Many contact centers have found themselves on the frontlines of managing the COVID-19 fallout. Customers are calling, messaging, and emailing requesting help as they adjust to a new and uncertain reality.
Priority one for contact center leaders has been transitioning agents to safely work from home (WFH) to handle volume increases. Tensions are high for everyone, and adjusting hasn’t been easy for anyone. Fortunately, it is possible to maintain the business continuity and customer service levels necessary to weather the chaos now and thrive after this crisis is over. Here are three steps to guide the process.
1. Start with the Cloud
The cloud is the most viable solution for a quick pivot to WFH agents and to scale for unexpected volume increases. And right now, both are essential to maintain business continuity.
Whether your contact center is currently using cloud, on-premises, or hybrid technology, deploying a cloud-based solution to sustain your contact center during COVID-19 is a great option that can easily be turned off when the crisis ends. Creating it now also means it will be immediately ready in the event of any future crisis that necessitates another quick pivot to a remote workforce or burst to scale.
And if you’ve been considering a full migration to a cloud solution from an on-premises one, the results and data collected now will help build a compelling business case.
2. Support Your WFH Agents
Once your agents are working safely from home, it’s critical to keep them productive, engaged, and motivated. You’ll need a solution that goes beyond simply moving agents to seats in their homes from ones in your contact center.
Implementing cloud-based workforce optimization (WFO) tools—including workforce management (WFM) for smart scheduling, Quality Management for monitoring and coaching, and Performance Management for maintaining a culture of continuous development and engagement—will be more important than ever to keep your WFH agents working well.
3. Pay Attention to Reporting
Reporting is key to optimizing WFH agents’ productivity, customer experience, and business continuity. Robust and easy-to-use dashboards will help you identify changes in your customers’ behaviors and needs during the crisis, as well as changes in agent performance in their new working environments.
Armed with invaluable data, you can quickly make changes to staffing, routing, or identify new training needs.
We Can Help
At this moment, it may be difficult to imagine returning to our former normal, but this crisis will eventually end. For now, maintaining business continuity is the best way to ensure long-term success.
Throughout this pandemic and long after it’s over, Serenova’s technology and people will be here to help contact centers thrive. For more about how we can guide your contact center through these uncertain times, including our Rapid Response Program—which will have you ready to burst to scale with WFH agent within 48 hours —
contact us today.
