June 18, 2015
It’s pretty much a given that call centers are A) stressful places to work; B) have a high staff turnover rate; and C) don’t pay all that well. But one industry insider has made a strong case that if you address that third point, the other two might resolve themselves.
Randy Rubingh is the Director of Customer Service for the online ticket giant StubHub. In that role, he has some insider knowledge about what makes a call center effective. He recently shared his thoughts on workers and their wages on the inContact blog page, the leader in cloud-based call centers.
“We [the industry] view the call center as an entry-level position and pay accordingly. Because a large percentage of the company’s employees work in the call center, call center labor costs account for a high proportion of the overall company budget, and the customer service organization is under pressure to keep CSRs’ salaries low,” he said. “As a result, it is difficult to find good employees who can deliver high-quality service and who are committed to the organization for the long term.”
Rubingh recounted how, at a recent industry seminar, he asked attendees how many believed that call center representatives were the most important brand ambassadors in their company. Everyone raised their hands, he said, but his follow-up question—asking how many were paid accordingly—did not elicit such a strong response.
“It’s true that if you hire hundreds of agents, paying even one dollar more per hour will add up very quickly. This is, of course, why call centers traditionally—especially for lower-skilled positions—offer low pay rates, usually about 20 percent above minimum wage,” Rubingh observed. “This low pay rate does save money in the short term. However, when you start to consider the different skill levels of agents and factor in the total cost per agent and per transaction, you’ll likely find that investing in more highly qualified agents will save you money in the long run.”
Rubingh explains his reasoning in greater detail on the blog, but the bottom line is this: While it might seem at first glance that paying more costs Furthermore, Rubingh shows how paying workers better motivates them, which leads to higher customer satisfaction, better customer retention, and lower overall costs.
His reasoning echoes the old saying, “It takes money to make money.”