Working through call centre stress

Increasing customer expectations, a fast-paced environment, constant demands, and what seems like a never-ending stream of changes – add it all together, toss in a few extra ingredients (like repetitive tasks and a lack of the right tools) and what do you get?

Yes, it’s a stressful situation, and that’s just for starters in some call centres.

To think rationally when stressful events occur, agents need to believe they have choices. For instance, when dealing with a customer who is upset, agents have two choices: they can react to what the caller says or they can respond.

Reacting to an adverse event is simply what feels natural. If a caller raises his or her voice, the agent does likewise. Reacting doesn't take much work or thinking on the agent's part. It is simply retaliation for a customer's undesirable behaviour.

Agents who choose to react begin to speak louder and faster. They usually become defensive and retaliatory. These inappropriate and unprofessional reactions tend to escalate the situation out of control.

Agents need to understand that the customer's behaviour is not the problem. The problem is whatever is causing the customer to behave that way. Fixing the real problem will inevitably fix the behaviour.

Of course, it is all very logical while we sit and think about it. In the real situation, dealing with an upset or, worse, hostile, client can be very stressful. And that’s working life, day-in, day-out, for many call centre agents.

Probably every call centre worker in Australia has heard of individual stress management techniques – such as relaxation and meditation – which are good tools for getting through stressful periods.  But if they’re so great, why do we still have all this stress?

With global concerns regarding terrorism, bombings and environmental alerts such as global warming, it seems that even outside of work, in 2005 people are more stressed than ever. 

They’re also bringing that stress to work and adding to the stress of their everyday responsibilities.  If the trend continues, we are going to need more than mood music, aromatherapy, and comfortable lighting to get beyond the stress of today’s workplace.  We’re going to need management’s attention because stress control is a leadership responsibility.

Tethered to a phone, some call centre workers often have to cope with abusive callers, dreary work environs and computers that seem to monitor almost their every move. As a result, call centres generally still report a 33% turnover rate, nearly 10 times the average of all other types of jobs. (Of course, centres that are run more professionally, invariably do better than this national average).

Although there are now many new state-of-the-art call centre facilities and many programs that are designed to make call centres more worker friendly, it is probably fair to say that stress exists in every call centre.

The demands of serving customers in real-time and meeting sometimes very high benchmarks, is stressful by nature.  For some call centres, you can add to this factor issues such as job repetition, potential job dissatisfaction, poor ergonomics or low pay and the stress level climbs higher.

Stress in the call centre needs to be firmly on the agenda as something that is faced head-on. Where that is not the case, the results of stress are often revealed through higher absenteeism than other parts of the company, higher Worker's Compensation claims and ultimately reduced customer satisfaction.

But this is not just an issue for agents. Stress in the call centre affects the agent, manager, director, and anyone else in the call centre when they let stress gain control. When this happens, they lose self-control and have the feeling of being overwhelmed.

The first step in gaining control is in identifying what the stressors are and understanding the causes and effects. Stress is caused by many things. Time pressures, high expectations, lack of communication, high call volume, and inexperience, to name a few.

The effects of stress are decreased productivity, anxiety, low morale, and poor customer service levels. When faced with these stressors, more than anything else it is training that is the tool to resolve the issues.

Workshops covering stress can be refreshing for all staff members. Employees get the chance to voice their specific stressors and develop actions to overcome them and resolve what is inhibiting their performance.