What’s on the Horizon for UK Contact Centres?

Paul Stitt explores the developments contact centre managers can expect over the next three years.

There are currently around 5,840 contact centres in the UK compared with 5,630 reported in 2010, a 4% increase, according to ContactBabel. Rumours of the death of the contact centre seem to have been exaggerated!

The average contact centre size is 126 agent positions. Medium-sized operations around this size are predicted to be under the greatest pressure to reduce their operating costs, with 44% expecting to cut their operating expenditure.

Currently there are 734,000 agent positions handling over 42 billion minutes of inbound calls. The finance industry is the leading employer, and this is likely to increase from 26th October 2015 due to regulations on premium rate numbers.

Not only will call volume be on the up, but webchat is predicted to increase in volume by a compound rate of 24% between 2015 and 2018.

Now is the time to prepare for a surge in the volume of contacts

The findings point towards a general upward trend and there are some actions that centres should take now in preparation.

The unrelenting pressure to cut costs is not going away any time soon. Staffing costs account for over 70% of total costs in most call centres, so there is a need to find ways of improving agent productivity. Reducing headcount and extending working hours is not the answer, so what is?

Working smarter is the answer. For example, improving your workforce management (WFM) practice to optimise agents, maximise efficiency, reduce agent turnover and reduce costs.

Optimisation works best on multiskilled agents as they can cover a multitude of tasks and channels when available, which can cut down on idle time, reducing boredom and attrition.

Agents who are kept active, involved and engaged are happier and more productive. If you find the right occupancy level these agents will not burn out, meaning you reduce staff turnover and expenditure on recruitment.

Improve efficiency with e-learning and cloud-based WFM

One proven method of improving agent effectiveness is through self-paced e-learning, which has a reported growth rate in Western Europe of 5.8%. Courses, like those offered by The Call Centre School, typically save businesses at least 50% when replacing traditional instructor-based training.

Another interesting finding from the ContactBabel report is that 24% of businesses using a WFM system are looking to replace it. This could have something to do with the attraction of low-cost, high-functionality cloud WFM solutions where software is offered as a service (Saas) without the need for expensive hardware or professional services to perform installation and upgrades.

It is time to take a serious look at migrating to the cloud.

With thanks to Paul Stitt at injixo