Answering a call is easy. However, when it comes to providing excellent customer service through call answering, it’s a whole different story. A lot is on the line when you answer a customer’s call, as it provides an opportunity to set the right tone for all future interactions.
The Importance of a Customer Call
Depending on how a customer service representative answers a call, they could establish a reputation of professionalism and make the customer feel confident that their needs or concerns will be addressed. With so much relying on how your business’s phone interactions go, it’s crucial to have the right kind of people answering every call.
Unfortunately, for many companies, hiring great employees to speak with customers on the phone is often challenging because of the size of the workforce needed. There’s only so much a small customer service team can accomplish. When you have too few lines open and have an insufficient number of people working the phones, you’ll put your business’s image and success on the line.
A Solution to High Call Volume
Every sector of society may be undergoing a digital transformation, but customers will still call through the phone. So, as long as people call, you’ll need a team to answer those phones. Unfortunately, in some cases, this is easier said than done.
Failing to answer your customer’s calls could cost you your brand perception, reputation, and more. By outsourcing call center services, you’ll have a cost-effective way of providing a platform to customers to help them solve their problems, further enhancing your organization’s image and creating a stronger customer base.
As long as you work with the best call center agency composed of professionals specially trained in customer service to ensure better call quality.
The Rising Problem Among Call Center Agents
With the increase in digital services and support channels such as live chat and the like, you’d think that call centers would soon become unnecessary and obsolete. Much to the surprise of many, call centers are still relevant and crucial to providing an excellent customer experience.
None can deny the significant advantages of outsourcing call center services. However, with the constant need for call center agents, the problems surrounding this job threaten to negatively impact their health and, ultimately the quality of customer service.
With 74% of call center agents considered at risk of burnout, it would only be a matter of time when you can no longer rely on a call center agency to deal with your customers’ concerns efficiently.
When one continues to work in a stressful environment, their mental health will decline, affecting the quality of their work. Stress does nothing but bring harm, whether it be to the call center agent themselves, the customers, and your business.
The Causes of Stress in Call Center Agents
Call center agencies in the Philippines usually guarantee a high standard of service, but everyone is prone to mental illnesses, no matter where you are in the world.
Working at a call center isn’t easy, and the stress makes things even more challenging. Stress within the call center workplace is pervasive and has negatively impacted the team’s mental health and overall performance. As such, it’s crucial to understand and recognize the sources of stress to address and prevent them in the future.
Some of the familiar sources of stress among call center agents include:
- Angry Customers
People always say how it’s better to let things out rather than hold them. While it’s true that being open about your feelings and frustrations alleviates tension and stress, being on the receiving end of venting leads to the exact opposite.
Dealing with someone’s anger is challenging, but interacting with angry customers will take a toll on anybody. Sure, call center agents are hired for their resiliency against outbursts, but humans have their limits. Eventually, the constant anger and negative words being thrown at them will be too overwhelming until they can no longer handle it.
- Repetitive Work
Call center agents generally perform the same tasks every day. When you eventually get the hang of things and are no longer challenged at work, you will feel under-stimulated and unmotivated. Although it’s nice to have a sense of agency over the job, a work environment that doesn’t provide any challenges or opportunities for growth will frustrate and stress any call center employee.
- Continuous Performance Monitoring
Measuring KPIs, keeping track of deliverables, and living up to the requests for improved efficiency have proven beneficial to different kinds of businesses.
However, although you can reap great rewards from this kind of monitoring, it places a significant amount of pressure on the call center agent to maintain a high level of performance. When you feel like someone’s breathing down your back every time you work, anyone will perform poorly rather than the opposite.
- Lack of Recognition
Validation feels good, especially when your job demands high performance. It’s true that solely focusing on KPIs and statistics may be a common practice in the workplace and has been instrumental to the high-quality customer service of other companies, but it has its downsides.
Continuous performance monitoring without giving the team the praise they deserve will lead to lower job satisfaction. When an employee isn’t happy with their job and feels undervalued, they will perform poorly, which beats the purpose of monitoring.
Helping Call Center Agents With Their Stress
Stress is an inevitable part of any job, but there is a way to reduce stress for call center agents. From the start of an agent’s employment, the management or human resources must make ongoing interventions to mitigate stress and burnout as much as possible.
To avoid burnout and too much stress, a call center agent may create a company culture that values break time, allowing call center agents to take a breather. A simple wellness program can help boost the team’s enthusiasm for the job and keep them empathetic and effective while taking calls.
Hiring highly qualified agents and investing in the team’s growth is vital to creating an excellent customer experience and a positive company culture. Encourage agents who demonstrate soft skills in customer service to boost employee satisfaction and team morale.
Conclusion
Call center agents are meant to handle customer’s problems, which makes for a very stressful environment. The problem solving, understanding, and patience that being a call center agent requires can cause stress.
High levels of stress don’t have to be a regular part of being a call center agent! With the right strategies, your call center agents will feel happy and productive at work, leading to excellent customer support and successful operation for your business.
Leave your business’s customer service needs to one of the best call center agencies in the Philippines, Crewbloom! By working with us, customer satisfaction and retention will increase, which will give your business more credibility in the long run. Request a consultation today!
