Retaining Top Call Center CSRs: How to Build an Employee Experience that Reduces Turnover

The Call Center Turnover Challenge One of the most common challenges for call centers in the trades is the constant need to recruit, hire, onboard, train, and retain customer service representatives (#CSRs). If your team is continually cycling through new hires, you’re not alone. High turnover stings, especially when a valued agent leaves, leaving your team short-handed and customer service interrupted.

The Cost of Replacing CSRs Replacing a CSR is costly—expenses quickly add up with hiring platforms, interview time, training resources, and the often low ROI as new hires get up to speed. This makes retention an even higher priority for home service providers who aim to maintain continuity and quality in their customer interactions.

What Retains Great CSRs? Many #contractors believe that higher pay or better benefits are the key to retention. While compensation is crucial, it's not the only reason a CSR will stay. Trends in today’s job market highlight a critical factor that goes beyond pay: the Employee Experience.

Why Employee Experience Matters Employee experience is the total of every interaction an employee has within the company, including interactions with teammates, managers, and leaders. It encompasses everything from daily interactions to professional growth opportunities, and it directly influences whether employees feel engaged and valued. In high-pressure environments like call centers, a positive experience can significantly impact an agent’s choice to stay.

What Defines a Good Employee Experience? So, what does a strong employee experience look like, especially for call center agents? It includes clear communication, supportive leadership, opportunities for growth, and recognition of contributions. Agents want more than just a paycheck—they want to feel that their work is valued and that they’re part of a supportive, growth-focused environment.

5 Tips to Hire and Retain Top Talent

1 - Humanize the Application Process

In call centers, time is a critical element. We only have so much time to hire the right person for the position. Hiring the wrong candidate can be very costly in a time effort, and financial cost. It can hurt dynamics in customer relationships, and internal relationships within the company. It’s very time consuming to find the right person, conduct interviews, give training, and onboarding. Many organizations have turned to automated programs or #AI to help with this process.?

With so many wonderful digital application programs, companies have to be careful of having ‘too much’ automation. Automation and AI can be wonderful, but if the application process is cold, with no human connection or trying to engage with the candidate, they can feel disconnected from the beginning. How do you find rockstar agents if your process has no human elements?

Such an experience can feel very transactional. There is an obligation for companies to articulate certain things that can’t be done on a job posting. With technology and AI, contractors have to remember the human side of the candidate experience. This is a critical piece of starting that relationship, face-to-face, and talking.?

2 - Align Hiring Process with Values

How do we find call center agents who are worth the investment and make the hiring process valuable for them, too?

Start by bringing your company’s core values into every part of hiring—from the initial application and interviews to the whole candidate experience. This not only helps you find agents who get what it means to put customers first, but it also gives candidates a clear picture of what it’s like to work in your call center and see if it’s right for them.

Look for people who are naturally friendly, helpful, and committed to great customer service, so they’re set up to succeed and feel valued in the role. Make your interview questions reflect those values, showing candidates exactly what matters on the job:

• “Customer care is very important here. Can you tell us about a time you really showed that in a previous role?”
• “What experience do you have handling tough customer situations while staying calm and patient?”
• “Tell me about a time you went the extra mile for a customer.”

Hiring based on core values makes it easier for candidates to see how they’ll fit and where they’ll shine. When you bring on people who already align with what matters to you and invest in their training, both your team and your new hires are set up for long-term success.

3 - Workplace Flexibility

Since the pandemic, remote work has become pretty common, especially in call centers. Flexibility isn’t just about where agents are working anymore; it’s about giving them more say in how they get the job done. This includes not only the time and place but also giving agents some control over their schedules and work environments.

Using cloud-based field management software, such as #ServiceTitan, CSRs can have the flexibility to work from anywhere. Full flexibility might not work for every role, but call centers can still find ways to meet the unique needs of their CSRs.?

This could mean adapting shifts to accommodate personal needs like childcare, doctor’s appointments, or extra training. It might also mean allowing agents to take a quick breather from calls when they need it or letting them choose projects or cases that keep them engaged.

Backing your agents with this kind of flexibility makes a real difference.?

Michelle Myers, CEO of Pink Callers , made this her mission. She found a way to support home service companies by offering remote CSRs for their businesses. She set up systems to support each contractor’s individual operation, all while tending to the needs of her individual CSRs. By creating a strong system with flexibility for contractors and agents, she provides a win-win solution for contractors and CSRs.?

The impact on her team members working remotely as also helped financially. She shared, “One of the most incredible things that results from working remotely is the savings that result in the CSR’s life. They say that you save almost $10,000 per year just from not commuting to a job. What an incredible additional support for your family!”

Leaders and call center teams should support and encourage agents to adjust their schedules and workloads when needed, helping them find a better work-life balance. Offering flexibility in how agents handle their tasks and develop their skills lets them balance life, work and personal growth.

This may require change for some call centers. To stay focused on the company's goals, instead of just tracking desk time or call volumes, try measuring agents by their results, how they hit goals, and their overall job performance.?

This flexible and result-driven approach boosts motivation, supports accountability, and builds a special culture that sees the real impact agents make beyond just numbers.?

4 - Empathy with Action

Empathy is not a new topic in call centers. In fact, CSRs are typically trained to show genuine care and empathy during their customer interactions. In an O.C.Tanner 2024 Global Culture Report , nearly half of employees (42%) don’t feel cared for by their organizations, even though 87% of organizations feel like they demonstrate enough care.?

Call center managers—and leadership as a whole—might be missing a key part of empathy. Agents need more than just kind words; they need consistent, real support that actually impacts their day-to-day work. A recent report even shows that over 40% of employees feel like their leaders’ shows of empathy fall flat, lacking follow-through or meaningful action.

Leadership can show real empathy when they identify, understand, and actively support their team’s needs. This could mean providing tools and resources to make the job easier, offering flexibility for personal situations, clearing away obstacles that slow down agents, or tweaking processes to make things run smoother.?

Taking these steps shows agents that management is truly invested in their success and well-being. When leadership can make empathy part of everyday operations it will improve the overall employee experience.?

5. Providing Growth Opportunities

As someone who has coached hundreds of CSRs, dispatchers, and coordinators, I love to see the desire they have to learn and grow. It is a human element to want to improve and progress. When CSRs feel stuck, and like there is no opportunity for growth or improvement, they become discouraged, disengaged, and unmotivated. This is when they start to look for alternative positions or companies.

Before a CSR can progress, they need to feel like they have the tools to be successful. They should understand and believe in the value that they bring to the company. This is all the responsibility of leadership. Without these things in place, they may not be able to see a future at this company.

Home service companies should have a career path plan for every role in the company. If someone is hired as a CSR, what is their next step or opportunity for growth in the company? What about technicians, salespeople, and dispatchers? These career paths should be thoughtfully designed with the tools, training, goals, and KPIs necessary to progress.?

Growth starts when the employee feels like they are successful at their job, and ready for more. Ongoing conversations between employee and manager (one to ones) should be occurring on a regular basis where managers can give feedback and provide development opportunities. This alone can make or break the employee experience.

In today’s competitive market, keeping top call center talent for home service companies goes beyond offering a good paycheck. Employee experience is at the heart of long-term retention, encompassing every interaction that agents have with their team and leadership.?

From humanizing the hiring process and aligning it with core values, to offering flexibility, actionable empathy, and growth opportunities, each of these elements works together to create a workplace that agents want to stay in.?

By making employee experience a priority, call centers can build a strong, loyal team that’s invested in delivering exceptional customer service. The result? Reduced turnover, stronger company culture, and agents who feel genuinely valued and motivated to grow with the company.

#EmployeeExperience #CallCenter #EmployeeRetention #HomeServices