Over the last few years, we’ve heard countless stories of industries being disrupted and businesses being forced to adapt and pivot in the face of significant change. Stories about manufacturing, produce, healthcare – all dominating news and blogs. But what about contact centres?
Contact centres have faced one of the most unique and sizeable changes. The impact from COVID and the following economic shifts have been a one–two punch for contact centres and the companies that run/rely on them.
First, the pandemic – a disruptor for so many – challenged the way contact centres operated, with many organisations bringing support back on shore. Now, a downturn in the economy and rising cost of living has made the cost of onshore contact centres almost unsustainable – and companies are forced to pivot once again.
Expectations have been set, but now can’t be met. Budgets have been stretched but cannot be stretched any more. With global uncertainty far from over, what can organisations do to ensure service capability and cost control – without continuing to flip flop between on and offshoring?
Solving one problem only to be faced with another
Cast your mind back almost three years, and you might remember most of us thought the COVID protocols would be a minor inconvenience. But what was initially a two week stay at home order turned into a two year stay at home order, and the way contact centres operated was turned on its head.
Those who already had onshore contact centres were able to achieve something that they had been trying to do for years – have staff work from home. But many major companies utilise offshoring for at least some customer facing roles. And they struggled.
For example, in the Philippines, regulations stated that if you wanted to operate as a back-office processing organisation (BPO) – including contact centres – you could, but your staff had to be within one block of the BPO, or inside the BPO. This wasn’t realistic for many, and they were forced to reduce staff – which meant reduced capability.
The only option for many was to bring service back onshore. Local people were hired and trained, customers were told service would be local and expectations were set. It seemed like an overall positive result.
Then the post–pandemic economy hit Australia. The quickly rising cost of living not only hit households but businesses too. Suddenly, onshore contact centres were facing:
- Rising wage expectations
- Talent shortages
- Limited capacity to meet set service expectations
- Rising costs but not rising profits
The budgets that had increased to bring everybody back now increased again to try and keep them there. But this is unsustainable, and productivity and delivery are dropping as capacity does. Nearly three years after the first call to bring contact centres back onshore, businesses are being forced to make new calls.
Offshoring is an option – but not as we know it
When contact centres were brought onshore, many experienced improved customer service. But this level of delivery is being threatened (and for some, is already dropping), as the financial and operational challenges take hold.
So, where to from here? It’s clear that boards are not going to accept losing big parts of their profit just to keep contact centres fully onshore. Which we can assume means that at some point, there will be a need to start moving customer facing or customer interfacing roles – or even back-office roles – back overseas again.
But we can’t just move back to doing what we were before. Overcoming the current challenges and protecting contact centre operations from ongoing disruption will require a different approach.
When deciding to shift back to offshore operations, organisations will need to ensure they can:
Continue to meet service standard
Customers have been trained to expect a certain standard of service and have shifted along with businesses to new operating styles. Just like working from home or support payments, this isn’t something that the public will be willing to give up – so businesses will need to find a way to maintain it offshore.
Maintain capability
Regardless of internal or external changes (including staffing), businesses will need to be able to guarantee full (or close to full) capability.
Reduce operational costs
One of the main drivers of offshoring is lower staffing costs. But these can quickly climb as demand, services, or head count rises. Ensuring these costs are managed will be key for offshoring to be a sustainable option.
A new idea and approach to value
Making offshoring work in a post–pandemic and harsh economy world will require us to change how we think about contact centre value and productivity. To ensure long–term and sustainable outcomes, businesses need to move away from the headcount method and the idea that more people = more productivity. Instead, we need to take an outcomes–based approach.
Everything everyone in a business does drives an outcome. The better and more efficiently we can achieve those outcomes, the more that can be gained financially (without impacting output or delivery). Here’s an example:
Prior to the pandemic, one of Omada One‘s employees was spending all his time building Excel reports. He was great at it – but it was a highly manual and time–consuming job. Over the last couple of years, Omada One has automated that entire reporting process. Soon, clients will have access to all reports and data online – and Felix no longer has to create a single report.
Does that make him obsolete? No, it makes him more valuable.
His role will change to Data Analyst, where he’ll use AI tools to dig deeper into the data and the relationship between data points. This makes him far more productive to the business and to his customers. Omada One can now offer the same services, but with better outcomes – without increasing headcount.
It goes to show that if you can find a better or more cost–effective way to do it, you can reapply those resources to become even more productive and add more value. You shouldn’t be having conversations about how many people you want. You should be having conversations about what outcomes you need. These outcomes need to be aligned with the strategic purpose of the business – rather than task orientated.
This is the approach that Omada One has always taken to building offshore back-office and contact centre teams – because it’s the only way to deliver long term success and real team productivity.
If you’re considering building or moving teams offshore and want to build a high–value, high capability team, reach out to us – or explore the Omada One service offerings further.
