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Understanding the Effects of Telephone Staff Burnout
Chapter 2 of the Telephone Staff Burnout Workbook
The effects of call centre burnout are serious.
First, as we have already seen, the drop off in performance can have a direct impact on revenue.
Next, there is the drain on management time in dealing with burnout. Most call centre managers are already overstretched and carrying out a repair job on your burnt out agent will take you away from other important tasks.
Next, there is the risk that the agent will leave or that you will have to fire them.
When you consider that it can cost as much as £3,500 to hire telephone staff through an employment agency, this is no joke. Add to that a typical two week initial learning curve with little productivity, wage costs, trainer's fees and replacement costs and you could be looking at a lost investment of £14,000 only four months after hiring the agent.
Granted you should have clawed back some sales in that time, but you certainly wouldn't want to throw that kind of money away.
As if this weren't bad enough, telephone staff suffering from burnout are likely to demotivate their colleagues. A negative attitude is contagious and will spread round the call centre faster than the 'flu.
And the way customers and prospects are handled is also likely to suffer, resulting in lost business.
We also have a duty as employers to look after the general well-being of our staff and we must be aware that burnout, and the resulting loss of self-esteem, may put the agent at risk of health problems.
So what can we do to reduce the effects of burnout?
The first step is to recognise who is at risk and when burnout is likely to strike.
