Several queries were received this week asking for help with the problems caused by the weather
Customer service is a labour intensive undertaking, and the inability of staff to get into the office has caused many businesses to question their scheduling capabilities and consider other ideas such as homeworking. This column investigates the options.
Scheduling
Surely scheduling is redundant if the staff due to work fail to turn up? This is not quite true; although it would be difficult for any scheduling system to cope with the mass absence weve seen in the last few weeks, the advanced prediction and trend analysis technology used by the best scheduling systems can help absorb some of these problems.
In theory they can also streamline an operation by showing how many staff are really needed at any given time. It could be the case that many customer service operations are over-resourced. Rather than slashing headcounts those who make such a discovery could allocate the spare staff to proactive service/sales work, but retain the flexibility to reassign these workers to front line call handling if the staffing issue becomes a problem.
However, scheduling can logically only have a finite impact; if no one is at work (as was the case at Vodafone last week when the whole site was closed down to let staff get home), you will still have a problem. Thankfully, there are alternatives.
Outsourcing
Its notoriety for all that is bad about low cost service delivery means that wholesale outsourcing contracts - that is where a business allows the whole of its service operation to be handled by a third party - are waning, but the ability for an outsourcer to provide additional volume and overflow capabilities becomes very useful in difficult times.
Outsourcing has matured greatly in recent years, if you can look beyond the stereotype of the call centres located half way around the world - struggling to identify with and be understood by callers - there are many UK-based and closer-to-home outsourcing call centres that can offer a level of service that equals and in some cases exceeds what businesses are able to deliver themselves. Remember, service delivery and all of its nuisances and problems are bread and butter to an outsourcing company.
Those who talk a good game but fail to deliver are likely to be out of business now, so it is possible to find an outsourcer who will work as a partner, dovetaiing with your strategy and providing a cohesive service. This is a useful relationship to have anyway, but during times of crisis such a back-up could be invaluable, with good outsourcers allowing you to scale up and down volumes as it suits.
Outsourcers are likely to have back-ups of their own, with many running multiple sites which can absorb the work of other centres should an emergency occur.Yet even with the backup of a good outsourcer, there is always the worse case scenario that it too will fall foul of circumstances and fail to open their doors. And it is this reason that many of them are investigating and practising home working.
Home and dry
Its been embraced in the States, yet seemingly on the precipice of acceptance for years in Western Europe. The reasons why are unclear. Technology is not a problem, staff just need an appropriate workspace and robust network connection for this to be viable.
The remainder of the equipment needed; desk, chair, PC etc., are identical to what the employer would buy for the office, but the upside is that the massive overheads that come with running large scale call centre are eliminated, and the carbon footprint reduction is not to be overlooked in the current business climate, which is likely to lead to tax breaks for businesses which limit travel and emissions. So, what is the problem?
I suspect the problem in this country is fear of letting go. Our culture seems to be stuck in the mindset that working from home is a code for skiving off. This is particularly acute in the call centre space, which has infamously monitored staff to the point of misery.
Breaking this cycle and trusting staff is going to take some time, but it will happen because the perception is far removed from the reality. The same systems which monitor the agents and deliver calls to them are identical for homeworkers, and it is likely that as more businesses understand this distinction, the practice will accelerate.
At least in the short term, the blended approach is likely to be favoured, with businesses and outsourcers using homeworkers as part of their staffing mix, but retaining the bulk of work in a physical centre.
Staff might be asked to spend one or two days a week working from home and the rest in the centre, which certainly helps to prevent the problem of isolation which does impact home workers. The beauty of such a set-up is that it allows the business to switch to homeworking only should the circumstances demand it.
Yet as the benefits of homeworking become better understood, we may see the ratio of home and on-site work switch, with call centres shrinking, costs tumbling and the elimination breaks in service because of icy roads.
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