Call centers try tactics to fight high turnover

CINCINNATI — After nearly three years of technical-support work in a call center, Saureshwar Banerjee was feeling restless.

Days spent patiently talking people a world away through problems with their personal computers or an entire business' information system — a single call often lasting more than an hour — were wearing on him. Not so much the work, he said, but what the future held.

"I was disillusioned by my growth prospects," Banerjee said by telephone from New Delhi. "I did not understand what my motivation was; I was not taking the initiative I had earlier."

Banerjee, 25, had plenty of other options in India's hot market for skilled workers. But an alert manager who literally saw red intercepted him before he could get out the door.

They discussed employer Convergys Corp.'s growth plans and Banerjee's own likely opportunities if he stayed at the world's largest call center outsourcing company. The heart-to-heart sitdown was part of a retention program begun in India that pushes managers to watch for signs of dissatisfaction and rewards them for retaining staff.

As part of the program, workers are on a weekly basis rated "red, yellow, green" with red likely to leave, based on 50 indicators such as increased tardiness or declining performance. A yellow rating results in regular meetings to gauge the employee's outlook and a red one triggers an immediate intervention. Managers' bonuses are now tied to retention.

Convergys said turnover has dropped significantly — by double-digit percentages in some areas using the system — in a business in which attrition typically ranges from 35 percent to 70 percent. The Cincinnati-based company, which has some 74,000 employees in 33 countries, is adopting the "early warning system" throughout its operations.

While many businesses facing tight labor markets have added incentives for workers, Convergys officials say they decided to be aggressive on turnover by making employee retention part of everyday operations and tying managers' pay to it.

"We wanted people waking up every day saying, 'How am I keeping these agents?"' said Clint Streit, the company's executive vice president for customer care.

Diana Fluss, a veteran analyst and consultant for call-center companies, said help-desk employees are dealing with customers who can get frustrated as they painstakingly go through lengthy procedures. That can make for long days, especially without positive feedback from managers.