Agent turnover rate is defined as the percentage of contact center employees leaving an organization each year.
How do you calculate agent turnover rate?
Agent turnover rate formula
First determine a time frame. Once you have, use that time frame consistently in your formula.
(number of agents who left their position / average number of agents employed) x 100
What are the consequences of a high agent turnover rate?
- Diminished morale: When the service desk agent turnover rate increases, more agents leave the company, which is detrimental to the work culture. The diminished morale among employees leads to decreased productivity and low levels of engagement.
- Agents with less experience: A high agent turnover rate means fewer experienced agents who are adept at serving your brand specific customers. Lack of proper onboarding and poor feedback loop leads to agents with less knowledge about the brand. This leads to lower quality CX compared to seasoned employees. Happier and more experienced agents are also known to reduce customer churn, improve net promoter scores (NPS), and enable business growth.
- Increase in cost to company: Hiring, onboarding and training new agents is more expensive than retaining an existing, experienced agent. Moreover, there are plenty of other costs to bear like training material, coaching modules, and supervisor costs.
How to reduce agent turnover rate?
- Set clear objectives: Clearly defined goals promotes healthy competition among agents and drives efficiency.
- Reward and celebrate achievements: Goals must be complemented with creative incentives for the agents to always look forward to something.
- Outline potential journeys: Agents must always be informed of their career path within the company. This motivates them to strive for promotions and push for better output.
- 100% transparency: Visibility into QA evaluations, coaching session notes and access to all call recordings for agents, supervisors, coaches and executives, will build a culture of trust within the entire contact center.
- Using the right tools: Arm your agents with the right tools to make their jobs much easier and faster. This will free up their time to focus on delivering a much superior customer experience.
- Ensure good hiring practices: Hiring agents for roles they’re not adept at performing will neither be beneficial for the company nor the agent. Hence, it’s important to spend considerable amount of time during the hiring process to vet potential employees.
