hours, but also saves your workforce management team a lot of time rearranging hours on their behalf.
However, implementing this scheme requires thoughtful management in order to maintain control over staffing numbers. It’s important that it links with your workforce management tool, and rules are built in to check intraday staffing levels for each skill before allowing swaps to go ahead.
2. You can attract great staff
Millennials are flooding the Australian jobs market, and they rate engagement highly when choosing where to work.
The ability to progress up the career ladder came in first among a list of factors attracting millennials to employers, in a study conducted by PwC, beating even competitive salaries. They also expect regular feedback, praise for good performances and clearly established targets to aim for.
With all of these demands falling under the banner of employee engagement, it’s clear that effective management is key for businesses that wish to remain competitive in the world of employment.
Millennial staff expect regular engagement through feedback from management.3. …and keep them
Employees are a staggering 87 per cent less likely to leave a company where they feel highly engaged, as compared with staff in organisations where this sentiment isn’t so strong, as claimed by a report from the Kenan-Flagler business school.
In an industry where high turnover rates are the norm, this is research contact centre managers can’t afford to ignore. Indeed, individual engagement strategies such as prioritising the recognition and reward of high quality performance can in themselves improve retention, according to a Deloitte survey.
It’s important to remember that these initiatives don’t happen by magic, and careful planning is needed to ensure they fit the culture in your contact centre.
Effectively managing staff engagement has benefits beyond customer experience vital to the continued success of your business. Call Design’s Manager Essentials course is an intensive one-day program tailored to optimise your leadership practices and get the most out of your staff. To find out more, get in touch with our team today.