This is what you should do for a happy and healthy call center agents.

As call center software is the spine of your business, happy and healthy call center agents are what ensure the full usage of your resources. Your call center agents are the face of your company and are the ones who interact directly with the customer. If they are not happy, they can’t make a customer happy, and you know what follows after the dissatisfied and unhappy customers. 

All-in-all, it is more than important that you should ensure that your agents are happy to work because a happy agent means: 

• Happy customers
• Better resourcefulness
• Enhanced productivity
• High ROI

But the legit question that raises its head here is:

Can you keep call center agents happy easily? 

Well, to be very honest. It is not. A call center should run around the clock. That means your call agents will be working in shifts day and night. Also, if you run a business that deals directly with the customers, call traffic could be so high that your agents won’t get time to enjoy their morning tea. 

The uneven sleeping schedule hampers their health. In that case, you, as a businessman, have to go the extra mile to make your call center agents happy and healthy. If you also run a call center and want the same, then look no further and read this. 

Reduce their work burden

Apart from receiving calls, your agents must be busy in a lot of administrative work as well. Like they had to take note of caller details, answer the voicemails, create feedback reports, record the calls, and so on. Doing all this, along with call handling, makes them extra tired. Well, the easiest way to reduce their administrative work burden is to start using a hosted phone system. 

In an enterprise phone system, all these menial yet crucial tasks are automated from ground level. For example, the call will be auto-distributed, auto-recorded, and auto-answered depending upon the set parameters. Alongside this, you need not be worried about recording text from voicemails for documentation as it comes with intelligent voicemail transcription feature.  

When all of these and many more tasks are already automated, your call center agents will have less work burden and can take out some leisure time. This helps them to feel rejuvenated and comfortable even if the call traffic is high.

Encourage wellness amid a tedious work schedule.

We know that your business phone number must be ringing repeatedly and must be demanding a quick yet detailed response. But, you know to ignore the wellness of your call center agents in all of this. To ensure their wellness, you can arrange mini-breaks of say about 10 minutes after every one hour, arrange a small gym facility on the same premise, and arrange some meditation sessions from time to time. 

You can also try arranging a meeting in the open area rather than in the closed room to offer healthier work environments. Stress is the biggest factor in today’s competitive world. You can arrange a stress buster session in between to make them happy from the core. 

The wellness starts with good food. It is often found that call center agents keep on munching over unhealthy snacks like chips and chocolates when hunger pangs hit them while they are handling customers over call center software. In that case, you can reduce their ill eating habits by offering healthier snacks like nuts and fruits in between. 

Reduce night shift incidents

The night shifts of your call center are often considered as ‘graveyard shifts’ as it hampers the sleeping pattern of the agents. And the importance of proper sleeping is not hidden. Instead of arranging night shifts to provide service around the clock for your customers, we would suggest you use a virtual phone number. 

A virtual phone number can operate from anywhere. For instance, if you are running a business in the US, then buy a South Africa Phone Number. By using this number, you can hire agents of some other places which have a different time zone. 

Many US-based businesses are already adopting this practice and hiring agents in Asian countries. By doing this, they need not have an agents’ army awakening in the US at night. They have another one somewhere in Asia where it is morning. 

 As the virtual US number will have the local area code and won’t charge the callers as per the international calling rates, it is like hitting two birds with a single stone. 

Positive words work wonders.

Giving positive feedback is another way to ensure the happiness of your call center agents. Thus, it is advisable to give them positive feedback from time to time. It helps them to stay motivated and feel encouraged. When they came to know that their work is appreciated, they will automatically feel relaxed and less burdened. 

In conclusion

Working in the call center is not a cakewalk. But, as a business owner, you can make it by adopting good work practices like using a hosted phone system to encourage them for work done and give them healthy snacks. So, consider these tips and have an army of happy and healthy call center agents.