15 Employee Retention Statistics for Call Centers

It’s no secret, agent turnover at call centers has been on the rise since 2020 and the great resignation movement that swept the U.S. hasn’t seen as much of an improvement as we’d like.

While this isn’t what we like to hear, it’s important to acknowledge what is happening in the workplace. After all, we can’t address an issue until we’ve identified the problem. That’s why we’re sharing 15 employee retention stats so you can come up with the right solutions for your call center.

Table of contents

• What is employee retention?
• Why is employee retention important?
• Retaining employees saves money
• Employee turnover and retention trends
• Statistics on how to retain employees

What is employee retention?

If employee turnover is what you want to avoid, you’re looking for ways to retain employees. That means you’re trying to keep employees around for the long haul, helping to minimize the knowledge gap, develop a culture within the organization, and save money!

You can calculate your employee retention rate by setting your timeline (start date and end date) and using the formula below where EE represents employee count.

Employee retention rate is: Employee count on last day / Employee count on first day x 100 Image source

Why is employee retention important?

Why is employee retention important though? Well aside from the benefits we mentioned earlier (knowledge, culture, and saving money), TechTarget found a positive employee retention led to six key business benefits.

1. Better process efficiency
2. Greater worker productivity
3. Higher employee morale
4. Reduced staffing costs
5. Improved customer experience
6. Increased revenue and ROI

Some of these benefits are more tangible than others but the benefits are long term and trackable. Plus, employee retention means a positive reputation for your business.

Employee retention statistics for call centers

We’ve broken these statistics into three categories: saving money, trends, and stats that point to ways you can improve your employee retention. Note that some of these stats are presented in terms of employee turnover, which is the inverse of employee retention.

Statistics about employee retention saving money

You see it everywhere, but we have the numbers to back it up. Being able to keep your employees, or even keeping current employees and adding new ones, is less expensive than having to replace employees. And if you’re losing more employees than you’re keeping or gaining…well, let’s hope that’s not the case. Here’s how you can justify keeping your team to save money:

• It costs $5,000 to $7,000 to hire and onboard a single call center agent.
• In other words, hiring, training, and onboarding costs 30-50% of the new agent’s salary.
• A Cornell study estimated the cost to replace one agent cost 16% of the company gross annual earnings.
• Call center turnover cost per agent is $20,800 on average.
• Businesses in the U.S. lose $1.8 trillion to productivity costs every year and it takes 6-8 weeks to onboard and train call center agents, plus months to reach full potential.

Image source

In some cases, retaining employees can even earn you money. In a Zippia call center report, it was found that 96% of customers said customer service was an essential part of their decision making. To that end, a positive experience increases the likelihood of a purchase by 140%, meaning you want to keep your high performing agents.

Employee turnover and retention trends

Employee turnover and employee retention go hand-in-hand so it’s important to understand what leads to voluntary turnover and retention factors. To help shed light on the these elements, we’ve compiled some trending stats for you:

• Average call center agent turnover increased to 38% in 2022.
• Total call center agent turnover is 58% higher in 2022 than in 2020.
• Poor job training led to burnout for 51% of call center agents, which is linked to voluntary turnover.
• Contact center operations made the top 10 roles for highest average voluntary turnover in 2023.
• Only 38% of call center employees reported job satisfaction pre-pandemic.

Image source

Your call center tools are another factor to consider when looking at employee experience. The right tools can help reduce employee burnout and voluntary turnover.

Speaking of tools, 36% of call centers have implemented cloud technology in some form or fashion. Those that are making use of cloud-based technology also reported a 27% reduction in downtime. Meaning these call centers were able to cash in on more opportunities than call centers not utilizing the cloud.

Stats on how to retain employees

We’ve gone over the costs of not retaining employees, and we’ve gone over the trends of turnover vs retention—but what about stats for those who’ve managed to retain their employees? A number of strategies to retain employees have been tried and tested, here are some numbers so you can quantify their effectiveness:

• Strong recognition programs have been shown to decrease voluntary turnover by 31%.
• 71% of workers would have increased job satisfaction with better job training & development.
• Most call center agents, 81%, prefer the work-from-home model.
• Agents that are satisfied with their job are 8.5x more likely to stay than leave within the year.
• Proper tools can help your retention rate. 83% of agents reported a lack of appropriate tools to be a limiting factor in their ability to resolve issues and perform well in their jobs.

The McKinsey & Company report highlights the importance of employee engagement to boost contact center productivity and retention. Image source

You can take these numbers at face value, but keep in mind that you may be able to read between the lines to come up with employee retention strategies that work for your business. For example, job satisfaction comes in many forms, so you may be able to offer better training or tools to accomplish this. Or you may want to consider offering professional development opportunities instead.

Use these employee retention statistics to prevent turnover

Employee retention is critical to the success of your call center. Looking at statistics can help build an understanding of where problems stem from and allow us to come up with potential solutions or mitigations.

Use these call center-specific statistics to get you a better picture of how you can approach employee retention in your business.