New guide explains how contact centres can recruit and retain talented agents
A new insight guide which offers five steps to help contact centres identify, select and retain talented agents has been published by assessment specialist cut-e.
Called Recruiting special agents, the guide highlights that many contact centres replace a quarter of their staff every year, primarily because of ‘poor job-fit’. It provides best practice advice to help contact centre recruiters differentiate their employer brand, engage candidates, improve the efficiency of their selection process and hire the right people.
Andreas Lohff, CEO of cut-e said,
“Whether you run an inbound or outbound contact centre, the success of your business will depend on your ability to recruit and retain talented agents,”
“The bad news is that the people who apply for agent positions are often unsuited to the job. Many of them will leave within 90 days. This not only has a significant financial impact, it can harm your metrics and performance indicators. This guide explains how to attract, recruit and retain ‘right fit’ agents and how you can save time and resources in recruitment.”
According to the guide, contact centres should start with a thorough job analysis of an agent’s role in their organisation. “This involves specifying not only the tasks involved but the competencies, abilities and job-related behaviours that are critical for success,” said Andreas Lohff.
“You can then create a ‘Success Profile’ of an ideal employee and use assessments to screen your applicants against this.”
To attract the best candidates, contact centres should build an attraction strategy that makes them stand out from the crowd. “It’s important to consistently communicate your organisation’s strengths and key brand messages on your careers site and in your advertisements, social media and promotions,” said Andreas Lohff. “You should also deliver a positive candidate experience to job applicants, that communicates your values and fits your employer brand.”
A Realistic Job Preview can create the right expectations and help applicants to better understand the job. “When employers over-sell their jobs, new recruits join with false expectations,” said Andreas Lohff.
“When they find that the role wasn’t what they thought it would be, they’ll either become bored and unproductive or they’ll leave. You can set the right expectations by being honest about what the role involves, from the outset. A Realistic Job Preview is an interactive, online experience which enables applicants to self-assess their own suitability and gain instant feedback before they apply.”
The guide outlines how technology can optimise the selection process and cut the time-to-hire. “Integrating systems such as your Applicant Tracking System and HR Information System can create efficiencies,” said Andreas Lohff.
“It also enables you to mine and utilise employee data in ways that weren’t possible before. This opens the door to a wealth of new talent analytics that can further improve your recruitment, increase sales and help you to avoid the disruption of hiring the wrong people.”
Additional Information
For further information on cut-e’s talent assessment solutions for call centres please Click Here
cut-e’s new guide Recruiting special agents can be freely downloaded by Clicking Here
Founded in 2002, cut-e (pronounced ‘cute’) is part of Aon’s Assessment Solutions, a group within Aon plc, a leading global professional services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement and health solutions. cut-e provides online tests, questionnaires and gamified assessments for attraction, selection, talent management and development. Aon’s Assessment Solutions undertakes 30 million assessments each year in 90 countries and 40 languages.
