Since the start of this decade, humans have been craving personal connection. Our newfound isolation may be one of the contributing factors to consumer preferences when it comes to customer service.

Call center workers are the frontline of a company’s brand and reputation. Every minute a customer spends on the phone with a customer service agent can make or break the customer’s opinion of that company and affect loyalty when it comes to future decisions.

According to a survey conducted by Zendesk, more than 50% of consumers prefer to use the phone to reach customer service agents rather than relying on technologically forward means like chatbots or live chat.

Call centers are the hub for customer satisfaction and play a key role in driving brand loyalty. With 3 million call center workers in the United States alone (Bloomberg), the customer experience management market is worth $11.34 billion worldwide and is expected to increase to $32.53 billion by the end of the decade (Fortune Business Insights).

Despite the importance of these departments, call centers experience some of the highest levels of attrition across professional industries. In a competitive hiring environment, employers are struggling not only to find talent but also to keep them on staff.

In this guide, we’ll explore the current challenges facing today’s call center and business services hiring managers, and reveal:

• how to find (and keep) quality talent, reducing the notoriously high rates of turnover in the call center industry,
• how companies can fill roles fast with one-touch processes and instant hiring,
• how to streamline recruitment to facilitate fast changes, and
• how to harness the power of data-driven analytics to inform and improve hiring processes.

Part 1: How the Hourly Workforce Has Changed

Consumers today demand same-day deliveries, 24/7 customer service, and as few steps as possible to get to the right solution. This expected ease spills over into other aspects of life, like applying for jobs.

In the modern hiring landscape where 82.3 million Americans aged 16 and older (58.1% of all workers) are paid hourly wages (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics), employers are competing for the same large pool of talent, making it difficult to stand out among a sea of companies. And in light of the Great Resignation and an abundance of job openings, applicants hold all the power.

Workplace Flexibility: From Home Offices to Hybrid Options

When the pandemic hit, the job of a call center agent underwent a dramatic transformation. Before COVID-19, approximately 90% of call center workers worked in office settings (Bloomberg), but once in-person activities were prohibited, these workers had to pack up and work from home.

In today’s working environment, industry experts expect about 50% of the 3 million customer service agents to return to their call center settings, while the other 50% stay at home and work a job that can conceivably be done from anywhere.

And workers are capitalizing on this arrangement: Hybrid jobs—where workers spend half their time working from home and the other half working in a designated workspace—is becoming the norm, and workers now expect this flexibility from their employer.

Speed with Ease

Today’s candidates are looking to get up and running (and earning) as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, companies are scrambling to figure out how to increase the likelihood that candidates will accept their offer over a competing offer.

If hourly workers aren’t getting what they want at the speed they need, they’re more than happy to look elsewhere.

How This Guide Will Help You Meet Your Hiring Goals

To keep up with the ever-evolving changes in the hourly workforce, talent acquisition teams need to automate hiring stages; customize and tailor processes to meet candidates’ needs and preferences; and invest in robust analytics and reporting to help tweak the funnel for optimal hiring. Focus must shift from manual functionality to creating fast, efficient, and high-quality interactions before, during, and after hiring.

Part 2: Today’s Hourly Hiring Challenges

Companies that hire hourly workers struggle with a multitude of challenges, but the following are top-level concerns that any basic hiring solution should be able to address.

• Efficient communication. A lack of timely communication is costing companies quality hires. Technological advancements mean recruiters can reach applicants anytime, anywhere, but widespread adoption of such capabilities is lagging.

• Meaningful interactions with candidates. Not only should communication be timely, but it also should be meaningful. During these interactions, hiring managers have the opportunity to identify specific qualities of high-performing workers, which can lead to better-quality hires and reduced turnover.

• Outdated, manual processes. Over-reliance on manual processes hamstrings recruiters. Tasks that stall hiring should be removed or streamlined through the power of technology.

• Data collection and data-informed decision making. HR traditionally has had little visibility into performance metrics such as cost-per-hire, how to optimize spending on sourcing, or the location of candidates within the hiring funnel. This makes it difficult to discern what’s working and what needs improvement. 

• Turnover. Call centers experienced turnover rates of 50% before the pandemic, a figure that has only risen since 2020 (Bloomberg). Now, that number falls between 80% and 300%. New hires most commonly leave because of unmet expectations like lower-than-expected earnings, or scheduling conflicts such as inconvenient shift times.

​​The pandemic-fueled remote work world has made customer service roles more appealing to people who prefer to work from home, but it has also made it easier for workers to quit and find something else. This reality may lead to fewer hires, less qualified hires, and a lack of visibility into hiring processes.

These factors are causing a seismic shift in the way companies approach recruiting, as well as how job seekers find work.

On the applicant side, most people are applying to multiple hourly positions at the same time. Dated systems can’t keep up with applicant preferences for the following reasons:

• Applicants might abandon slow, manual processes in favor of other companies’ fast applications that use automation to keep things moving.
• Complicated and cumbersome applications with too many steps may deter workers who prefer simple, streamlined processes.
• Applicants who don’t feel a personal connection to their potential employer and feel like they are simply one of a million of applicants will redirect their interest to a hiring team that makes them feel seen.

Conveniently, hiring managers and workers alike look for three key attributes with regards to hourly hiring: speed, ease, and engagement.

Part 3: Advances in Recruitment: Appealing to Today’s Applicants

Hiring practices and software have drastically evolved during the last two decades, but much ‌remains the same. While today’s tools have enhanced convenience, they don’t always address the major objective of growing companies: to provide an effortless and personable hiring process for both the recruiter and candidate.

To gain a competitive advantage, hiring managers need to arm their recruiters with fast and efficient tools to process high volumes of applicants, and make the journey as seamless as possible for everyone involved.

Using Intelligent Tools to Source, Engage, and Extend Offers

A major shift is happening in talent acquisition thanks to a handful of new technological developments, like machine learning and AI. With a renewed focus on the application experience and metrics to help attract and keep workers, today’s hiring software is finally putting attention back on candidate satisfaction.

The 6 Must-Have Features for High Volume Hiring Software

The market is saturated with high volume hiring solutions for companies of all sizes that are seeking to improve their sourcing, hiring, and retention efforts. Below, we recommend the baseline features that should come standard with modern hiring software, and explain how these necessary functionalities meet one of the three key attributes desired by both recruiters and candidates: speed, ease, and engagement.

1. Sourcing capabilities

Key attribute: Ease, engagement

Reach the right job boards to attract the most qualified applicants, and fill your hiring funnel with high volumes of candidates to enable filtering for top talent.

Benefits: Simplifying the route applicants take to apply is crucial to filling the funnel and sourcing quality candidates, and also ups your chances of edging out the competition.

2. Mobile-first communication

Key attribute: Engagement

Provide integrated, personalized, and automated communication capabilities that send reminders and follow-ups, and encourage next steps all through text.

Benefits: Meet candidates where they are with automated SMS reminders and correspondence. Constant communication greases the wheels of every stage of the hiring process, making sure the best candidates stick with you well beyond their first day of work.

3. Integrations

Key attributes: Speed, ease, engagement

Today’s recruiting platforms work in conjunction with other tools in the HR tech landscape, reducing the pain points that often emerge when using several systems. Applicants can sign and submit documents, consent to background checks, and upload items for identity verification, all through seamless integrations.

Benefits: New applicant success tools provide insight into applicants early on in the process, and can keep necessary application and new-hire information in one comprehensive platform.

4. Automation

Key attributes: Speed, ease, engagement

Automation helps recruiters leave tedious, manual processes behind and focus their efforts and time on creating meaningful and personal interactions with candidates.

Benefits: More frequent and more quality engagement with candidates leads to better hires and improved conversion rates.

5. Customization

Key attributes: Ease, engagement

Time is often a major hurdle for both recruiters and the hourly workers they hire. Highly flexible and customizable hiring solutions allow recruiters and candidates to when it’s most convenient for them.

Benefits: Candidates can schedule and participate in interviews remotely, saving valuable time and resources and minimizing hiring costs.

6. Data and analytics

Key attributes: Speed, ease

Spending time and resources to make your hiring process the best it can be isn’t worth the effort unless you’re able to measure the results of such an investment. Opting for a hiring solution that offers real-time visibility as well as post-hire analytics will provide a comprehensive view of your hiring funnel, including the location of every single candidate.

Benefits: Periodic reviews of hiring metrics enable real-time, data-driven decisions to help accelerate and simplify your hiring process and ensure your system is always delivering the best experience for candidates.

Part 4: The Future of Recruiting and Onboarding

While the thought of researching, selecting, and activating a new software may seem like a labor- and time-intensive process, in the long run, implementing a solution to help you hire at high volumes can put you way ahead of your competitors in this fiercely competitive hiring market.

With an expanding image of what it looks like to work in a call center, workers have more freedom than ever to turn down perfectly good jobs in favor of outstanding applicant experiences and post-hire follow-through. And with the right analytics built right into the hiring funnel, it’s easier to find new ways to source, hire, and onboard the industry’s top talent.

But this is just the beginning. The future of talent acquisition will require a hiring software that’s ready and able to calibrate based on your fluctuating hiring needs and the overall trends in the industry. It will need to be as adaptable, portable, and savvy as the workforce you’re aiming to hire. And it will need to be capable of thinking one step ahead in helping you not only achieve but also exceed your hiring goals.

Sean Behr is the CEO at Fountain, the high-volume hiring platform that empowers companies with an hourly workforce to streamline and scale their recruiting operations across the globe. Previously, Behr was the Co-Founder and CEO of STRATIM (acquired by KAR). Behr previously served in leadership roles at Adap.tv (acquired by AOL), most recently, as SVP, Global operations. Before Adap.tv, He held various management roles at Shopping.com (acquired by Ebay) including roles in HR, sales, product management and strategy development. In addition, Behr advises, mentors and invests in entrepreneurs and early-stage companies.

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