Title: 
Stress in the Call Center Industry

Word Count:
580

Summary:
A closer look at the stressful environment in the call center industry and ways to find solutions and strategies on how to eliminate or lessen job burn out.


Keywords:
Stress management


Article Body:
The customers are the lifeblood of any company. The company is dependent on their customers and not the other way around. So a customer is treated like a king or a queen and, as the saying goes, “The customer is always right.” And for this reason alone, many companies see the value of having a customer service department that can address the needs and complaints of every customer on a full-time basis. A call center agent plays a very important role. The agent serves as a link and that agent can be doing on-line reservations, do technical support, facilitate an ordered product, or provide directory assistance. 

Depending on how many phone calls are received some companies need a lot  of employees to handle the large volume of these calls. Their main task is to take calls and do problem-solving for the customers then move on the next customer that is waiting in line. Sometimes, a call center agent couldn't even catch his or her own breath especially during the “peak” hours. On a very busy day, a customer service agent would take more than 100 phone calls depending also the length of each call on their given work. 

Depending on the kind of work they do for their respective companies, its not just taking a call from a customer but a Customer Service agent (CSR) will be doing multi-tasking work of inputing data on the specialize software in their computers. But despite computer automation, it is putting so much strain and later on stressed for the agent as they keep this routine everyday. It is not easy taking calls from angry and demanding customers and be a problem solver at the same time.

A sign that a customer service agent is already stressed out from his/her work are the following:

l	Social withdrawal
l	Decline in Quality Assurance for an extended periods
l	Frequent absences and/or lates
l	Negative comments regarding the account and nature of the work 
l	Frequent and inconsistent complaints about management

Call center agents might not have the best work life, this may vary from company to company, there are tracking software and metrics to analyze all calls like how long does it take to resolve a particular problem and how long the customer should wait.  That job can be really taxing and indeed its been a fact among call center industries that it is stressful environment and it needs to be addressed as soon as possible as training a call center agent can be costly and all must focused on retaining a workforce.



Stress Management Strategies 

There are still some ways to make your call center agents stay on top of the stressful situations that come everyday.  Some tips to do this include the following:

l	Find out what motivates them and how to boost their morale
l	Ways to recognize and reward employees
l	Improving agent job satisfaction
l	Create Employee Development Programs
l	Create opportunities for advancement
l	Making their workstations more pleasant to used and look at

Ever if there are sophisticated automated systems available, there is still no substitute for human interaction when it comes to customer service. Superior service is not just directed to your customers but also to call center agents who serve as front liners of the company.  Therefore, having an open-door policy and free-flowing communications between the agent and the management are necessary to find solutions on how to combat stress in the call center arena.