Every contact center leader knows the pattern. You hire strong, invest in training, and watch too many good people leave before they ever hit their stride. ZIZO Founder and CEO Jimmy Chebat, author of The Engagement Architecture, says the problem isn't your people. It's the way the work is designed. In this episode of CallTalk, Jimmy joins Bruce Belfiore to reframe attrition as a design problem leaders can fix. He explains why the first 60 days decide whether a new hire stays, how a changing labor market rewrote the rules of retention, and how to tell real reinforcement infrastructure from feel-good perks. He also walks through the Five Pillars behind a Frictionless Workforce and where a leader should start.
Date: Tues., Aug. 11, 2026
Host: Bruce Belfiore | CEO & Senior Research Analyst | BenchmarkPortal
Guest Speaker: Jimmy Chebat
Season: 16 | Episode Number: 2
Full Show:
Guest: Jimmy Chebat
Jimmy is the startup founder of ZIZO Technologies and a serial entrepreneur.
With over 20 years of experience launching companies and after starting and selling several call centers, Jimmy embarked on a mission to change call centers by increasing employee engagement, motivation, and productivity.
CallTalk Host: Bruce Belfiore | BenchmarkPortal
Bruce Belfiore is a frequent speaker at industry events in the United States and abroad. Bruce is Chancellor of the College of Call Center Excellence, which provides certificated courses to call center professionals, and has taught the course “Call Center Management” at Purdue University. He is the author of the book Benchmarking At Its Best for Contact Centers and has written numerous research papers and best practices studies focused on contact center topics. He is a consultant to call centers in a wide variety of industries seeking to improve their results, and is noted for helping to calculate the financial impact of proposed changes. Bruce holds Bachelors, JD and MBA degrees from Harvard University.
First launched in 2009, CallTalk™ is a podcast dedicated to the customer service industry. It features the most innovative managers and thought leaders in the customer contact field, interviewed by BenchmarkPortal CEO, Bruce Belfiore. CallTalk is educational and non-commercial, and is guided by the needs of its listeners. If you have a topic you would like us to cover, send it to CallTalk@BenchmarkPortal.com.