The study also highlighted a substantial disparity between worker and management salary increases, with regular staff experiencing an average 8.5% rise in the last four years, while management level workers had increased their pay by 27% over the same period.
The review studied performance and technology levels across 211 UK sites.
The report's author, Steven Morrell, said high staff attrition at customer contact centres prevented businesses from reaching "top quality service" levels for customers. He added that the cost of training a new worker was in the region of £3,000 to £6,000 a time, creating a substantial drain on resources.
He said: "The lack of growth in agents' salaries is certainly a major factor in producing high levels of attrition. Businesses should be working to move low-value interactions onto web and phone self-service channels, and to use the savings created to pay higher salaries to their agents.
"This will attract and retain high-quality staff, a move which will immediately and permanently benefit both the business and the customer base."
The report also found that pure IP infrastructure within contact centres would be commonplace within the next two years. This, CRM and multimedia will be the top three areas of technology investment between now and 2009.
The full fifth edition of the UK Contact Centre Operational Review is available via the company's website for £195 plus VAT.
(Source: Media)
Staff retention levels at UK customer contact centres have dropped for the fifth consecutive year, with two-thirds of call centres admitting staff recruitment problems, according to a new report. ContactBabel's UK Contact Centre Operational Review found that the mean annual staff attrition rate among contact centre workers had risen for the fifth year in a row to 32%, while 71% of contact centres reported problems in meeting annual recruitment targets.
