Explore fresh, expert perspectives on customer engagement and innovation

Industry expert Natalie Calvert helps ambitious leaders powerfully engage customers and employees in a way that impacts the bottom line. Her clients have included organisations of all sizes, including some of the world’s largest brands: O2, Royal Mail, Audi, LEGO, M&S and BT. She is also a board advisor and judge for the Lloyds Bank British Business Excellence Awards.

In this guest post, she plots a smarter route to better customer experiences and explains how contact centres can develop a winning CX…

The contact centre is at the heart of the digital revolution because it is responsible for managing customer interactions through various channels. That means your contact centre has to be at the forefront of a modern human, streamlined and technology-driven customer experience.

In fact, a new role is rapidly developing for contact centre advisors, which involves managing more complex customer needs, dealing with more emotive conversations, and doing so in faster and smarter ways than ever before.

In the omnichannel contact centre – one that combines human and digital contact channels – bringing together customer experience (CX) and employee experience (EX) is crucial to business success.

What makes a successful contact centre experience?

Most leaders concur with the adage that “happy staff and happy customers go hand in hand”. Yet, in reality, many companies run two tracks and don’t reap the rewards of a holistic strategy. CX and EX are, increasingly, highly dependent on one another and have become totally interconnected.

Despite substantial investments in customer experience initiatives and employee engagement programmes, contact centres still face significant issues related to customer satisfaction, retention, recruitment, absenteeism, and employee turnover. Something must be wrong.

Turning this around and creating sustainable success is contingent on aligning customer and employee experiences.

To do this you need to focus on the three key areas to win with CX:

1. (Re)Define your customer contact centre strategy

The best contact centres are those that have a truly holistic approach to customer service. The first step in developing your customer contact centre strategy is (re)-defining it.

Contact centres were transformed overnight by the pandemic, and many employees now work from home in a variety of hybrid models. It’s time to redefine strategy considering new working methods, using redesigned processes, technologies, team dynamics and advanced skilling requirements.

A customer contact centre strategy which includes a customer contact business plan, target operating model (TOM), and customer experience model (CEM) alongside your CX employee experience (CXEE) plan will guarantee your success, streamline your strategy and produce better results.

Ensuring that each component cleverly integrates customer experience and employee experience alongside the company’s strategy will drive the best possible outcomes for customers and employees.

2. Be your customers’ hero

Customers want to experience the ‘hero effect’ when buying your products or services. Be their hero by delivering an outstanding experience!

Employees that do the right thing, genuinely care, go the extra mile and champion the customer are Customer Heroes. They also have the mindset and skills to turn detractors into promoters, and complainers into advocates. As a result, they build loyalty, increase customer satisfaction and grow business value.

Customer heroes are highly engaged and happy, and so are their customers.

Having employees who are engaged provides companies with 89% greater customer satisfaction and 50% higher customer loyalty than companies with disengaged employees (source: Korn Ferry/Hay Group).

Ask yourself how you and your fellow leaders can develop your employees into Customer Heroes.

• • Do you have a customer-focused mission and vision that guides your entire organisation?
• • Is your customer-focused mission being fulfilled by giving employees a voice and allowing them to make decisions?
• • Do you have customer service champions and brand ambassadors in each department who drive the customer mission?
• • Do you understand what your customers want from you to be their hero, and how you can deliver it?
• • Do you understand the mindset and skills that are required from your CX frontline and their leaders?
• • Always remember that customer centric organisations are 20%+ more profitable (source Forbes).
• • Overall, know that developing your employees into Customer Heroes will result in more satisfied customers and employees.

3. CX employee community

Build a strong CX employee community by fostering collaboration, communication, and customer centricity among employees. This will drive customer-focused outcomes and make your organisation more effective – and your staff happier.

Nearly three quarters of employees say that better communication would increase their productivity at work. Team huddles are one of the most effective ways to build winning CX teams by allowing groups to collaborate on ideas, disseminate information, and focus on customer centricity. The key here is ensuring leaders have the skills and tools in place for inspiring and effective hybrid team huddles.

Creating a CX employee community with the customer at its heart will not only improve customer experience but also transform employee experience.

In summary, the experience economy and the digital era are changing our lives in ways never seen. Contact centres are facing significant challenges to deliver exceptional experiences, tailored to meet the expectations of the digital age. It is time to meet those expectations head on. Become your customers’ hero, redefine your customer contact centre strategy and grow your CX employee community. CX+EX connects everything. Don’t forget that when you align the stars, the magic begins…

Transform your CX and EX with MaxContact’s customer engagement software, giving customers and employees an unrivalled digital, in-person and omnichannel contact experience. Contact us to find out more.

Customer complaints are an expected part of the job when it comes to contact centres. But if you want to reduce complaints and improve the customer experience, you have to be proactive in your approach.

We sat down with CX+EX Coach & Expert, Natalie Calvert, and MaxContact

Product Owner, Sean McIver, to get their takes on how to reduce complaints and set up winning systems to improve the customer experience.

To hear Sean and Natalie’s top strategies, tune in to the full webinar or keep reading.

Why you need to know your customer journey

The very first thing businesses should do when handling complaints is to prioritise the customer experience. By putting the customer front and centre of everything, you’re naturally going to understand their frustrations and where the bottlenecks in your business are.

The common challenge Sean highlights is that while many businesses talk about the importance of customer experience, many don’t know what that journey looks like. That’s why companies should proactively test out their customer journeys, whether that’s signing up for a new service or making a complaint.

When was the last time you tried to call in or communicate via email as a customer would? By taking some time out to do this, you can understand what the customer experiences and find the snags in the process.

What businesses can do to reduce complaints

Rising customer complaints are becoming much more commonplace. Customers are more vocal and have higher expectations today.

So what can we do about rising complaints?

Natalie says first, you need to create a strategic review of your company. Strategic reviews can help you gain a good picture of what’s going on in your business. You can see what’s causing the issues by looking at your processes, volumes, customer types, and key triggers. This will help you understand what’s really going on so you can get the whole thing moving towards a resolution.

You can also look at the training quality of your staff. Most staff are trained not in how to deal with complaints, but how to follow the standards that the company wants to deliver – which are two very different things.

Another thing you can do is calculate the cost versus the value of a complaint. What does it cost you to deal with complaints, and what is the value you get back when you do or don’t deal with a complaint?

It’s also important to look at this from both a customer experience (CX) and an employee experience (EX) angle as well. Dealing with angry customers all day can take a toll, so it’s important that frontline staff get the support they need. By ignoring the EX side of things, you could have issues with high staff turnover and absences.

Modelling your complaints procedures on other companies

Customer service and handling complaints can vastly differ from company to company. But spend some time thinking of the companies that give great customer experiences and resolve complaints quickly and efficiently. Does your complaints procedure follow suit? Or does it look more like a company that doesn’t return phone calls or has an inconsistent service?

Natalie gives two examples of companies that manage their complaints efficiently – Amazon and Apple. They deliver a consistent, organised experience on a mass scale. While you may not be able to replicate Amazon’s customer service resources, you can take ideas from them and adapt them for your own strategy.

Why staff are at the heart of the customer experience

At the heart of your complaints strategy is the staff who deliver the communication and resolutions to customers.

Natalie says that over 60% of complaints are around staff attitude and behaviour. So, it’s not just about building a clear customer journey and process. It’s also about how the staff themselves deliver that experience.

We need staff to be fully trained in not just the process, but also how to deliver what the customer wants and expects.

Natalie says that contact centre staff need to learn and understand three things:

1. When customers get the trust and transparency they need, the staff member becomes the customer’s hero. Think about how you can become a customer hero.

2. We should aim for a win-win scenario – so that the resolution is good for both the customer and the organisation.

3. We have to be trusted advisors. How can staff build their knowledge, resilience, and skills to become that trusted advisor?

How to get to the root cause of complaints

To understand the root cause, you need to look at those early feedback loops – something that Sean believes is often missed.

The frontline members of staff who talk to customers on a daily basis are a resource that can be utilised. They know which issues are cropping up the most and how they directly affect customers. By utilising this resource, you can find root causes for issues and resolve them before they turn into more complaints.

Another plus side for this is that it ensures frontline staff don’t have to deal with the same issues over and over again because this can make them become robotic. Once you become robotic in your customer interactions, it’s harder to display empathy and truly engage with customers, which affects their experience overall.

If you wait until the later stages when those issues have built up over time, it can be too late. You’re then fire-fighting problems instead of preventing them, which costs time, money and effort.

So it’s important to have a system that helps your team raise early red flags.

Natalie believes this all starts with having a complaints culture in the boardroom. By being proactive and positive about complaints, the entire team can work together to find solutions.

You can do this in three ways:

1. Design the conversation by deep diving into what practices work best and replicating them.

2. Empower your staff to make decisions and resolve complaints without passing them on to other departments.

3. Create good stakeholder management (both internal and external) to keep everyone informed and involved.

Six strategies for reducing complaints and improving the customer experience

1. Staff training

Once you have proper staff training, you can eradicate a lot of complaints that come through. There are lots of different types of complaints that require different competency levels to handle. Make sure your staff get the right training and are empowered to tackle those different types of complaints.

2. Active listening

Active listening is about using empathy to get to the root of the problem and show the customer that you truly understand. If you actively listen, you can engage with the reasons behind the complaint and be empathetic and transparent about any shortfalls or mistakes in the process.

3. Complaints culture in leadership

By building a complaints culture, you ensure that complaints aren’t just a number. You can be proactive and look at root causes, staff training, and active listening to boost your understanding of the problems and provide better resolutions for the customer.

4. Proactivity

Don’t assume customers know the next steps in the process. Tell them and clearly outline what will come next after they make a complaint. This can completely transform the customer’s experience, especially when you follow up later to check if the complaint has been resolved.

AI technology can support this process by handling your customer’s frequently asked questions without impacting your agent’s availability. Find out how our AI-powered chatbot for contact centres can support you.

5. Continuous improvement

Like most things in customer service, building a strategy for complaints is not a one-and-done thing. You should continually look to improve your methodology by looking at data, feedback, quality control, and strategic reviews to reduce complaints.

6. Accessibility

Avoiding complaints from customers just leaves issues unresolved. So ensure that it’s easy and quick for customers to make complaints because you’re much more likely to resolve that issue quickly and effectively.

Poor processes often mean that the method of making the complaint becomes another problem for the customer. And this just results in more wasted time and frustration for everyone. Check your own process for making complaints and tweak it to make it as simple as possible.

Complaints might not be anyone’s favourite thing to spend time on, but they are an ongoing part of contact centre work. By being proactive, strategizing, and really taking the time to understand customers and support staff, it’s a win-win for everyone involved. For more on this, be sure to watch the full webinar session.

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Ben Booth, CEO of MaxContact has been named as a One To Watch in The LDC Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders programme for 2022.

The programme, which is supported by The Times and now in its fifth year, celebrates those entrepreneurs that are growing the UK’s most successful and fast-growing medium-sized firms.

A record number of nominations – more than 750 – were received this year, proving that ambition is alive and well despite the challenges faced by increasing economic uncertainty.

The Ones to Watch are the business leaders destined for great things. Those who are making waves in their sectors, having a positive impact on their customers and employees, and who are the driving force behind tomorrow’s most successful medium-sized firms.

Ben Booth said: “It’s an honour to have been selected as One to Watch in The LDC Top Most Ambitious Business Leaders programme for 2022. The success of the business is not only down to myself, but the whole team at MaxContact, so I’d like to thank them for achieving this recognition too.”

John Garner, Managing Partner, LDC, added: “The volume and quality of submissions this year surpassed all of our expectations. We’ve been struck by the way business leaders have overcome challenges and adversity to run fast-growing and successful companies, proving that difficult circumstances can become the biggest driver of ambition.  This year’s Ones to Watch embody just that and they have really grabbed the judges’ attention with their success stories. Congratulations to all those featured – we look forward to seeing where they go next!”

You can find out more information on this year’s Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders programme here: https://bit.ly/3e2c3gk

About LDC

LDC is the private equity arm of Lloyds Banking Group. Since 1981, LDC has invested more than £5.5bn in medium-sized firms across the UK; backing the ambitions of more than 650 ambitious management teams.

About MaxContact

MaxContact is customer engagement software that goes above and beyond to build smarter customer experiences. Our platform is packed with powerful features, accessible for businesses large and small, and ensures businesses can operate compliantly. We work with our customers to create seamless customer interactions, so they can reach the right people, on the right channel, at the right time, every time.

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MaxContact is pleased to announce its partnership with the UK operations of Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS) Ltd (listed in BSE & NSE). This partnership is one element of a new ecosystem for HGS UK to differentiate and create memorable customer experiences across admired brands throughout the UK and Europe.

HGS selected MaxContact to assist in continuing to strengthen their contact centre offerings. HGS recognises that employee engagement is a key contributor to memorable customer experiences (CX) and they felt MaxContact has differentiated itself as a UK technology provider across customer and employee engagement.

Providing an easy-to-use platform for agents means HGS will be able to support customers better and be more engaged, delivering a reliable service, operational excellence, and value-for-money.

“We’re thrilled to establish an ongoing partnership with HGS UK, a company that is renowned for delivering high quality CX operations for its clients. Our flexible approach to building and developing a market-leading engagement software platform means we can adapt to the needs of HGS and its clients,” explains Ben Booth, CEO of MaxContact.

Michael Hanratty, Director of IT of HGS UK notes, “The migration to MaxContact as one of our key Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) vendors allows HGS to scale quicker and offer a wealth of benefits and features to our clients using a proven robust infrastructure and support model.

The MaxContact team have been a pleasure to work with. The HGS UK team has leveraged their deep and specialised expertise throughout the initial migration and on many occasions since.”

The HGS UK and MaxContact partnership is designed to help HGS’ current and prospective clients exceed customer expectations and fast-track their digital transformations.

According to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), 27.7 million adults in the UK fall under their definition of a vulnerable customer. This includes having poor health, experiencing negative life events, low financial resilience, or having low decision-making capabilities. This number is predicted to rise even further as the cost-of-living crisis impacts peoples’ finances and mental health.

However, many companies are unprepared to deliver the specific customer service support vulnerable customers now need. MaxContact interviewed 1,000 vulnerable customers who had recently interacted with a contact centre and found:

• • 48% had struggled to find a phone number to contact a company in the past year
• • When they had managed to reach a company’s customer services, 51% felt they were treated unfairly, and their needs were not accommodated
• • The biggest problems revealed by vulnerable customers include:
  • ∙ Being passed between different staff and having to re-explain the problem several times (51%)
  • ∙ Having to navigate too many phone menus (IVR) to reach the right person e.g., press 1 for this, press 2 for this (45%)
  • ∙ Feeling like the person they were talking to was trying to get them off the phone quickly (30%)

As a result, 52% said they had to abandon solving a problem because it was just too difficult, with 57% saying this had a negative impact on their mental or financial wellbeing.  

The main support vulnerable customers say they want from companies is:

• • Having their problem solved by one person rather than being passed between multiple advisors (46%)
• • Being able to reach a real person quickly to explain their problem (39%)
• • Being given enough time to properly explain and address their situation (31%)

The research also shows that vulnerable customers would like customer support services to show more empathy (23%) and 20% want customer service advisors to communicate with less jargon.

Helen Lord, CEO of the Vulnerability Registration Service, says, “Our own recent research underlines MaxContact’s findings. The cost-of-living crisis will undoubtedly place many customers in incredibly difficult circumstances. So, it’s essential that companies identify vulnerable customers early to provide them with the support they need – not only to meet regulators’ expectations but from a corporate responsibility perspective too.

It’s imperative the organisations can adapt their customer journeys appropriately, taking into account not just financial difficulties, but also mental or physical health and life events such as a relationship breakdown or bereavement, coercion or addiction.”

Gareth Morgan, H&T Group’s Operations and Communications Manager, and MaxContact client, says, “Our customer service centre provides instant, direct contact to a waiting agent. Every team member at H&T is trained to identify, explore and support vulnerable and potentially vulnerable customers.”

“It is important to us that vulnerable or potentially vulnerable customers have their account handled in the best way possible at the first time of asking.

“We prioritise call quality and customer service and do not impose limits on call times, wrap times or account updates. Therefore, H&T agents have the ability to focus on providing the best service and outcome possible for the customer. By providing time to ensure detailed and accurate notes can be recorded, we eliminate the customer needing to repeat or re-explain their circumstances in the future.”  

To help customers better support the larger numbers of vulnerable customers who will be contacting them, MaxContact has created a practical checklist of measures for contact centres to consider implementing. Download your copy here to learn five practical ways to support vulnerable customers.

Ben Booth, MaxContact CEO, says, “It’s the perfect storm for customer service teams. Customer complaints are at their highest point ever and there are more complex situations and vulnerable customers to support than ever before. We know that to make a real difference with vulnerable customers, as well as staying compliant with the FCA’s new consumer duty guidance, leaders need practical, easy-to-follow advice which they can put into action at their own organisations right away.”

To see how MaxContact’s customer engagement platform can help you support vulnerable customers more effectively, get in touch.

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Debt resolution is an important part of the job for many contact centres, but there are multiple factors at play in today’s debt experience for individuals and businesses.

The cost of living crisis, on top of the multi-faceted impact of the post-pandemic era, has put a real squeeze on both consumers and businesses. In some cases, this has meant taking on additional borrowing, along with paying bills and invoices as late as possible and making difficult choices with finances. On average, adults in the UK now hold £4,279 of unsecured debt, which means that debt recovery activity is likely to continue to rise while economic uncertainty continues.

For those contact centres involved in debt collection, managing processes so that the money can be effectively recovered, but without piling significantly more pressure on those struggling with debt, can be a fine balance to walk.

In this article, we look at the wider context of debt resolution strategies for contact centres and why they matter, how the right call centre software can improve processes and manage debtors more effectively, and how to help ensure more positive interactions for both contact centre staff and customers. Take a look at the webinar below for an expert-led discussion on how to create and execute the best contact strategies for easier debt resolution, and keep reading for more actionable tips for contact centre managers.

The Importance of Effective Debt Collection Strategies

Debt collection as a sector doesn’t always have the best reputation. If businesses and individuals that have fallen into debt feel harassed by those tasked with recovering money from them, it can add considerable stress to the situation and make for extremely fraught and negative interactions with contact centres, on all sides.

Contact centre staff can suffer if a high percentage of their customer interactions are negative and it doesn’t usually encourage customers to clear their debt any more quickly either.

A much more effective way to recover debt is to prioritise both customer and staff welfare, while implementing strategies and techniques that foster a sense of cooperation, trust, support and clarity.

Debt Collection Call Centre Techniques

Debt recovery calls to customers can often make for challenging conversations and difficult negotiations over payment plans. However, there are lots of different techniques that can be used by contact centres dealing with debt recovery to help make the process smoother and more positive for all parties. These may include:

Scripting and conversation starters

While every call and customer is unique and needs to be treated as an individual, it can sometimes help to set a positive tone for the rest of the call if the contact centre staff use a predetermined opening script to quickly and clearly explain why they are calling and the purpose of the conversation, before then tailoring the rest of the call around the customer’s responses.

Active listening

There are few things more frustrating to customers than feeling like they aren’t being listened to or heard properly. By using active listening techniques, call centre staff can help to put the customer at ease that they are being understood and taken seriously, which helps maintain full engagement in the conversation on all sides. Active listening builds trust and rapport, which increases the chances of smoother debt resolution.

Active listening methods for contact centre debt recovery teams include:

• Using affirmative responses to customer statements to illustrate they are being heard
• Repeating or paraphrasing what they are saying, to demonstrate understanding
• Asking questions when needed, to establish context in what the customer is saying and make sure that there is no ambiguity in the information being taken or given
• Using positive language to minimise stress and the chances of escalation.

Displaying empathy and validating customer feelings

Being able to put themself in a customer’s shoes is important in debt recovery calls, because customers need to know that their situation is understood and being taken into account. It can help ensure the call is constructive when call centre staff validate the customer’s opinions and emotions about the situation. This can make them more willing to find a resolution that everyone can agree on.

Transparency

Honesty and transparency are important factors on any debt recovery call, because it helps build trust and being clear about the debt is also a regulatory requirement. Some of the ways to ensure transparency include:

• Clear identification at the start of the call about the caller and what the purpose of the call is
• Accurate information about the debt owed, including any fees or interest also due
• Avoid giving any misleading or ambiguous information.

De-escalation

Some debt recovery conversations can be difficult, so being able to effectively use de-escalation techniques can be valuable skills for contact centre staff. Along with incorporating active listening, using positive language and displaying empathy for the customer’s situation, other de-escalation methods can include:

• Staying calm and composed
• Set clear boundaries for the conversation if the customer becomes aggressive or abusive
• Ask for support from a supervisor
• Offer to follow up in a separate interaction and provide a timeline for this.

Leveraging Call Centre Software for Debt Collection

Alongside the contact centre staff using a variety of techniques during their customer conversations, debt collection with call centre software that is the right match for your business can significantly increase your resolution rates.

A debt collection call centre using software that streamlines repetitive and resource-heavy processes can make all the difference to productivity and the amount of money recouped. Some of these features can include:

• Diallers – to automate the outbound call and connect with the customer without the need for manual number lookup or dialling.
• Call prioritisation – to make the most urgent and important calls first, which can help with customer satisfaction as well as being more efficient.
• Speech analytics – to identify problem areas in the customer journey so the contact centre can take steps to improve processes and performance.
• Scripting – to provide call centre staff with useful guidance to set a positive tone and achieve the best outcomes during calls.
• Secure IVR payments – to give customers a secure, encrypted way to make phone payments 24/7 without relying on contact centre staff to enter data manually.
• Quality Assurance (QA) – to evaluate contact centre call performance and enable the team to make improvements as needed.

Making the most of automation in call centre software

A great way to boost productivity in contact centres involved in debt recovery is to automate as many repetitive processes as possible. This not only frees up time for staff to focus on offering excellent personalised customer service, it can also improve morale and workplace satisfaction.

Some of the tasks and processes that can potentially include automation in debt collection call centres include:

• Communication – with tailored communications going out to individual customers automatically on a pre-planned schedule.
• Payment reminders – including emails, WhatsApp messages and texts, tailored to the payment plan put in place for each customer.
• Chatbots – to respond to common questions and send any complex requests through to staff to deal with.

Using call centre software data analytics to drive debt collection strategies forward

With built-in data collection and analysis in the best call centre software solutions, not only can the platform make the day-to-day operations run more smoothly and productively, it can also inform future debt collection strategy decisions.

By analysing data and outcomes, insights can be delivered on contact centre performance KPIs, as well as potentially predicting future behaviour and patterns of customers. This kind of information can help contact centres to future proof their debt collection strategies and maximise efficiencies.

Creating a Debt Resolution Plan

The key to maximising debt recovery is to develop an effective debt resolution plan, utilising all of the relevant functionality within your call centre software and the skills of your call centre staff, that can be easily tailored to individual customers and their circumstances and preferences.

• Step 1: Understand each customer’s individual debt and its context, including the barriers that are preventing them from clearing the debt straight away.
• Step 2: Establish the communication channels and preferences that work best for individual customers.
• Step 3: Offer flexible payment options, based on an honest discussion about the debt and circumstances.This might include out of hours payments as well as setting a schedule to pay off the debt.
• Step 4: Implement personalised communications and reminders to continue the debt recovery process after initial contact.
• Step 5: Use your data and the insights it provides to improve the service further.

With an effective debt collection call centre software solution monitoring your plan and integrating with other aspects of your business, such as your CMS, CRM, payment gateways, various communication channels and regulatory compliance, you can create a debt resolution plan that delivers better outcomes and an improved customer and staff experience, all while reducing costs.

Managing Staff Wellbeing in Debt Collection Call Centres

With an increase in the levels of debt and busier times ahead for debt collection contact centres, managing staff wellbeing is an important consideration for managers. A happy, well-supported and productive workforce means a more positive culture, lower staff turnover and lower recruitment, onboarding and training costs.

Find out the main employee stressors in your specific contact centre

You might think that you already know exactly why working in a debt collection call centre is stressful for staff, but you might be surprised by some of the things that your employees say.

Putting in place a supportive feedback process is important, to help you understand the real call centre agent experience.

Staff need to feel comfortable enough to be honest about what makes their job tough. While every contact centre is different, some common issues that cause stress may include:

• Management expectations are unclear to staff
• High customer expectations and challenging conversations are difficult to deal with repeatedly
• Striving to meet call targets
• Being measured and monitored every minute of the working day
• Feeling disconnected from the company and coworkers if working remotely

Take steps to mitigate the main causes of stress for staff

There are always going to be challenges when working with customers through a contact sector, but there are ways that call centre managers can reduce some of the stress for the workforce, such as:

• Regularly discussing work stress with teams to create an atmosphere where it’s accepted to talk about this topic
• Improving the quality of internal communications – making sure that it’s a two-way conversation.
• Ensure targets are reasonable and provide support for employees finding this a challenge
• Providing training and coaching when a need is identified
• Implementing wellbeing practices as part of the working day, such as breathing exercises, visualisation, exercise and taking breaks when needed.

Implement regular staff check-ins and wellbeing reminders

Giving contact centre staff a clear route to provide feedback about their role and wellbeing is important. Having regular check-ins can be a good way to do this, either individually or in a small group setting, depending on employee preference.

Setting up wellbeing reminders can be a great way to help staff working remotely to deal with the sense of isolation they may feel after coming off a particularly tricky call. Wellbeing reminders can regularly nudge contact centre workers to take screen breaks, have a drink, do some stretches or breathing exercises. These little things can have a significant positive impact and help employees to feel more valued and supported, as well as encouraging healthy habits that don’t cost anything.

Providing call centre workers with a straightforward way to engage in conversations with those who understand exactly what they are going through can also be a big help when working essentially alone.

Individual wellbeing solutions for your contact centre workers

It’s worth remembering that what one employee finds stressful, another might thrive on, and what reduces stress for one person might be the last thing that another worker wants. In the same way that debt collection customers need to be treated as individuals, with their own preferences, so do debt collection call centre workers.

Enabling employees to choose their preferred options for managing their own wellbeing at work is important, giving them a greater sense of ownership and providing them with what they personally need to feel supported.

For more insights into debt collection solutions, how to improve your processes and achieve easier debt resolution, tune into the full webinar session.

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