Hybrid Working: Overcoming Contact Centre Leaders’ Concerns

Content Guru’s Martin Taylor discusses best practices for hybrid working in contact centres 

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ContentGuru Hybrid Working Overcoming Contact Centre Leaders’ Concerns
Contact CentreInsights

Published: December 1, 2021

William Smith

While lockdowns have come and gone, hybrid modes of working in the contact centre industry have persisted, with many organisations adopting part-office-based and part-remote models. The message is simple: hybrid working is here to stay. But how can contact centres ensure agents thrive in this new work paradigm? To find out, CX Today welcomes Martin Taylor, Deputy CEO and Co-Founder of cloud contact centre tech provider Content Guru. 

The main concerns of contact centre leaders are based around a number of key issues: “Dispersed employees can suffer from lack of support due to inefficient remote communication channels, while supervisors without the right tech may become concerned about productivity levels and inability to ensure agents are doing things properly,” says Taylor. Also weighing on their minds are issues of security. “Being secure and compliant whilst dispersed is now a top priority. In this new, hybrid world, cybercriminals have even more opportunities than before. Threats come from every angle: inefficient password protection, hardware left unlocked in cafes or shared houses, and a lack of cybersecurity awareness and training.” 

The Future of the Contact Centre 

Overcoming those challenges requires the latest contact centre technologies. “Content Guru’s storm® cloud communications platform is browser-based, meaning call centre employees can log in from any internet-enabled device, in any location they choose. This has allowed both public and private organisations to disperse their contact centres, and move to remote or hybrid models within hours. storm also offers video calls and instant messaging, as well as being fully integrated into Microsoft Teams and Zoom. By offering workers all their favourite ways to communicate, you encourage collaboration between team members, and empower supervisors to support them.” Monitoring contact centre staff wherever they are working is another must. “To properly support agents, their supervisors need to be able to ‘listen in’ in real-time, as well as have access to historical interactions, regardless of the communications channels being used to serve the customer. Seamless supervision reinforces training, upholds service standards, and ensures compliance is maintained.” 

Content Guru’s storm platform also builds in security features that help overcome the inherent challenges of a distributed workforce. “Industry-leading PCI-DSS compliant phone payments ensure that all card transactions are safe and compliant through storm,” says Taylor. “For security, two-factor authentication login ensures that, even if an unauthorised person accesses a company device, no data will be at risk.” Taylor emphasises that all organisations must have a proactive approach to their security. “Businesses should perform prudent levels of due diligence and work only with organisations providing tried and tested solutions that are properly field-proven. Content Guru’s Security team regularly phish test staff, by sending realistic but fake phishing emails to our colleagues in order to see how they react. This helps us gauge how effective our cybersecurity training is and make any improvements as necessary.” 

Building a Hybrid Culture 

Looking beyond just technological solutions, companies must also pay extra attention to the cultures they nurture. “When colleagues are distributed, it becomes trickier to create a sense of purpose to help motivate them,” says Taylor. “It’s essential that leaders openly communicate colleagues’ joint purpose regularly and clearly. Having a contact centre solution that empowers collaboration and communication can really help with this.” The key is treating both remote and office-based workers with the same sense of fairness and worth. “Any inequality of esteem will quickly erode your corporate culture. The same tech should be rolled out for everyone to ensure homeworking is just as comfortable and valued as working from the office. Alongside this, if your company allows employees choice over time spent in the office, it is important that those who volunteer to come in more aren’t seen as favourites.” 

It’s precisely these things that contact centre leaders must bear in mind as the world embraces the hybrid working future – in turn enabling organisations to react flexibly to an ever-changing landscape. “In the contact centre, it is no longer enough to simply lash together tools and technologies every time operations are threatened with disruption – the tech needs to be already established in the cloud, with a workforce ready to roll in multiple locations.” says Taylor. If organisations can have that in place, they stand ready to steal a march on competitors. “Customer experience has emerged from the pandemic as the primary differentiator between businesses. What were seen by some as ordinary workers are now demanding benefits of flexible location and hours that were previously the preserve of a select few. That means cloud technology, enabling dynamic shift patterns, better work-life harmony – and as a result, improving the all-important customer satisfaction.” 

 

 

Digital Transformationhybrid workSecurity and ComplianceUCaaS
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