Industry Stepping Up With Wellbeing and DE&I Strategies

The latest What Contact Centres Are Doing Right Now (2023 Edition) report from Call Centre Helper has shown promising signs that the contact centre industry is taking wellbeing and diversity seriously and many have active programmes in place to support their frontline teams.

What Is Your Call Centre Doing to Support Your Mental Health and Wellbeing?

Around Half of Contact Centres Now Have Mental Health First Aiders in Post

For the first time, our What Contact Centres Are Doing Right Now (2023 Edition) survey also asked about mental health and wellbeing. The results showed a positive picture of various initiatives taking hold as the norm across many contact centres.

Nearly half of survey respondents (44%) said they had mental health first aiders and posters for external services such as Samaritans (42.6%), whilst around a third said they had a wellbeing room on site (27.3%) and benefited from regular drop-in sessions (32.1%). Beyond this, 18.7% of contact centre professionals even cited yoga classes being made available to them across the working day.

That’s not all! It was fantastic to see a wide range of positive initiatives mentioned under ‘other’ too – including monthly wellness allowances, regular events and webinars around mental health, menopause support groups, support after bad calls, wellness days, and more!

Several respondents also mentioned having an employee assistance programme and Lyra – an employer-sponsored benefit that connects employees to mental and emotional healthcare, all showing that many contact centres are being proactive and creative in supporting their teams’ mental health and wellbeing.

Around a Fifth of Contact Centres Failing Their Employees

Sadly, some contact centres have some serious catching up to do, as 18.2% of survey respondents claimed that their contact centre was doing ‘nothing’ to support their mental health and wellbeing.

Where Are You on Your Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) Journey?

Almost 80% of Contact Centres Stepping Up to DE&I Challenge

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) has been a hot topic of late, but it’s been difficult to unpick whether contact centres are paying more than just lip service to driving change. That’s why we asked ‘Where are you on your Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) journey?’ in this year’s survey.

It’s been fantastic to see that 38.8% of survey respondents reported to have ‘lots of initiatives up and running’, whilst a further 38.3% said they have ‘a few initiatives up and running’.

Not only that, but an additional 11% of respondents claimed to be ‘looking into it’, showing that DE&I is high on the agenda across many contact centres right now.

Do You Measure Customer Emotion in Your Contact Centres?

The Industry Is Slowly Realizing the Benefits of Measuring Customer Emotion

Analytics software has been a game changer for contact centre professionals, allowing them to measure customer emotion and really understand what’s happening behind every call.

It’s promising to see so many professionals embracing these new capabilities, as 12.9% of survey respondents said that they target specific emotions, whilst a further 18.3% measure customer emotion but don’t target specific emotions, and 23.1% are currently planning to introduce a means to measure customer emotion.

Almost Half of Contact Centres Aren’t Measuring Customer Emotion

However, almost half are missing a trick here! The survey findings showed that 45.7% of contact centres aren’t measuring customer emotion – overlooking key opportunities to capture sentiment about products and services, as well as to spot underlying performance issues in their agents.

What Is Your Call Centre Doing to Help You Through the Cost-of-Living Crisis?

Almost a Quarter Seeing Nothing to Counter the Cost-of-Living Crisis

Inflation, energy bills, and mortgage interest rates have continually hit the headlines this year, with rises putting increasing financial pressure on households and ultimately driving the ‘cost-of-living crisis’.

In turn, this has put pressure on businesses to react to best support their employees through these difficult times. Somewhat disappointingly, 26.3% of survey respondents said their employer was doing ‘nothing’ to support them.

Yet Half Have Received a Cost-of-Living Pay Rise

However, it’s reassuring to see many contact centres have indeed risen to the challenge – with 45.5% of survey respondents confirming that their employer had given them a cost-of-living pay rise, whilst a further 38.3% had welcomed enhanced employee benefits.

In addition to this, 43.5% said that they’d been offered ‘paid overtime options’. This is arguably a win-win on meeting customer demand, although possibly less of a benefit to those with less flexible work/home life arrangements, who may be unable to take full advantage of this opportunity to boost their income.

Breakfast Clubs and Working From Home Opportunities All Helping to Make a Difference

Furthermore, of the 12% who said ‘other’, some of the support initiatives mentioned by survey respondents included spot bonus opportunities, an internal food bank, breakfast club, loans, more working from home opportunities to help save on petrol costs, and access to Wagestream – a financial wellbeing app that offers flexible (earlier) access to pay across the month.

Run in partnership with Sabio, Centrical, Odigo, Scorebuddy, and NICE, this survey focused on the key elements of a contact centre, including advisor experience and engagement, artificial intelligence (AI), customer experience, quality assurance, workforce management, and more!

Author: Robyn Coppell