Staff deserting UK call centres

Attrition in UK call centres has risen for a fifth year running as staff leave because of low salaries and companies experience difficulties recruiting new workers.

The mean UK call centre attrition rate is now 32 per cent, according to the fifth annual UK Contact Centre Operational Review report by industry analyst ContactBabel.

Almost three-quarters (71 per cent) of the 200 call centre operations that took part in the survey said they are also experiencing problems recruiting new staff.

One of the key factors for this high churn is the lack of growth in call centre agent salaries, which have increased only at the same level as inflation over the past four years. Call centre manager salaries, however, have risen by 27 per cent during the same period.

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Steve Morrell, principal analyst at ContactBabel, said in the report: "The lack of growth in agents' salaries is certainly a major factor in producing high levels of attrition. Businesses should be working to move low-value interactions onto web and phone self-service channels, and to use the savings created to pay higher salaries to their agents. This will attract and retain high-quality staff, a move which will immediately and permanently benefit both the business and the customer base."

The report also found that pure IP infrastructure will be commonplace in most UK call centres within the next two years, with 41 per cent of respondents saying their operations will be fully IP-architected by the end of 2009.

Currently only 17 per cent of call centres have an full IP infrastructure, with a further 28 per cent using a hybrid IP/TDM network.

Customer relationship management and multimedia are the other key areas of tech investment for UK call centres over the next two years.

Morrell said: "The next two years will see a major technology refresh across the industry, focused upon upgrading the network to carry voice as well as data. Contact centres that are using a pure IP infrastructure report improvements in flexibility, decreased telecoms costs and easier application integration, especially in multi-site scenarios."