4 min
Today, with the coronavirus spread around the world and millions of people confined to their homes, telecommunications providers are in greater demand than ever. Why? The answer is obvious: they help society to stay connected in the world of self-isolation and companies to maintain their activity through telework.
How Will The Coronavirus Impact Contact Centers?
According to GlobalData, customer service centers are now facing immediate challenges in the telecommunications industry. These must be overcome to reach or even increase the level of productivity they had before the crisis. Among these challenges are:
1) The transition to remote work
Working from home is a completely new model for call centers, as many of them had never thought of teleworking before the coronavirus. However, this will not be a problem with a good cloud-based contact center system, which allows agents to work from anywhere using their own device and a stable Internet connection. To make or receive calls, they simply need to log in to the system and access customer information.
2) Secure And Easy Access To Corporate Data
When working from home, agents primarily use their personal computers, laptops, mobiles, or tablets. That is why, by switching to a virtual call center, you have to ensure safe and trouble-free access to telecommunication resources for your remote equipment. Therefore, it is convenient to use a VPN service (Virtual Private Network, a network that is built using public cables, generally the Internet, to connect remote users or offices to a company’s internal private network) to obtain a secure and easy corporate connection, just like the one used to have in the office.
3) High Volume Of Calls
Many contact centers are not ready to support their clients during the pandemic crisis, as they cannot handle the volume of incoming calls, leading to long wait times and an increase in dropped calls. However, a good interactive voice response (IVR) and a call distribution system (ACD) can automate the call center routine and help agents remain calm even at critical times.
4) Cost Optimization
When the contact center suddenly goes online, it’s time to optimize your spending. Having a virtual office means you can ask for help paying your rent and consider temporary staff cuts based on the efficiency of each member of your team. You can also think about automating the work routine by selecting the correct automatic call distribution and automatic dialing system.
The New Normal After COVID-19: Long-term Perspective
Is there life after COVID-19? Of course yes. But there will be changes in the business world:
1) The Office Will Never Be The Same
It is very likely that teleworking will be implemented in many companies, even if only in a part of the team members. This crisis has forced organizations to implement remote work for the first time and, if the experience has worked, many of them will value hiring remote teams and reducing office rental costs, especially in those cases where there is no enough space to maintain social distance. This will not be difficult, since many of them are already equipped with all the necessary remote tools, which they bought at the beginning of the pandemic.
2) More Companies Will Move To The Cloud
During the coronavirus, it became clear that having landlines and local software for businesses would no longer work. If you want to be ready for any future challenges, consider moving your business infrastructure to the cloud. Once this is done, you can easily work from anywhere, with any device connected to the Internet and without reducing productivity.
3) It Will Be Invested In The Well-being Of The Employees
Employee engagement and corporate culture will gain more value than ever. The pandemic has pushed companies to change rapidly to maintain vital elements of corporate culture by being physically separated with the goal of creating a meaningful and engaging experience for employees. Organizations should also ask themselves the following questions: How to support employees from a mental and emotional point of view? Are internal communication channels effective for everyone? How to reinforce and strengthen the culture and values of the company? How to recognize employees for their hard work? How to keep the team together in a remote environment?
4) Customer Experience Will Be Revalued
How will customer service continue to change as you go along? Customer experience is now more important than ever, but many businesses are affected by high volumes of calls and email requests, making it difficult to respond in a personalized way to customers. In this sense, companies must provide answers to the following questions: How will omnichannel strategies change? Will organizations continue to take advantage of AI in the same way, or will the pandemic reveal new ways to integrate digital solutions into the call center? What lessons will we learn from the enormous amounts of data that accumulate throughout this crisis?
In conclusion, coronavirus has put the business world facing a new challenge. Organizations have been forced to completely rethink the way they operate. They cannot return to normal, since it has changed. Therefore, learning to move online and manage remote computers, even if it is a completely new reality, can have great long-term benefits.
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