Contact centres see better times ahead – but problems remain

A survey covering over one hundred leading customer contact centres shows that a third have not had to make any cost savings in the last year – and half are not expecting any cuts in the coming year, a significant increase in business confidence in the customer contact arena. 

While 32% had made no cutbacks in the last 12 months, two-thirds (68%) have had to make savings in the last 12 months.  Of these the Public Sector (77%), Travel (100%) and Telecoms (100%) have been hardest hit.  In Financial Services, 64% had made budget cuts in the current year.

Almost 70% of those making budget cuts had saved 10% or more and nearly a quarter had saved more than 15%.  10% had delivered transformational savings of 20% or more.

Where budget reductions were made, over half of the organisations had achieved this by reducing headcount in the contact centre – although a full 27% had made budget savings without affecting headcount. 

Significantly, respondents were split down the middle on whether the outlook was better for the year ahead.  51% believed there would be no further cuts, but 49% were expecting budget reductions, of which 69% expected reduced headcount as a result. On average this represents a reduction of circa 8%, with some expecting to follow last year’s 20% reduction with a massive further 20% headcount reduction in the coming year.

“This represents a significant reduction for customer contact centres, which means that managers will continue to have to do more with less.  Innovative planning will be more important than ever to maintain customer service levels”, explains Steve Woosey, Director at the Professional Planning Forum, an industry forum which supports resource planners and analysts in the customer contact industry.

The survey was completed by nearly 200 individuals, representing organisations with a total 230,000 contact centre agents (FTE).  Of these organisations, 39% were in financial services, 23% in telecoms or utilities.  The remaining responses covered a wide mix of sectors such as travel, public sector, outsource and retail.

This major survey was conducted in April among delegates at Customer Contact Planning 2011, the biggest event of its kind in Europe with over 600 people attending to keep up-to-date and gain insight from best practice in the industry.