One of the most difficult aspects of a call center manager's job is preventing agent attrition. The call center is a high turnover environment, due to high stress, difficult hours, lack of job satisfaction and a defined career path for agents. The costs of losing a call center agent can be significant -- money must be spent recruiting, hiring and training new agents, and time and resources are lost during that process.
This quiz was designed to test how savvy call center managers are at preventing call center attrition. Learn effective methods that can be used to keep agents happy and motivated and keep them on the job longer.
To get the answer and learn more, open the answer page link that follows each question.
1. Call center attrition is generally the same as which of the following:
a) Call center utilization
b) Call center turnover
c) Call center occupancy
d) Call center efficiency
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answer #1 here
2. According to research on employee retention, what do many employees value the most in their supervisors?
a) Trust
b) Communication
c) Flexibility
d) Feedback
3. People tend to join companies based first on organizational factors, such as pay and location; second, on job factors, such as their duties; and third, on the qualities of their leaders. What is usually the No. 1 reason for an employee leaving a company?
a) The company is acquired
b) Leadership (or lack thereof)
c) Asked to do too much
d) Not getting paid enough
4. What is the most common metric used to measure call center agent satisfaction?
a) Exit interviews
b) Employee surveys
c) Turnover
d) Occupancy
5. True or False? Experts suggest that agents who have a defined career path are often more likely to stay at the call center longer.
a) True
b) False
6. True or False? Experts suggest that creating a retention roadmap that identifies major stakeholders in agent retention and holds call center agents to goals is not a successful method of retaining agents.
a) True
b) False
7. True or False? Giving agents more responsibility, like the ability to credit customers, will inevitably create higher agent turnover and raise costs for the call center.
a) True
b) False
8. These tools facilitate agent scheduling, allowing agents to swap shifts with coworkers and participate in scheduling their own vacations. This not only takes much of the burden off call center managers but gives agents a sense of control.
a) Performance management
b) Speech analytics
c) Workforce management
d) None of the above
9. True or False? Remote, or at-home call center agents usually have lower retention rates.
a) True
b) False
10. What is the most common way to calculate call center agent turnover?
a) Subtract the number of agents who left from the number of agents staffed at the beginning of
any period.
b) Divide the number of agents who left by the number of agents staffed at the beginning of any
period.
c) Subtract the number of agents who left from the number of agents added during a time
period.
d) None of the above.
This was first published in July 2007