Serving Customers Well Requires Agents to Be Well

Mental health issues have become more pervasive in the workplace, with some reports saying that as many as 25 percent of people experience mental health issues every year, leading to a loss of 12 billion working days. And countless other times employees are physically at work, but not mentally.

In the customer service realm, various studies have shown that call center agents are at a higher risk of suffering from mental health issues. One report suggested that more than 8 in 10 call center workers feel that their work is worsening their mental health, with 95 percent admitting that work-related well-being problems were reducing their productivity.

“Across the industry, it’s now a priority for contact center leaders to understand how to support positive mental health and well-being for their agents, improve agent productivity, and address the question of why call center jobs are so stressful,” Simon Black, CEO of Crevoai, a provider of conversational intelligence and real-time guidance for contact center agents, wrote in a company blog. “Some agents may even develop call center [post-traumatic stress disorder] due to prolonged exposure to stressful situations.”

The high pressure and demanding nature of customer service agent jobs often takes a toll on a worker’s mental health, adds Curtis Forbes, CEO and founder of MustardHub, an employee recognition, culture-building, and predictive workforce insights platform provider. “Unfortunately, many employers lack the proper tools to identify the early warning signs and only discover that burnout was the issue when the employee is on their way out. This causes preventable and costly turnover, as well as a disengaged company culture.”

Well-Being Impacts Performance

“The well-being of agents is incredibly important,” agrees Joshua Feast, vice president and general manager of copilot bots at Verint.

Much of how the company-customer relationship is built is driven by agents’ well-being, and if their emotional health is not monitored and attended to when necessary, compassion fatigue can develop over time, according to Feast. “As agents become more tired, they are less likely to recognize the social signals from the person that they are talking to. It doesn’t feel like they are connected to the customer.”

Beyond poorer interaction with customers, failing to recognize agent well-being issues also leads to higher absenteeism, lower “presenteeism,” and higher turnover, according to Feast.

Technology Provides Early Alerts

With growing attention on agent health, technology vendors have stepped up with solutions that can track employees’ well-being so contact center leaders can take action before problems escalate, erode morale across the entire facility, and cause customer service to degrade.

Workplace monitoring technologies have been around for decades. Some solutions have been tied to keyboard usage, recommending breaks when keyboard usage has been excessive over a period of time. Other technologies could track workers’ performance, review call quality, and monitor employees and supervisors for signs of fatigue, stress levels, or other issues.

These systems have evolved markedly. Technologies can now monitor levels of health in real time or near real time, offer recommendations for breaks, and provide other health-related insight. The addition and continued evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) has greatly increased the capabilities and accuracy of these solutions.

Using AI for stress reduction helps with call routing, predicting customer moods, and even prepping agents for tough conversations before they pick up the phone.

Contact centers can also employ other technologies to take some of the burden off agents’ shoulders. These might include chatbots for repetitive inquiries, freeing agents for complex cases; sentiment analysis to identify high-risk calls; and agent-assist tools to help agents locate the right resources to solve customer issues.

Within the past two or three years, predictive insights have started to permeate every aspect of professional life, and contact center staffing is no exception, according to Forbes. “Leaders are starting to understand that burnout rarely starts with performance decline. It starts with behavioral drift. Predictive analytics can detect those subtle shifts before a manager can even see them.”

These predictive analytics surface patterns early enough for meaningful intervention, Forbes says, adding that the COVID-19 pandemic triggered more active monitoring once call center agents started to work remotely.

Customer sentiment analytics tool can also monitor the interactions that agents have with customers, according to Black. This software uses conversational analytics and AI to interpret customers’ and agents’ spoken and unspoken cues to identify areas for agent performance improvements.

Conversation intelligence software enables call centers to analyze every customer interaction for quality assurance, agent behaviors, and even agent sentiment, enabling supervisors to identify when agents might be struggling and could use additional guidance or coaching.

Proactive monitoring solutions are essential as they enable employers to intervene before burnout reaches a critical point, Forbes says. “When organizations pay attention to warning signs of low engagement and burnout, they show genuine care for employee well-being, creating a more supportive and productive work environment. It’s something that is measurable and predictable. We’re entering a phase where predictive analytics isn’t a luxury; it’s really essential for workforce planning. Organizations that adopt it early will see stability as really their competitive advantage.”

Forbes adds: “These systems don’t read minds, they read patterns.”

Some patterns that could indicate emerging or existing employee well-being threats include decreased first-call resolution rates, increased call-handling times, or rising customer complaints about specific agents, according to Black. Behavioral indicators include increased absenteeism, tardiness, visible fatigue, irritability, or withdrawal from team interactions.

Though not everyone might approve of such close monitoring, the majority of agents seem to welcome it. According to a MustardHub survey, 59 percent of employees want their employers to offer support proactively when they’re at risk of burnout.

“Workers don’t see proactive support as surveillance. They see it as care,” Forbes says. “That matters because waiting until someone’s already burned out means you’ve probably already lost them.”

While Verint isn’t in the business of monitoring employee mental health, it does offer contact centers a solution to measure employee experience on an ongoing basis.

“What we’re actually looking for is whether the agent is receiving undue stress from customers,” Feast says. Verint’s solution can also help recognize when agents are handling an abnormally high number of particularly challenging interactions.

Agent performance and customer experience can drop noticeably after particularly challenging customer interactions, so Verint’s technology measures experience in real time. When one threshold is met, it shows that a short break could be helpful before the next call so there isn’t a marked drop-off in customer experience, according to Feast.

“You can see [the drop-off in experience] immediately in the data,” Feast says. “That immediately creates this valuable rationale (i.e., a break is needed) to protect agents, which is what we want, what employees want, and what our enterprise clients want.”

Low-Tech Approaches

There are several other low-tech items that can provide mental and physical health benefits for contact center workers. These include ergonomically designed chairs and desks, wearable devices, and access to online wellness content and help seminars.

Providing ergonomic workspaces and chairs in physical contact centers is easy, but companies might be reluctant to do so for remote agents. Those that do might provide a complete equipment package or offer a stipend for such purchases.

Wearable options include smart watches, rings, and other devices that continuously monitor physiological data, such as heart rate, temperature, sleep patterns, and brainwave activity, to provide insights into mental and physical well-being. There is a myriad of software available for these devices, some at no cost and others using subscription models.

Researchers are developing clothing with invisible sensors that continuously monitor health throughout the day, notes Ginny Estupinian, a licensed psychologist. Others are working on skin patches that look like temporary tattoos but measure stress hormones; jewelry that tracks health while looking completely normal; and headphones that monitor brain activity and autonomously take steps to help wearers relax or refocus.

However, there can be a downside to all this personal tracking, according to Estupinian. One-third of Americans now use devices to track their sleep, hoping to optimize their rest. However, this has created a new problem called orthosomnia where people become so preoccupied with achieving perfect sleep that they struggle to sleep well. Others see sleep scores as a competition to win rather than a way to improve health.

Selling the Concept

Depending on how many technological and nontechnological items contact centers choose to deploy, the cost might be an issue initially. But Black argues that it can be more costly not to invest in these technologies when considering lost productivity, higher absenteeism, and higher employee turnover.

“Track metrics that directly impact your bottom line: agent turnover rates, recruitment costs, training expenses, absenteeism, average handle time, first-call resolution rates, and customer satisfaction scores,” Black says. “Calculate the cost of replacing an agent (typically 50 percent to 150 percent of annual salary) and compare this to well-being program costs. Monitor productivity trends and correlate them with well-being initiatives. Many organizations see significant returns on well-being investments through reduced turnover and improved performance alone.”

While technological and nontechnological items can help promote call center agents’ physical and mental well-being, they are only part of a broader effort that is needed, call center experts agree. They recommend broader comprehensive programs and company involvement.

Regular one-on-ones and anonymous pulse surveys can help surface issues before they escalate, Black says. “Train your supervisors to recognize these signs and create an environment where agents feel comfortable discussing challenges.”

Other experts recommend offering mental health days, giving access to fitness and wellness resources, encouraging stretch breaks, and minimizing stress as measures that can make a big difference. It also helps to promote open communication about mental health, encouraging agents to talk openly about mental health concerns, emphasizing the importance of getting help when needed, and making supervisors champions that promote well-being among agents.

Officials at Call Center Studio, a provider of cloud-based contact center software, offer the following recommendations:

• Find the source of stress. Conduct quick weekly check-ins to spot common stress triggers, like angry customers, tech failures, and unreasonable performance metrics.
• Spot the warning signs. Train agents to recognize stress symptoms like irritability, fatigue, zoning out, and headaches. Post a “Stress Symptoms to Watch for” cheat sheet near break rooms or digital dashboards.
• Ditch the bad habits. Host short workshops on swapping unhealthy reactions (like skipping breaks) with healthier alternatives (like stepping outside for fresh air).
• Prioritize healthy living. Share fun challenges like “7-Day Sleep Wins” or “5-a-Day Veggie Bingo” to promote better nutrition and sleep.
• Build a personal stress plan. Offer a “Create Your Stress Toolkit” exercise where agents pick personal coping strategies (deep breathing, music breaks, desk exercises).
• Strengthen support systems. Create anonymous peer-support channels or mentorship programs.

It’s crucial to communicate the fact that anyone can experience anxiety, depression, or other mental well-being issues and to take away any stigma that might be associated with them. 

Phillip Britt is a freelance writer based in the Chicago area. He can be reached at spenterprises1@comcast.net.