"Insuring" Call Centre Staff

2007/04/19

Media Release – “Insuring” Call Centre Staff

The Call Centre industry in South Africa continues to grow and is fast becoming a lucrative industry to be involved in. The pure brute force with which the short-term insurance industry has tackled call centres is being felt within the industry.

“It is a fair assessment that growing Call Centres are suffering from increased stress levels amongst their staff members,” comments Dr Mario Greyling, Access Health MD. 

“Stress can be good if it is positive stress (enstress), which usually leads to improved productivity and is invigorating, however when it become bad stress (distress), it creates negativity and impacts poorly on productivity levels.  This type of stress must be addressed as staff turnover in call centres can be up to 30% due to this very problem.”

The average cost to train a call centre agent amounts to R40 000. When an agent enters the call centre environment they are faced with close supervision; they may battle to adapt to the physical environment and at times, highly stressful client interaction.  Lack of industry-appropriate training adds to the stress, contributing to high rates of staff turnover.

In a recent call centre survey, conducted throughout the 9 provinces of South Africa, and interviewing 345 agents, 52 percent reported that the working environment was causing stress levels to be high and an alarming 62 percent responded that they would leave the call centre industry if they could.

The burning question is how does this industry keep staff motivated and how do they change the industry to ensure highly skilled call centre agents do not leave the industry entirely? One of the answers lies in focusing on some well-known success factors.  These include “Emotional Command”, which involves personal confidence, “Context Adaptability”, which focuses on rules and structure within the call centre environment. “Customer Engagement Style” is an important aspect of dealing with the issue of how the agent helps the caller. “Reward Motivation”, which excludes monetary rewards, but may include staff incentives such as prizes.  Finally “Career Focus”, an aspect that ensures staff sees a future in their jobs.

According to Dr Greyling: “Stress can most certainly cause health effects.  Our bodies are designed with a set of automatic responses known as ‘generalised stress response’ to deal with stress and negative side effects include, increased blood pressure, increased metabolism (faster heart beat and respiration), decreased immune and allergy response, increased cholesterol and fatty acids, localised inflammation, faster blood clotting, increased blood sugar production for energy and increased stomach acid.  Fortunately there are early warning signs and it is better to assist the individual during the early stages of showing stress.”

The physical side effects to be aware of are headaches, grinding teeth, chest pains, shortness of breath, pounding heart, high blood pressure, muscle aches, indigestion, fatigue, insomnia, frequent illness.  It is also important to be aware of the psychological signs such as; anxiety, irritability, sadness, defensiveness, anger, mood swings, apathy, depression and feelings of helplessness. 

Certain behavioural factors to manage may include over-eating or loss of appetite, impatience, quickness to argue, procrastination, increased use of alcohol or drugs, increase smoking, neglect of responsibility, poor job performance, poor personal hygiene or changes in relationships.

One of the most effective methods to tackle these problems immediately is call centre massage therapy which has recently been introduced to the call centre environment with almost immediate positive results.  A study conducted by the Touch Research Institute, University of Miami School of Medicine, Florida, showed that a 15- minute chair massage reduced anxiety and enhanced EEG patterns on alertness.

A second study which was recently done by Nicolas Gueguen and Celine Jacob, demonstrated the positive effects of tipping in a restaurant where the waitress touched the patrons appropriately.

In summary, employ the right people for the call centre environment and expose them to “touch” therapy and you will have a successful call centre.

For further information contact Dr Mario Greyling

On (011) 991 8000 / 9000

Dated: 1 February 2007