One Nation, On Hold

What happened to call centres in the first months of COVID: capacity collapsing and clawing back to 80%, states spending nine figures to answer unemployment claims, and an industry that was about 5% work-from-home discovering it had to be all of it.

Kyle’s own filing line, verbatim: “Read [One nation, on hold] about call centers call center software” — he was building a call-centre market map that week.

Kyle’s highlights

• Many call centers have scrambled to send thousands of customer service representatives to work from home for the first time, a process fraught with logistical and technical hurdles. Others have continued to tell employees to come into the office — which they can do, since call centers have been designated as an essential service — but at reduced numbers. A growing number have seen workers get sick with Covid-19.
• Today, capacity is back up around 80 percent, according to the technology research firm ISG, but even reaching that has been a struggle.
• Most people understand that customer service departments are inundated right now: An analysis by ListenFirst, a social media analytics company, found that while customer service-related tweets around grocery delivery apps skyrocketed in March, the share containing negative words or phrases actually fell. For airlines and internet service providers, sentiment remained relatively stable even as volume spiked. #Empathy
• The ripple effects of record unemployment, escalating travel restrictions, and a rapid shift to remote school and work have led to similar headaches across a wide range of industries.
• Some have also reassigned employees from other areas of the company. For example, 8x8, a cloud communications software provider, works with one UK retailer that has recruited its sales associates to answer calls and respond to messages. #retraining
• “You think about Retail, those employees are not on the shop floor anymore to be face to face with customers,” says Janice Rapp, 8x8’s vice president of product marketing. Their skill sets, though, put them first in line for call center gigs.
• In Florida, meanwhile, the state’s Department of Economic Opportunity could only answer 2 percent of incoming calls as of mid-April, with an average wait time of more than six and a half hours, a local News 6 investigation found. Since the end of March, the agency has spent more than $119 million on contracts to add thousands of call center workers and improve the technological infrastructure supporting the system. Similar endeavors are underway in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, and Texas.
• By Fluss’s estimates, though, only about 5 percent of call centers were 100 percent work-from-home before the pandemic, while others may have had 10 percent of their agents working remotely. The pandemic, then, has forced a massive shift for many companies, while prompting scrutiny toward those still compelling their employees to commute to offices where they might put themselves at risk.
• Among Spectrum’s competitors, Verizon Communications Inc. had nearly 17,000 agents working remotely by late March, while Comcast’s chief technologist Tony Werner said on a March 30 call the company was targeting 90% work-from-home among its call center employees.
• These transitions aren’t always smooth: At home, agents may have spotty internet or distracting background noise, supervisors need to figure out how to conduct ongoing training Cogito Fin Analytics, and companies need to ensure they’re staying on the right side of privacy regulations — but for the most part, the adjustment isn’t dissimilar to what people across most industries have been facing.

How it connects

• Call Centers
• Call Center Software
• Work From Home
• Retail
• Empathy
• retraining
• Cogito
• Fin Analytics