In an earlier posting, we revealed information about the top reasons for employee turnover in 2009.  Now we’ll look at another key finding from our 2009 Contact Center Recruiting and Compensation Survey: the average cost and rate of attrition in 2009.

The average cost of attrition for all industries was $4,284.73 in North America (see Table 3), which is roughly a 22% decrease from 2008 figures (Note: The 2008 figures included participants from Manufacturing, which skewed the overall cost.). As expected, the average cost of attrition was lower for contact centers outside the United States ($3,119.50/agent) than for those within the United States ($4,423.26/agent).

Also outlined in Table 3, the average monthly attrition rate reported by center leaders over the previous six months was 9.8%, an increase of 36.1% over 2008 results (7.2% to 9.8%). This result may reflect a trend in which many people who accepted call center work in lieu of other job opportunities are beginning to take advantage of a slowly improving job market.

Attrition rates and costs differed by industry (see Table 3). Organizations in the Financial Services industry reported the highest average attrition cost ($9,500.00/agent) – roughly 27% more than that of the second highest, which is Technology ($7,500.00/agent). Moreover, Telecommunications reported the highest average monthly attrition rates (13.6%), followed by Outsourcing companies (11.9%), which both were rated highest in 2008. Organizations in the Healthcare and Technology industries reported the lowest attrition rates (roughly 1% and 3%, respectively), while the Service and Outsourcing industries reported the lowest attrition costs, on average ($2500.00/agent and $3,543.64/agent, respectively).