Call centres have many defining characteristics; the most stand-out being they have large numbers of staff, high volume of incoming phone calls, and a wide range of companies, products and services to represent. The key to success in a busy environment like this is efficient, professional, happy and knowledgeable customer service representatives. Unfortunately, one of the the biggest problems call centers face is high frontline staff turnover.

Jennifer Lovo, recruiter for a Fortune 500 company that employs more than 500 representatives, has written a great article on the Customer Management Insight website called “13 Reasons Why Agents Resign”. She examines the reasons why staff attrition rates are so high in Call Centers, and what can be done to retain good staff.

Three reasons Lovo highlights relate to a lack of induction training, career growth potential, and communication within the call center. (In fact, read any article on retaining staff and these three factors will probably surface.)

One large call center is overcoming these problems through the use of online training. Telnet use an online training system to manage everything from their new hire induction training, to upskilling and career growth opportunities. They regularly test employee product knowledge through assessments to maintain a high quality of service, and provide timely feedback on performance, even going as far as to aggregate results across teams to create a more competitive environment and build morale.

Along with these core benefits Telnet have acquired an alternate way to communicate with their staff through the internal mail system provided within the training platform. Although it may sound like a small benefit, it has actually resulted in Telnet making a saving of $12,000 which would usually be allocated to Microsoft Exchange email license.