Author: Michael Gray

Planning ahead when the future is as uncertain as it is today is difficult. But you’ve got to start somewhere. So how about with a list of objectives, and a list of ‘highly probable’ circumstances and conditions under which you are likely to operate in 2021?

When it comes to running customer contact operations, your objectives for 2021 may well look similar to those this year. For example, to deliver excellent customer experiences and create positive outcomes. To improve customer satisfaction & loyalty. To keep your people engaged, motivated and happy, while looking after their mental health & well being. To cut costs…. and so on.

The problem comes when trying to define the circumstances and conditions that will prevail next year. For the truth is we simply don’t know. Social distancing and staggered rotas look set to remain, and with a strong possibility of future Covid-19 spikes, no-one can confidently base their planning on the likelihood of having open and fully populated offices. We also don’t know what effect a subsequent Covid-19 spike would have on the nature and volume of customer contacts, people’s ability to travel, or on employees’ mental health & well being.

So where does that leave contact centre planning? Well we know (if you believe the research) that the majority of businesses are planning to open their bricks and mortar (B&M) contact centres in 2021. Indeed when asked ‘What Will Your Working Environment Mainly Look Like in 2021?’ 57% of UK contact centre leaders interviewed as part of the Call North West/SWCCF/Talkdesk Post Lockdown survey said that they expected it to most closely resemble a Socially Distanced B&M Centre, with 35% expecting it to look like a Work-from-Home centre, and only 7% a Normal Contact Centre. And if that’s the case then the vast majority of contact centres are highly likely to be operating hybrid models in 2021 (i.e. part B&M centre working and part homeworking).

If you are considering a hybrid model, here are six things to consider:

1. Homeworking isn’t for everyone: The public debate around homeworking during lockdown has often focused on whether homeworking is a good idea or whether office workers are more productive. But is that the right question? I would say that it’s more important to ask ‘When would homeworking work effectively for us?’ and ‘Who would make an ideal homeworker?’ If you’re operating a hybrid model, prioritise those who WANT to work from home as full or part time homeworkers, not those who don’t want to or those who are less productive working-from-home.
2. Flexible scheduling is key: Almost three-quarters of contact centre homeworkers choose to work-from-home to have a better work-life-balance (WLB) according to the 2020 UK HomeAgent survey, with 44% saying that they can self-select their working hours. Flexible hours is a key benefit of homeworking especially if it means people can fit work in around their other daily priorities. So consider flexible scheduling as an incentive to encourage people to homework, including the use of split shifts. 49% of Employers responding to the 2020 UK HomeAgent survey said that they currently allow their homeworkers to work multiple shifts on a single day.
3. Don’t just assume your in-house technology and systems are suited to homeworking: Just because your technology is cloud-delivered doesn’t mean that it’s optimised for homeworking. Does your workforce scheduling technology enable homeworkers to self-schedule and work split shifts for example? Does your training platform support virtual training? Does your communications technology provide a virtual community workspace for homeworkers with live chat and team rooms? If not, you may benefit from a technology ecosystem that’s purpose-built for homeworking.
4. Pay particular attention to people’s well being: Anxiety/Mental Health has been the biggest concern for organisations operating work-from-home centres during the current crisis according to the Call North West/SWCCF/Talkdesk Post Lockdown survey, with 66% of contact centre leaders stating that it had been a significant or very significant issue. Only 25% of leaders saw Anxiety/Mental Health as being less of a challenge across their entire estates in 2021, with 30% seeing it as more of a challenge.
5. Treat homeworkers and in-house personnel the same (wherever possible): If you are operating a hybrid model it’s important that you don’t penalise employees for choosing to work-from-home or work from the office. While it’s not always possible to deliver the same advantages to both sets of workers (e.g. you can’t lay on free fruit, coffee and games machines for homeworkers), it’s important that you set similar expectations when it comes to contact handling quality and performance.
6. Recognise the uniqueness of the work-from-home environment: As many organisations have found to their cost in recent months, if you simply lift employees out of a contact centre, ask them to work from home, and then not give them the right tools then the move can be counterproductive, leading to lower productivity, lower morale, high instances of absence, mental health issues and lower revenues/profit. Do it properly, and there’s plenty of evidence that homeworking can boost productivity, reduce absenteeism/attrition, cut costs and generate huge work-life-balance benefits. Recognise the uniqueness of the work from home environment and ‘overcompensate’ and ‘overcommunicate’ if appropriate!

According to Rightmove, the number of City residents contacting estate agents to buy a home in a village rose by 126% in June & July 2020 compared to the same period last year.

This increase in buyers looking to move outside cities began in April according to the company and is continuing, with the uplift in village enquiries most notable among people living in Liverpool, Edinburgh, Birmingham & London.

Rightmove’s announcement mirrors our own experiences.

“The current crisis has led to a lot of people re-evaluating and re-prioritising various aspects of their work and home life” said Mark Walton, CEO of Sensée “and it is no surprise to read that some are opting for a simpler life away from the cities.

“The rise of homeworking over the last few months will have played a part in decision-making as many people have not only come to realise that they can work from home but also that they can do so effectively.”

74% of long-term homeworkers say that a better work-life-balance is a key benefit of work-from-home according to The 2020 UK HomeAgent Survey.  86% say that they incur no travel-to-work costs, and 81% that they have removed time wasted travelling to work.

(Pic) Sensée homeworkers – some views from the office window. Top row L-R: Tracey (Menai Strait, Gwynedd, Wales), Nicola (Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan); Bottom row L-R:  Cherie (Looe, Cornwall), Beverley (Snowdonia National Park, Wales), and a cycle ride after work with Hannah (Wasdale, Lake District)

– Thursday Aug 13th, 12 – 1PM (BST) –

On this webinar, Emotive CX specialist Martin Hill-Wilson will discuss the contact centre industry’s next major challenge – how to deliver CX at much lower cost – as well as the Digital First agenda that a growing number of organisations are adopting.

Sensée homeworking specialist Rob Smale will then ask ‘What contact centre homeworking model is right for your business?’ discussing the pros and cons of a range of options:

• 100% homeworking Vs hybrid (home/office) working
• Single flexible shifts Vs split shifts
• Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)/Bring Your Own Broadband (BYOB) Vs company-provided equipment
• Company-supplied desks and furniture Vs homeworker-supplied

If work-from-home is not your area of expertise, Rob will also discuss what help is at hand to help you through the initial stages of your homeworking journey.

Register Today

(Reprinted courtesy of Internet Retailing magazine)

Fabulous news from Hermes last week with the delivery specialist announcing over 10,000 new jobs and predicting a near-doubling of parcel volumes in the run up to Christmas. And it’s not the only good news from delivery firms during lockdown. DPD announced 6,000 new roles as part of a £200m investment, Kingfisher 3-4000 jobs, and online giants Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Amazon and Morrison thousands more. Online fashion and cosmetic retailer Asos revealed a 10% boost in sales to £1 billion in the four months to June 2020.

They are exciting headlines. But they also beg the question ‘how will the sector cope with the severe service centre challenges this expansion will create?’

It’s also interesting that Hermes’ news should break on the same day as reports of a Covid-19 outbreak at a customer service centre in Scotland, and the same week as the announcement of the results from a major survey into the future of contact centre working. 89% of the 102 contact centre leaders responding to the “What will your contact centre be like post lockdown?” survey said that the Covid-19 crisis has changed the contact centre industry forever, with only 3% saying that it hasn’t (the remainder stating they were unsure).

When asked “What Will Your Working Environment Mainly Look Like in 2021?” 57% of contact centre leaders chose an image of a Socially Distanced Centre, 35% a Work-from-Home centre, and only 7% a Normal Contact Centre. The survey was conducted by the South West Contact Centre Forum (SWCCF) and Call North West (CNW) in partnership with Talkdesk.

In the current environment, there’s little chance of delivery companies expanding their bricks and mortar contact centre operations to meet the growing demand for service… which leaves just one realistic and feasible option: work-from-home (WFH).

Homeworking has been a business phenomenon during lockdown with 77% of UK contact centres having 50% or more of their employees working from home during the Covid-19 crisis according to the survey.

Despite these impressive statistics though, homeworking has not been easy, and has thrown up unique and significant challenges. For example, what makes a good customer service homeworker? How do you recruit and train people virtually? How do you manage people’s health and well being? How do you manage performance and quality, communicate effectively with remote workers, maintain infosecurity, stay compliant. And one can add to this long list the requirement for eDelivery support staff to understand the end-to-end customer journey and be familiar with common digital customer experience tools.

To achieve excellence in running a WFH customer service team calls for a very different mindset – one that starts with learning how to recruit the right homeworkers and extends to creating a virtual mindset across everything from training, planning, managing and reporting…… within a technology ecosystem that is secure, robust and flexible enough to scale up and down with the eDelivery company’s business needs.

With 35% of leaders predicting that their contact centres will mainly be homeworking in 2021 according to the SWCCF/CNW/Talkdesk survey, the need to find a practical service solution for the Festive Season retail peak is very much on.

With over 1000 fully-employed and 100% home-based advisors supporting blue chip UK businesses, Sensée is the UK’s largest homeworking company.

But how did we get to where we are today?

• Who are our people?
• Where do they live?
• How old are they?
• What benefits has homeworking delivered for them?
• What do they feel about their roles?

Find out by viewing the full infographic here

Work-from-home has played a huge role in getting contact centres back on their feet during the current crisis.

But how have contact centres benefitted?  What have been their biggest challenges?

View the full infographic here