Managing Call Center Stress

In a fast-paced and demanding workplace, continuous stress in the call center work environment
can cause low morale and go as far as causing burnout among customer service agents. And when
they leave out of burnout, it can get expensive and time consuming, making it crucial for
companies to address concerns regarding stress and burnout among customer service agents.

While call center stress is common and inevitable, the following are some of the factors associated
with it and ways to manage them.

Unclear expectations. Employees will always want to know exactly what is expected of them and
how to do their jobs well. Unclear priorities can cause high levels of stress among agents. The
timely management of high-priority tickets and tickets close to the SLA deadline are two types of
issues that should be cleared among customer service agents. Hence, it is important to establish an
efficient and always available helpdesk to resolve confusion and reduce employee stress.
Dealing with angry customers. No one wants to deal with rude people and having that as your
job description is one of the biggest challenges customer service agents face daily. Customers often
get furious and use abusive language, letting it all out on the agents. Implementing certain self-
service options can help manage this problem and help resolve problems before customers contact
the agents and lash out at them.
Lack of recognition. Customer service roles can be extremely challenging and employee
recognition is often neglected. Lack of recognition and negative reinforcement results in high
levels of stress among employees. Therefore, it is important for companies to integrate
performance-based incentives and keep agents motivated by making them feel appreciated and
valued.
Managing a high volume of workloads. Unrelenting workloads and targets based on the number
of calls can leave customer service agents feeling overwhelmed and mentally exhausted, directly
affecting their productivity. To address this concern, increasing manpower especially when call
volumes are high, and providing agents with helpful tools and technology will keep their workload
consistently manageable over the long term.
Insufficient training. Call centers are under immense pressure to always be available and
prepared. But with a lack of experience and adequate training, agents who encounter unanticipated
situations and are completely new to the work process can feel high levels of stress when not sure
of what to do. Hence, providing the agents with adequate training and appropriate resources will
be very beneficial in ensuring the quality of service that they provide and decreasing stress in
unforeseen situations.
Monotonous work environment. Customer service agents often have to perform the same tasks
over and over. A monotonous environment can make agents disengage and cause high levels of
stress. To manage this, integrating tasks with various levels of complexity and automating
repetitive tasks and common customer queries, can increase agents’ work motivation and
satisfaction.

With all these stressors, it is not surprising that call center stress and burnout is a common
occurrence. However, it does not have to always this way. It is common, but not inevitable. Call
centers can create an environment for their employees with wellness at the forefront. Call center
work is not easy, but investing in the right resources and creating a positive work environment will
make it much easier.