More contact centres going multi-channel

One in six contact centres are now hiring to support multi-channel capability as these projects kick off.  On the downside a third has cut agent jobs in downturn

One out of every six contact centres (16%) in the UK is now recruiting for agents to support multi-channel communications projects, according to new research from leading contact centre integrator and consultancy ProtoCall One.  This finding was the main bright spot in an otherwise downbeat assessment of recruitment and IT spend across the contact centre market conducted in May.

Nearly a third (32%) of contact centre operators has introduced pay freezes and the same number has reduced staff numbers to combat the effects of the downturn.  Over half (52%) of senior contact centre operations has focused much harder on agent productivity in the last 18 months. This in turn has created increased demand for Workforce Management (WFM) solutions which help improve morale and increase agent retention and productivity.

Overall IT budgets have remained frozen for 37% of respondents, whilst one in five (21%) have seen overall IT budgets fall since September 2008. More positively, slightly over a quarter (26%) has seen IT budgets rise in 2010 as firms begin to start planning for recovery.

Opinion is divided on whether to invest in Social Media interaction with customers via the contact centre – 21% said they had no plans to support the likes of Twitter and Face Book this year, whilst the same number (21%) said they were factoring these channels into wider multi-channel communications projects which are getting underway.   An additional third (32%) declared they were focusing on building email, text/SMS and web chat channel capabilities first before expanding their horizons into social media.

The most compelling requirement driving investing in WFM solutions in contact centres today is ‘Scheduling & Forecasting’ (for 84%). ‘Skills Balancing’ (to support Skills Based Routing) and ‘Better MI (Management Information) for measuring agent productivity’ were both equally cited as key reasons to invest in WFM by over half (52%) of the audience.

Other key findings were:

• 26% of contact centres are looking to invest in new technology to optimise existing investment in IT and telephony infrastructure
• Nearly a quarter (24%) claimed to have cut working hours and reduced agents’ overtime in the downturn.

ProtoCall One’s findings follow April’s consumer research by leading provider of contact centre software – Genesys – which detailed the exploding demand for multi-channel communications which is not longer confined to tech-savvy ‘Generation Y’ (18-27 year olds).  The Genesys-commissioned study probed the movement of consumers from one channel to another to resolve a query or request a product or service. This study found that 81% of UK consumers have already ‘gone multi-channel’ in at least one interaction with a supplier in the last 12 months.

Multi-channel communications have a significant impact on customer service expectations for consumers across all age groups.  A company that provides multiple ways for contact raises expectations that the service will be better – a more customer-friendly company, the study reports.

Faraz Khan, managing director of ProtoCall One, said: “A thorough reading of our poll findings alongside the recent Genesys consumer survey reveals that even the largest contact centres in this country are struggling to deliver the true multi-channel interaction that consumers are demanding right now. 

“More alarmingly, consumers appear to be making judgments about how good a supplier is based on whether they can join up their communication streams regardless of which channel they came through.  More positively, multi-channel communications projects are clearly now underway and the recession has also hastened an increased focus on intelligent management and measurement of agent productivity.  And agents are being assessed less on blunt quantitative measures like ‘number of calls completed’ and more on quality measures and more on quality measures and real outcomes they have achieved for the customer.”