Call Center Staffing Agency

Reduce call center turnover by partnering with a staffing agency to mass-recruit highly skilled candidates with the right soft skills.

Challenges Facing Call Centers

Call centers remain a vital avenue for customer communication and problem-solving. Even with rising technology to respond to customer needs, phone chat remains the most preferred channel for customer service in the U.S. as of 2023¹. In a multiple-answer survey conducted by The Northridge Group, 44% of respondents said they prefer to contact customer service by phone, followed by 25% of people preferring live chats with agents.

There are several challenges call centers face, such as high turnover rates and finding talent with the necessary skills, including good communication, dependability, customer focus, empathy, and problem-solving.

In the past five years, call center agent turnover has increased. Before 2018, agent turnover was less than 25%; in 2022, it was at a 38% turnover rate.² It can be expensive to replace a call center employee, typically costing between $5,000 and $7,500 to hire and onboard new workers.³

Overcome Challenges Working With A Call Center Staffing Agency

A call center staffing agency can help increase retention rates by identifying talent requiring little training and having the necessary skills and aptitude to do the job well. Agencies can help identify the right talent for your specific call center needs, manage those resources through potential issues, and reward success and longevity, which helps to reduce the number of employees a call center has to replace, in turn promoting productivity and profitability.

Learn More: How to Get the Most Out of Your Staffing and Recruiting Services

Recruitment firms help fill positions, including:

customer support specialists
help desk staff
call-center representatives
inbound specialists
sales specialists
outbound specialists
collections specialists
intake specialists

Benefits Of Working With A Call Center Staffing Firm

1. Reduce Hiring Costs
Recruiting agencies help businesses reduce costs associated with searching for new talent, interviewing new candidates, and training replacement workers. Recruiters can free up internal resources that can be used for other tasks or projects, reducing time and money spent on finding qualified candidates.

Also, call centers partnering with a recruiting firm typically fill open positions faster than on their own because of the increased access to a prequalified talent pool and efficient hiring pipeline, enabling centers to continue achieving their business goals and staying profitable.

2. Increase Retention Rates
Recruitment agencies consider candidates with longevity instead of just finding the first person to fill the role. By carefully vetting job seekers and evaluating their ability to remain at the company, recruiters promote higher employee retention rates at call centers.

Agencies frequently screen candidates for positions based on skills or their ability to complete necessary work. A recruiter can verbally run scenarios with a candidate during the interview to determine how they would handle a particular situation on the job, providing the interviewer insight into whether the worker can make the right decisions under pressure. For example, a call center employer can use this information to gauge how long a candidate would last in the open position and whether they would be a good fit.

Additionally, many call center staffing agencies utilize skills assessment and verification testing during the candidate screening process. By assessing and verifying the candidate’s skills, call center managers can better ensure representatives have the technical know-how and soft skills to process customer requests professionally and efficiently.

Call centers can require very different candidates. For example, if a call center is primarily focused on online communication, candidates must have excellent written communication skills. If their focus is to move the call along as quickly as possible, they must have proficient agility skills. While if their goal is to award representatives for longer call times to better ensure caller satisfaction in more complex situations, representatives must excel in helping customers comprehend complicated topics.

Common assessments for call center positions include:

Inbound sales
Outbound sales
Customer service scenarios
Multilingual testing
Writing, spelling, and grammar

3. Promote Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Employers working with a staffing firm can strengthen a call center’s key performance indicators (KPIs)⁴, such as:

Calls completed per hour
Sales per agent
Time on hold
Active waiting calls
Customer satisfaction

By having a conversation with the hiring team about which metrics matter most, staffing agencies can sift through candidates and rate the strongest job seekers against critical KPIs to better inform the employer in their decision-making process.

How To Find The Right Agency

When finding the right firm to fill call center positions, there are several factors to consider.

Leadership interested in working with a staffing agency should determine their internal needs, roles to fill, skills needed to drive KPIs, and how long the hire is expected to work. They also need to be able to share key details with the staffing agency, such as where they see turnover, what factors impact that turnover, and how they measure success with a new hire.

Temporary and permanent staffing

An agency specializing in temporary staffing can assist your company in filling short-term or seasonal needs, which can increase cost savings. To fill a more permanent position, consider partnering with a firm with a long-term employment focus. A contract-to-hire model affords companies the opportunity to ensure talent is the right fit for your organization, before making the long-term investment in full-time hire.

High-volume recruitment

Companies hiring many call center employees should consider working with an agency specializing in high-volume hiring. Recruiters experienced with mass hiring can help solve challenges associated with high-volume recruitment, including finding talented candidates who fit an organization’s culture in an accelerated timeline.

Choose Sparks Group As Your Next Call Center Staffing Firm

Sparks Group is a nationally-recognized recruiting firm with decades of experience effectively connecting talented candidates with your business to fill needed roles. At Sparks Group, we understand how expensive and time-consuming the hiring process can be. We identify ways to reduce turnover, increase your qualified candidate pool, and promote your business success metrics. Regardless of the type of call center candidates needed, we have many different testing scenarios to ensure each placement is the right fit for your particular situation.

Interested in finding your next rockstar staff member? Connect with a Sparks Group recruiting expert to discuss how we can help you fill one or hundreds of call center positions.