Why Low Attrition Rates Are Good for Customer Service

In business, attrition is the number of employees a company is able to retain over a certain period of time. Low attrition rates are highly beneficial and favourable because they can guarantee both employee and customer satisfaction. Both of these factors are essential to maintaining high quality service, retaining more customers, and increasing revenue for your business. Attrition rates, which are also commonly referred to as churn rates, combine the necessity of retaining employees and customers. Employees who are generally satisfied with their jobs are generally more likely to perform better at work and therefore work harder to build strong and lasting relationships with their customers.

Attrition refers to the inability to maintain a steady flow of employees or customers due to a number of reasons including death, contract termination, or finding professional opportunities that are more suited to their needs and career goals.

The Relationship between Attrition Rates and Customer Service

Call center services rely a great deal on providing excellent customer service. Agents should be knowledgeable about the products and services your company provides while also delivering courteous customer service. However, it’s not enough to simply have product, service, and industry knowledge.

Call center agents should also be passionate about your business. High attrition rates are common in traditional call center settings. Essentially, this translates to incredibly high turnaround rates and that’s simply not good for business. It means that your employees aren’t passionate or proud of the work that they do and this can be very demoralizing. They need to know that they’re valued members of your organization in order to perform their jobs exceptionally well.

Customer service agents have incredibly difficult jobs. They’re tasked with interacting with irate customers, deescalating situations, answering the same repetitive questions over and over again, and oftentimes, they’re also under a lot of pressure to meet or exceed certain sales goals. All of this will eventually be reflected in the work that they do and the kind of customer service they provide. Customers are very intuitive and can recognize when an employee is disgruntled or unhappy with their job.

This translates into a weakened customer interaction and an overall negative image for your company. With that said, there are ways in which you can lower your attrition rates and in turn improve customer relations.

Tips for Lowering Attrition Rates and Keeping Them Low

Attrition rates are related to both employees and customers alike. By improving one, you can indirectly improve the other. Your employees are both the backbone and the face of your organization, so it’s important that you take great care of them. Here are a few tips to lower both employee and customer attrition rates:

• Offer competitive salaries for employees
• Offer incentive programs to help employees achieve their goals
• Offer incentive programs to encourage customers to continue supporting your business
• Offer a comprehensive benefits package to your employees
• Give your employees the proper tools they need to perform their jobs
• Ask for employee and customer feedback on things that need to be improved
• Hold meetings regularly to give employees a chance to share their opinions
• Offer flexible hours and working conditions that accommodate your employees
• Work hard to improve employee engagement
• Offer support when it’s needed without micromanaging your employees
• Provide proper and in-depth on-the-job training so that your employees can effectively communicate with your customers

These are just a few general tips that companies should keep in mind when it comes to employee and customer acquisition. It’s one thing to acquire a revered employee or valued customer but keeping them on board is a whole different beast altogether.

Benefits of Low Attrition Rates

Keeping your employee and customer attrition rates low has a lot of benefits. It can help improve your operations but, more importantly, it can help your company establish strong long-standing customer relationships. Here are a few of the rewards your business can reap from actively lowering attrition rates:

Improve Efficiency and Lower Costs

Every time you lose an employee or customer, you need to work that much harder and spend more money to acquire a replacement. Job postings, interviews, and training new employees all cost a great deal of time and money that’s better spent on keeping your existing employees happy. The same goes for customers. For circumstances that are within your control, you should do everything you can to retain your existing customers and guarantee that your products and services meet and exceed their expectations.

One-on-One Personalized Customer Service

Customers like to feel like they’re unique and generally don’t want to be treated like just another number in your database. Offering a personalized customer service approach is the key to retaining more customers and making them feel as if their needs are being addressed and looked after.

High-Quality Service

Additionally, personalized care translates into offering higher quality service to your valued customers. Treating them like individuals rather than statistics means that you can offer them the proper solutions that they need to continue doing business with your company.

Improved Customer Relations

Generally speaking, employee satisfaction usually translates into customer satisfaction as well. Employees who feel more empowered at work and passionate about the companies they work for are likely to provide excellent customer service. These are the building blocks for establishing strong customer relationships and qualifying leads.

Higher Employee and Customer Retention Rates

The whole point of working to lower your employee and customer attrition rates is to increase retention rates on both grounds. The longer your employees work for your company, the more knowledgeable they’ll become about your product, services, and brand. Long-standing employees tend to grow with the company and are therefore the most qualified when it comes to providing excellent customer service and retaining existing customers while also working toward acquiring new ones.

3C Contact Services is dedicated to not only helping your company acquire more customers, but to making sure that we deliver exceptional high-quality customer service. We use industry renowned marketing, sales, and customer service techniques to increase customer acquisition and retention rates while actively lowering attrition rates. Get in touch with us to learn more about the services we provide and how we can help improve your customer relationships!