Attrition rates have soared so high that some global service companies are now locking their employees in with non-compete clauses in their employment contracts. The idea is to make employees guarantee they will not leave a job for a rival firm or a client – usually for a year after resignation.
In the Philippines, Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies are reporting attrition of around 40% at present. Bloomberg has reported attrition rates of up to 80% in some customer service sectors.
Why is it so bad? If the Bloomberg numbers are accurate, then contact center managers need to replace 4 of every 5 team members each year. This leads to a constant battle to find and onboard talent faster than they are leaving.
I’d like to suggest two main reasons:
- Low interest in the product being supported: a musician may have signed up for a job in a contact center because their payment from gigs is not frequent enough to live on. They love music, but they are answering calls from supermarket customers. They don’t really care about the company they support, but they need cash because everyone has to pay rent.
- Low control over working hours: employees today want more control over their working hours and work location than used to be acceptable. The previous approach was, ‘here is the office address, here are the shifts you will work, see you on Monday.’ An employee with a sick child or even with a request for some flexibility, like leaving an hour early, would struggle unless they had a very sympathetic line manager.
If you are working in this type of environment where you don’t care at all about the company being supported and your boss tells you where and when to work – and maybe even issues penalties if you don’t always conform – then you will always be on the lookout for a better option. It’s no surprise that some contact centers need to replace the entire team each year – this kind of working environment sucks.
Interested in learning more? Download this free guide on attacking absenteeism with GigCX.
What does GigCX offer as an alternative?
First, it’s possible to choose the brands you work with. If you are interested in gaming, you can see which companies need customer service advisers and apply for those specific organizations. If you love fashion, you can see which clothing retailers need help. If you love electronic devices and gadgets, you can see which tech companies need support. From the start, it is possible to find a brand or product that you actually care about and will be interested in supporting.
Second, the advisers always work from home and choose their hours. If you need to finish two hours early to visit a child’s school, then you do it. If you need to take Friday off because of an extended family weekend, you do it. The adviser selects which hours they want to work and retains control over this, rather than just assuming that if they work for a company, then they are required to work traditional eight-hour shifts and five-day work weeks.
WFH alone dramatically decreases attrition. Adding the flexibility to choose hours and choose the brands you work with makes it even less likely that customer service advisers will want to move on at the rate we have seen in the past. Why would they when they are working with brands they love and choosing their hours?
There is an answer to the problem of attrition in CX – GigCX.
Interested in learning more? Click here to read about the additional benefits of GigCX.
Terry Rybolt, CRO at LiveXchange, wrote this article. If you are interested in connecting with him and learning more about GigCX click here.