MaxContact Manifesto: The Year of the Agent

The customer engagement sector has a burnout problem.

For those on the phone to customers, two years of mounting workloads and little interaction with colleagues has taken its toll. They are also receiving less training: a fortnight of in-person onboarding is now being wrapped up in a two-hour training video.

And we can’t ignore it any longer. Good people are leaving in their droves, often leaving the industry for good. Many of those left are at breaking point.

As an industry, we’ve always put the customer first but if we don’t also balance this with employee needs, we will all suffer.

This isn’t just the moral thing to do. You can’t have great customer experience without happy and engaged employees.

We’re calling for a commitment from industry leaders to make 2022 the year of the agent.

This means transforming working practices to put the wellbeing of frontline customer service staff at the heart of everything we do.

We need sustained commitments through initiatives, tools and policies that demonstrably support contact centre specialists to do their jobs better, and put their wellbeing first.

Those working in customer-facing roles are the hidden backbone of society. From helping us when credit card bills are due to making sure we can get tickets to our favourite shows, staff up and down the country are meeting our every need.

Let’s give them the support they deserve.