First of a five-part series on how to decrease attrition in a contact center. Originally published in the Contact Center Pipeline, Feb 2013.

1. PART ONE:
Why your
Applicant
Intake
Process
Matters
By Eric Berg
Doherty Customer Contact Solutions | 7645 Metro Boulevard | Edina, MN 55439
952-818-3257 | www/dohertycontact.com
ATTRITION-PROOF:
A Five-Part Series by
Eric Berg on Protecting and
Conserving your Workforce
Originally published in Contact Center
Pipeline magazine, February 2013.
A Doherty White Paper: Information
and advice from Doherty experts

2. We’re all rooting for the economy to recover, but greater
turnover can be a side effect of a healthy employment rate.
In this five-part series on limiting attrition, call center
staffing expert Eric Berg reveals five critical moments in your
employer-employee relationship, and explains how managing
those moments can curb the high costs of uncontrolled
attrition.
In this first installment, Why Your Applicant Intake Process
Matters, Mr. Berg dissects an intake process failure, examines
the ripple effects of a badly-managed sourcing and screening
stage, and provides clear instructions and options for building
an effective and successful applicant intake plan.
Why your Applicant Intake Process Matters:
Do you know what’s working?
Recently, I was asked to consult with a contact center
experiencing nearly 300% attrition annually. In my meeting
with the leadership team I asked, “What is the personality
profile of your most successful agent?”
That was the moment I learned why their attrition rate was so
high.
The contact center leadership had no clue about the
personalities or behaviors of their top performers. They
could tell me what their best agents’ metrics were and how
often they hit their goals, but they had no idea why they
were successful.
Then I asked them about their current applicant intake
process. Their answer? A typing test.
Seriously? The contact center leadership had no idea
what made a successful agent. And, worse yet, they were
choosing applicants based on a skill that had nothing to do
with success in a contact center environment.
These mistakes are common to contact centers as well
as other organizations. By assessing applicants based
on inexpensive and easy-to-acquire skills, and paying
no attention to their inherent and often intractable
personalities and behaviors, companies end up with WPM
instead of ROI.
The costs of a bad hire
As the U.S. economy improves it’s getting harder to attract
and retain agents. In an effort to put “butts in seats,” some
companies hire talent who are just not as talented as they
need to be to protect the company’s brand.
According to CareerBuilder, the average cost of a bad hire
can range from $25,000 to as much as $50,000. And, the
cost to hire and train a new contact center agent is $9,400,
according to Response Design. That means a contact center
with 100 seats and experiencing 300% attrition has an
estimated loss of $2,820,000. Ouch!
It’s easy to see that an applicant intake process that reduces
attrition will quickly show a good return on investment,
even if your turnover rate isn’t at the 300% mark.
Hidden costs to your training program
When agents leave there is a tangible and measurable cost
to replace them. What cannot be measured easily is the
ATTRITION-PROOF: A Five-Part Series by Eric Berg
on Protecting and Conserving your Workforce
PART ONE: Why your
Applicant Intake
Process Matters

3. effect of turnover on your brand, your other employees,
and morale. It’s hard to quantify, but real.
The typical learning curve for a contact center agent is
3 to 6 months. If your contact center is experiencing
high turnover, a large percentage of your agents may
simply be too new to provide the level of service your
customers expect, and the result could be customer
attrition. Furthermore, a constant flow of new employees
monopolizes your training team, deferring ongoing or
enhanced training for your experienced staff.
Stress on your high performers
Your core agents may also feel the strain. They must
continue to meet their own goals, but may also help train
new colleagues, answering the many questions a new hire
has in his or her first weeks on the job. They may also feel
pressured to pick up the slack that results from a bevy of
new staff not performing to full capacity.
High attrition can rattle your core staff, who start to absorb
the stress in the environment and wonder, “Is it worth it?”
Should the turmoil cause the loss of some or all of your top
performers, your problems will grow exponentially.
About your hiring process: Are you hiring or selecting?
The Ritz-Carlton hotel organization is known for their
world-class customer service—and their notoriously slow
and multi-layered hiring and interview process. Many
staff members meet the candidate and get involved in
the process, and the focus is heavily on an applicant’s
personality, strengths, and raw talent, valued above skills
and training. At the Ritz-Carlton, they use the word
“selection” instead of “hiring.”
In the book, “The New Gold Standard: 5 Leadership
Principles for Creating a Legendary Customer Experience
Courtesty of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company,” Hervé
Humler, president of international operations for The Ritz-
Carlton says, “Hiring can be nothing more than finding
anyone to fill a job, but selection? That is choosing the best
person to provide exemplary service.” (Joseph A. Michelli,
2008)
According to a Purdue University study, it’s
possible to reduce overall attrition by up to
21% with the right applicant intake process.
Changing your applicant intake process
According to a Purdue University study on decreasing
attrition in a contact center environment, it’s possible
to reduce overall attrition by up to 21% with the right
applicant intake process. An applicant intake process that
is in alignment with industry best practices will include the
following:
• Statistically validated assessment
• Realistic Job Preview
• Behavioral interview.
Before we design your new process, ask yourself 2 critical
questions.
1. What are my goals?
2. What personalities and behaviors do my agents
need to meet those goals?
What are my goals?
What is the desired outcome of a customer contact in your
call center? Is it:
• first call resolution?
• upselling?
• closing a sale?
• collecting a payment?
• tracking an order?
• solving a technical issue?
• satisfying the customer?
Find your purpose
In addition to your primary goal, do you also have a
purpose? Perhaps your contact center is dedicated to
“excellent caller experiences,” or “world-class problem-
solving,” or “error-free data entry.”
Find a worthy purpose and hang it on the wall. It will
remind your team that they have more than daily goals
and tasks—they have a path to greatness.
And it will remind you—as you select new staff—to look
for people who naturally want to excel and be part of
something exceptional.
©Doherty Employment Group, 2013

4. What personalities and behaviors do my agents need to
meet those goals?
Once you determine your goal(s), you can start thinking
about which types of personalities are best suited to meet
those goals.
For example, iIf you have a highly-controlled process
that requires agents to follow a script verbatim (such as
a complicated legal or financial communication), then
you are looking for detail-oriented personalities. Agents
who can listen to a situation and access a knowledge
base to determine the best solution for the customer
need judgment, effectiveness and reasoning. If sales are
your goal, then confidence and persuasiveness—the
ability to close the deal, overcome objections, or discuss
features versus benefits—are probably the most important
personality traits in a candidate.
Finding the right assessment tools
Look for well-regarded personality assessment tools that
identify traits your business needs, whether assertiveness,
leadership, persistence, judgment, reasoning, effectiveness,
attention to details, or others. Some versions of broadly-
accepted personality tests include:
1. Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
2. Personality and Preference Inventory (PAPI)
3. Predictive Index (PI)
4. Profiles, Inc
5. First Advantage Call Center Scenarios
6. SHL (PreVisor)
You might want to try out a test by having your top
performers take it. A good assessment tool will reveal the
desirable qualities that they share so that you can identify
them in an applicant. Their results then become your
profile for success.
Customizable assessment software and online test products
are available for every level of complexity and budget; a
reputable vendor will let usually offer a trial period.
Realistic job preview
This is soul-searching time. Are new hires promised
more than they receive? By week three, do they have a
perpetually surprised look on their faces? By week four, are
they interviewing somewhere else?
Again, the solution is to turn to your core agents and
top performers. Request a candid assessment of the
job, including work environment, opportunities for
advancement, incentives, and daily tasks. What surprises
did they encounter in their first week? Does your way of
sharing performance statistics motivate some agents but
discourage others?
Use their input to refine and redevelop your job description
realistically and eliminate unpleasant surprises for new
hires.
Behavioral interview
You’re probably already asking “behavioral” types of
questions when you interview. These can reveal how a
person will perform when faced with a situation on the job.
Some examples are:
• Tell an example of a goal you reached and how you
achieved it.
• Describe a stressful situation at work and how you
managed it.
• How have you handled a difficult coworker or
customer?
The more specific you can be, the more likely you will get an
honest, unrehearsed, answer that accurately forecasts how
an applicant will react.
The takeaway
Look at you! You’ve determined which personalities are
critical to your operation, and you have assessments to
reveal which applicants fit best. You’ve defined a shared
purpose for your team, and implemented a hiring process
with a more realistic job preview and guidelines for
behavioral preferences. Your newest agents feel right at
home with the rest of your carefully selected staff. And
you’re getting even more out of your top agents by asking
them for valuable input and having them serve as templates
for your future staff. They like the attention and they feel
valued.
You are well on your way to reducing turnover and attrition
in your organization.
In fact, you’ve found the key to every long-lasting and
successful process ever designed—you’ve identified what
works and made it repeatable. Congratulations!
Eric Berg is the Director of Doherty
Customer Contact Solutions. An
18-year veteran of the contact
center industry, Eric also serves as
Treasurer of the Midwest Contact
Center Association (MWCCA)
and on its Board. Contact Eric at
eberg@dohertycontact.com.
Doherty Customer Contact Solutions
7645 Metro Blvd | Edina, MN | 55439 | 952-818-3257
www.dohertycontact.com
©Doherty Employment Group, 2013