Call centers have always struggled with high turnover – it’s a well-known challenge across the industry. This makes traditional permanent hiring both risky and expensive, especially when you need to staff up quickly. Whether you’re handling holiday rushes, launching new products, or expanding to new markets, not having enough agents means longer wait times and a negative customer experience.
The solution? Temporary staffing. This approach continues to grow, with nearly 2.5 million temporary and contract employees working for America’s staffing companies during an average week in 2023.¹ In fact, staffing companies hired 12.7 million temps throughout the year. But how can call centers use this strategy effectively to control costs and adapt to changing demands?
Let’s explore why temp staffing is essential for contact centers and how it can be an effective solution for improving employee retention and performance.
The Benefits of Temporary Staffing in Call Centers
Let’s explore the key benefits that make it an effective solution for improving employee retention and performance.
Flexibility to Meet Changing Demands
Call volumes fluctuate throughout the year. For example, holiday shopping seasons, product launches, or crises can all lead to a spike in call volumes. When customer wait times increase, service levels suffer, and regular staff are pushed to the brink with overtime, leading to burnout and additional labor costs.
With over half of US workers (51 percent) reporting burnout experiences in the past year, it is not surprising that high turnover rates are expected.²
Temp staffing gives you a lifeline in these high-demand situations by allowing you to scale your workforce quickly. You can maintain service quality, control costs, and relieve the pressure on your permanent team during these situations.
Read More: Adapting to Industry Changes: Enhancing Contact Center Staffing with Flexibility and Technology
Identify Your Best Permanent Hires
Hiring the right person for a role is important, particularly in a call center. Since 58 percent of customers will pay more for better customer service, you want to make sure your permanent staff fits what you want.3 When new hires don’t align well with the role or team culture, it can result in low performance, high turnover, and added recruitment costs.
Temp staffing provides an effective way to evaluate potential permanent employees. During this evaluation period, you can assess how well potential permanent hires perform across your center’s key metrics.
This might include customer satisfaction scores, quality assurance ratings, attendance reliability, or other performance indicators your center values. This comprehensive evaluation helps ensure you’re making informed decisions about permanent roles while allowing candidates to demonstrate their full capabilities.
Blending Permanent and Temp Staff for Fresh Perspectives
Your permanent staff are used to the routine and monotony of their roles. They may not be as innovative and enthusiastic to repeat the same instructions to customers. So, how do you keep your contact center engaged?
You can integrate temporary staff alongside the permanent team to get different viewpoints on your operations. For example, during a new product release, the two teams can collaborate on creative troubleshooting methods for your customers.
Reduced Onboarding and Training Time
Onboarding new hires in call centers can be time-consuming and costly, with extended training often needed to ensure employees reach full productivity. Temp staff can be quickly integrated into your workforce without these elaborate processes.
Many of these staff are already familiar with customer service protocols and call center technology, which reduces the need for extensive training and speeds up the onboarding process. This integration helps you manage seasonal spikes or unexpected demands without sacrificing service quality.
Access to a Wider Talent Pool
Contact centers often struggle to find candidates with specialized skills like technical expertise or fluency in multiple languages. If you are filling roles urgently, or in specialized areas, without access to a broad and diverse talent pool, you risk delays in recruitment, compromised service quality, and customer dissatisfaction.
Contingent staffing firms, maintain a vast network of pre-vetted candidates, allowing you to quickly source specialized talent on demand. For instance, when expanding across borders, a staffing agency can provide multilingual agents familiar with call center operations. With support from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, you connect better with your local customer, while building your brand loyalty.
Tips for Implementing Temp Staffing in Call Centers
Using temp staffing effectively in call centers can improve your operations, particularly as demand swings while reducing costs. Here are key tips to help ensure success:
Get Ahead of Peak Seasons with Strategic Temp Staffing
The value of temporary staffing goes beyond a solution for immediate spikes in demand. It is a valuable strategy for long-term workforce efficiency. How then can you use this strategy effectively? You need to plan ahead of peak periods by using historical data and seasonal patterns to know when peak demand will occur —be it holiday shopping, product launches, or customer support for a major new service.
Afterward, adapt temporary roles to address your most urgent needs, whether it’s answering basic customer inquiries or assisting with technical troubleshooting. This will reduce unnecessary downtime and keep you prepared during critical periods.
Set Clear Expectations and Communication Channels with Temp Workers
When you communicate openly with your temp staff, you create an atmosphere of trust and they are assured that challenges are addressed with urgency. Clarify what you expect from them, so they can understand their roles and meet up with the performance benchmarks set.
Make sure you provide detailed job descriptions. Clearly define the call center’s goals and KPIs used as metrics. You can create a channel for open communication. This can either be daily briefings or check-ins with a supervisor. Regularly give feedback to help them adjust and feel connected to the firm.
Build a Collaborative Environment for Temp and Permanent Staff
As you hire temp staff, you don’t want to leave them out. When both temporary and permanent staff collaborate effectively, team dynamics improve significantly. This collaboration encourages knowledge sharing and boosts overall team morale.
Create an opportunity to cross-train teams. This would allow temp workers to learn from experienced permanent staff. For example, in a pair, the temporary staff can handle basic call inquiries, while the permanent staff can handle the more technical issues.
You can use team-building activities or joint problem-solving sessions to encourage temporary and permanent staff to collaborate on customer service solutions or complex cases.
Encourage Temp Workers to Contribute Ideas and Feedback
Actively seeking feedback from temp workers improves your workforce management and makes them feel valued. They often bring fresh perspectives that can be invaluable for customer service strategies.
Create structured opportunities for feedback. You can use regular surveys, one-on-one check-ins, or open forums where contact center agents can express their thoughts on their experiences. With this feedback approach and implementing feasible changes, you can continuously improve service delivery.
Partner with a Specialized Staffing Agency
You often face tight deadlines and limited resources when filling vacancies, particularly for roles requiring specific skills like technical troubleshooting or multilingual communication. How do you find the perfect fit in this case? Partner with a staffing agency experienced in contact center outsourcing and recruitment to have instant access to pre-screened who meet what you want.
They will help you handle every step from vetting qualifications to assessing cultural fit, ensuring you receive candidates ready to contribute from day one. These agencies can provide you with industry-specific knowledge, offering insights into market trends, competitive salary benchmarks, and innovative staffing strategies.
Need call center staff? We’ve got you covered!
When dealing with fluctuating call volumes, temporary staffing through Salem Solutions gives you the flexibility you need. As call center staffing specialists, we help you scale up during high-demand periods, prevent employee burnout, and maintain service quality while controlling costs.
Ready to build a more resilient call center workforce? Contact Salem Solutions today to learn how our pre-vetted, experienced call center professionals can support your staffing needs.
References
- Staffing Industry Statistics.” American Staffing Association, www.americanstaffing.net/research/fact-sheets-analysis-staffing-industry-trends/staffing-industry-statistics/. Accessed 28 Nov. 2024.
- Ahuja, Amrita. “51% of Workers Report Burnout as Stress, Long Hours Rise.” Staffing Industry Analysts, 5 Nov. 2024, www.staffingindustry.com/news/global-daily-news/51-of-workers-report-burnout-as-stress-long-hours-rise.
- Hyken, Shep. “58% of Customers Will Pay More for Better Customer Service.” Forbes, 27 Apr. 2022, www.forbes.com/sites/shephyken/2022/04/24/fifty-eight-percent-of-customers-will-pay-more-for-better-customer-service.
