Call Center Agent:: Do You Think You Are Getting Burned Out?

As a call center employee, I have seen a lot of agents coming in and going out. Going out for reasons they probably have not understood well.

So, I tried to post here a short quiz for every call center employee who's feeling the heat. Check this out:

Quiz: Are You Burned Out on Your Job?

Kate Lorenz, CareerBuilder.com Editor

It's been a while since you've felt the exhilaration that comes with starting a new job. And you're wondering: "Has that professional spark been extinguished or is it flickering faintly, waiting to be reignited?" Take this quiz to help you identify if what you're feeling is a temporary heat wave or the telltale signs of total burnout.

1. Are you burned out or just exhausted? "Take a real vacation to find out," says Rena Lewis, senior vice president for Lee Hecht Harrison, a job search, consulting and career management firm.

Burnout: If you dread returning to work, you may be burned out.

Temporary Heat Wave: If you come back rested and recharged, you just needed a well-deserved break.

2. Are you reacting to a passing moment or an entire movement?

Burnout: Your company recently underwent a major restructuring, doubling your responsibilities, and there's no end in sight.

Temporary Heat Wave: You're buried in work because it's your 'busy season.' But you do see light at the end of the tunnel.

3. Are the demands of your job weighing too heavily on you?

Burnout: Your supervisor is too demanding and you just can't keep your head above water. You know you'll never get her to change.

Temporary Heat Wave: You're too demanding on yourself and it's causing you undue stress, not only at work but most likely in other aspects of your life as well. Time to let a few things go, like the perfectly clean house or some volunteer responsibilities.

4. Do you find it difficult to focus on your job?

Burnout: You face your projects with total apathy and feel you have nothing left to give.

Temporary Heat Wave: Your lack of focus is rooted in the nebulous mess you call a workspace. Get organized and get rejuvenated!

5. Have you got the urge to find greener pastures?

Burnout: You're feeling more and more detached at work and catch yourself fantasizing about walking out the door to find that 'dream job' and leaving these 'little minds' behind.

Temporary Heat Wave: You're in a rut and ready to venture past the usual lunch crowd and meet some new peers.

So You're Burned Out...

If your situation is illustrated by more 'Burnout' descriptions, it's likely time to start down a new career path or follow a new opportunity to professional happiness. Get your resume together and begin your search.

Temper the Warming Effects

If you saw more of yourself in the 'Temporary Heat Wave' scenarios, then you might need a new focus and new challenges to recharge your professional energy. "You don't have to leave your employer to energize yourself," Lewis advises. Lewis offers these suggestions for putting the spark back in your career:

• "Look for a new position within your organization," she says. Network internally -- try to catch key people in the break room to get the scoop on a position or new project team being assembled.
• Examine your current position to identify a new responsibility or element you could include that would refresh your focus.
• Assess what aspects of the job you really like and do well and then concentrate on expanding those activities.
• Make sure you get meaningful feedback from your supervisor. Without clear feedback, Lewis warns, you are apt to burn out faster because you will not have clear goals or accurate measurement.
• Read relevant trade publications to stay up on the latest issues and trends. Find ways to incorporate these into your job.
• Delegate or eliminate non-essential tasks. Sometimes we get mired down with minutia and lose sight of what we really need to be doing.
• Investigate opportunities to transfer to a new city. Working in completely new surroundings with different peers could get your professional juices flowing again.

Source: click here

Cylynx Bets On The Philippines

Why the Philippines?

CyLynx's Customer Interaction Center in Manila, Philippines

A frequently asked question from

clients is why CyLynx chooses to locate

its base of operations in the Philippines.

Powerful U.S. based companies like

America Online, Accenture, and Proctor

and Gamble have all realized the

incredible benefits of outsourcing

back-office functions to the Philippines.

Advances in communications

technology have enabled CyLynx to set

up its Customer Interaction Center in

Manila, where we have extra resources

to provide higher levels of service.

Top Five Benefits of

Locating in the Philippines

• Cost Structure

Labor rates in the Philippines for skilled IT

professionals are among the most competitive

in Asia.

• English Proficiency

Although Filipino is the national language of the

country, English is widely used in education and

business. The Philippines is the third-largest

English-speaking country in the world.

Universities

CyLynx recruits its employees from some of

the top universities in Asia, located in

the Philippines.

• IT Proliferation

The Philippines has an advanced

telecommunications and Internet infrastructure,

especially in Manila, the country's capital city,

and the location of CyLynx's office.

Americanized Culture

The Philippines was an American colony until

after World War II, leading to a very

Americanized culture. As a result, conducting

business from the Philippines seems natural

and the Filipinos are acquainted with

American lifestyles.

“Put simply, the cost benefits of setting up

remote or shared services centers in the

Philippines are enormous, according to many

already in the country. Wage costs for whitecollar

employees are estimated at 10%-20%

of those in the United States, while the

Philippine workforce is highly educated,

proficient in English and easily adaptable -

all important pluses in a rapidly changing

global economy.”

“The Philippines as aRegional Center for Shared Services”

A combined paper by Peter Wallace, EIU Philippines, Inc. and

Nigel Lucas, Colliers Jardine

"The Philippines, with its educated and highly

skilled English-speaking workforce and its

strategic location between Japan, China and

Southeast Asia, now enjoys both political

stability and sustained economic growth,

and the government continues to provide

institutional and infrastructure support."

Doing Business Guide: Philippines

Pricewaterhouse Coopers

Call Center Agent Attrition: A Challenge to Call Center Management

In a news article that I read from Inquirer.net. Much of the effort being pushed right now among call center's HR departments are driven towards keeping attrition at a lower rate. As quoted from Lawrence Casiraya's article "Attrition Rate Drives Call Centers To Review HR Strategies" on Inquirer.net:

" Despite the phenomenal growth, call centers need to instill "desirability" among agents to balance attrition rates, according to an industry executive.

In an industry that depends heavily on worker supply for continued growth, attrition rate carries more weight than usual. The call center industry now employs around 200,000 people, based on industry estimates.

Over the years, however, the average attrition rate for the call center industry has remained consistent.

"Agents cite the same reasons every year -- pregnancy, health or moving to another industry or out of the country," said Raffy David, board director for the Call Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP).

According to David, attrition has always averaged around 19 percent, although most call center operators, when interviewed, would always claim to have lower than the industry average.

"There is no doubt anymore about acceptance (of a call center agent)," David noted in an interview with INQUIRER.net. "But we have to make it more desirable for the agents by establishing it as a serious career to have."

"If we lift desirability in our agents, we would easily achieve our growth targets and improve further our reputation as the best destination for voice-based services," he added.

CCAP is targeting to grow industry workforce further to half a million by 2010.

David, who was recently reelected into the CCAP board, added that the group's human resource (HR) committee has been tasked to improve hiring and retention rates by focusing more on training and workforce management initiatives, not just recruitment.

"The concept of a call center agent is already accepted. We're not selling the job anymore," Velasco. "Instead, what we are selling are solutions that revolve around different services for the customer."

From the point of view of a call center employee like most of us, it is enlightening to know that there are considerations being addressed towards call center employees. It is such a great challenge for HR Departments, but this should not stop there. Perhaps to find solution to the issue at hand, it may be wise to understand why an agent start to lose interest with their job after about a year. Having been part of this industry for quite sometime, I might say that the greatest factor why an agent lose his or her focus is simply getting "burned-out." Health factors or "looking for greener pastures are mere excuses." Perhaps, a call center employee needs a different set of platform in terms of privileges and benefits considering the nature of their job. Team building simply doesn't work.

I have observed, and perhaps a survey here needs to be done for a more definite conclusion, that those who appeared to stay longer than one year are those who, by a "blessing in disguise," went through either a sick or maternity leave for about a month or two. After leaving the job temporarily, they seem to go back to work refreshed, with a renewed spirit and passion. Perhaps, it may be worth considering a kind of benefit for call center agents to give them a break for one month a year. If call centers are willing to offer a sign up bonus to aspiring agents that they still need to train, why not allocate that budget to their present employee who has already proven their performance? An ounce of prevention is still better than a pound of cure.

24-7 INTouch: Creating its own name in the Philippine Call Center Industry

The word 24-7 was like a buzz that I got to hear every now and then. But since I wasn't interested in moving out, I didn't pay much attention to it. Until a colleague bid goodbye one day, saying that it was her last day. She's moving in to 24-7 Intouch. A call center located in Makati. Apparently, the offer is at least 30% higher than what we are receiving right now with the same job on the same field but with different and more popular client.

So, for those who's feeling the burn..check it out!

INBOUND AND OUTSOURCED CALL CENTRES: Get To Know Them

• 24-7 INtouch

24-7 INtouch is an award winning provider of call center outsourcing solutions. The company delivers voice, live chat and email support - all of which have been recognized and awarded by the call center industry, clients, and partners for quality in customer service. With over 40 years experience in the call center industry, 24-7 INtouch has catered its services for businesses and organizations of varying sizes from industries of all sorts.

• Centris Information Services
  
  Bringing High Quality English and Spanish Call Center Services to You. Centris Information Services is a leading provider of high quality bilingual (English and Spanish) call centre services. Centris is headquartered in the U.S. with major operations in Longview, Texas and Monterrey, Mexico. We help your company improve customer satisfaction and increase revenue by creating positive customer experiences that combine high-touch with high-tech.
  

• 1 800 We Answer
  
  The 1-800 We Answer Call Centre network has become a hugely successful nationwide organization that processes millions of calls for thousands of satisfied clients and has grown by 1000% in the last 12 years. Their mission is simple. They want to do whatever it takes to become the greatest communications company on the planet.

• Convergys Corporation
  

Convergys is uniquely and exclusively focused on helping their clients make smarter decisions about enhancing their relationships with customers and employees to improve business performance. They help their clients recruit, service and retain customers and employees using innovative technologies that increase efficiencies, satisfaction, loyalty and workforce effectiveness – while decreasing costs. This approach has made them a global leader for 25 years.

Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, Convergys employs nearly 75,000 employees who serve clients in over 70 countries, speaking more than 35 languages, from 79 sites across the globe. Convergys has been named a Fortune Most Admired company for seven consecutive years, and more than half of the top 50 Fortune 500 companies are Convergys clients.

• Teletech Customer Care Management
• 
  
• TeleTech is a leading global business process outsourcing (BPO) company that provides a full range of front- to back-office outsourced solutions.They perform all of the business critical support processes efficiently and effectively, letting their clients remain focused on their core strategy, competition, and market agility. Their services and solutions include, complex customer management, direct sales and marketing, Training development and delivery, Recruiting, staffing, and workforce management, loan processing, benefits and claims administration, vendor management, payroll administration, and ecommerce.
• 
  
• CyLynx
  Outsourced Customer Support for Web Hosts and ISPs
  
  CyLynx provides outsourced customer support to Web hosting companies and Internet Service Providers. Rather than operating their own in-house customer support departments, which can be an extremely expensive and challenging task, Web hosts, ISP's, and other technology companies can share their support responsibilities with CyLynx while dramatically reducing their support costs.
  
  CyLynx has designed a five step implementation process to facilitate a smooth transition in the transfer of your customer support functions to CyLynx.
  
  Cylynx' mission is to raise the satisfaction levels of our client's customers by delivering superior customer support services. Our entire organization is focused on service delivery, with a firm commitment to quality, control, and security.

• OKS Ameridial

OKS-Ameridial is an international call center with international program management experience since 1987. With 12 years of experience working together, OKS and Ameridial - now operating as a single company - offer their clients an unparalleled record of providing reliable, cost-effective inbound and outbound outsourcing solutions for a variety of industries. The contact centers are located in the United States, Canada and India with sales offices in the U.S., the UK, Canada, and Germany.

Accenture

Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. With 178,000 people in 49 countries, the company generated net revenues of US$19.70 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2007.

Their "high performance business" strategy builds on their expertise in consulting, technology and outsourcing to help clients perform at the highest levels so they can create sustainable value for their customers and shareholders. Using their industry knowledge, service-offering expertise and technology capabilities, they identify new business and technology trends and develop solutions to help clients around the world