Turbulent times for the Call Centre Industry. As companies see sales decline and some go under, what are the implications for the Call Centre market as the credit crunch and the wider economic slowdown begins to bite.
Firstly, we have now seen thousands of job losses, and we are likely to see thousands more, and call centres closing almost weekly.
Outsourcers are fairing little better, with Ventura, Garlands and Sitel all
closing sites. With many of the medium sized outsourcers all having grand ambitions for expansion, and all chasing the same limited pot of work, surely the time has come for some of them to put their egos to one side and merge, or be squeezed.
The unknown of course is the impact for offshoring. The warnings signs are there, but we must pray this is not a return to the dark days of the turn of the decade, when cost reduction was the only business imperative, and to hell with the customer experience.
We must look to clients to see beyond these troubled times, and to recognise that customer demands and expectations have moved on, and that delivering a great experience, first time, is the only long term strategy to pursue.
Lets hope all this doesn’t result in a decline in service for customers, any undue hardship for those facing redundancy, or damage to the industry’s already fragile reputation.
Keith, Would you go as far to in agreeing that in these times contact centres should evaluate whether they may actually need *more* staff in order to keep service high?
I work for a marketing company and in the current climate we battle to convince clients that this is in fact a golden opportunity to get ahead if you can plough extra resources in.
I’d like to hear from other call centre managers (as contact centres make up a few clients for us) - as to whether they think less is more?
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