Wondering how to plan your contact centre operations in the face of an unprecedented number of unknowns? You and half the country. Decision makers around Australia are exploring ways to increase the flexibility of their operations, to ensure they’re ready to respond to unexpected events.

Some businesses are gearing up to go from zero to 100, figuratively speaking. Tourism and travel operators are anticipating a business boom when the borders re-open but they can’t afford to have agents sitting about waiting for the government to say the word. Other enterprises are keen to ensure the business continuity blips they experienced during COVID shutdowns don’t recur in 2021.

Here are some ways to boost the flexibility of your contact centre this year.

Optimise your training program

Extra agents can help you cope with a surge in demand – but only if they’re familiar with your company and product offering. A quality training program – one which incorporates real world scenarios captured by the quality management module of your contact centre platform – will ensure your rookie recruits are work-ready sooner.

Use workforce management technology

Being able to anticipate peaks and troughs in demand will help you optimise recruitment and rostering. Workforce management software takes the guesswork out of the process by mapping your activity levels through the week, across all your channels.

Go remote

Remote working became unremarkable in 2020 and it works a treat for contact centres, provided you have technology in place to support the model. Allowing agents to work from home broadens the talent pool and can make it easier to find folk to fill short shifts and man the phones at unsociable hours.

Go cloud

Legacy, on-premises software makes it tricky to scale your operations up and down rapidly, and impossible to embrace remote working. Making the shift to a cloud-based contact centre platform gives you the flexibility to do both. New agents can be onboarded from anywhere and peaks and troughs in activity accommodated with ease. A well supported, locally hosted platform will enable your enterprise to keep communicating with customers, no matter what.

Let’s get flexible

Business is an uncertain affair. Making your contact centre as flexible as possible will serve your enterprise well as you address whatever challenges 2021 has in store.

See how MaxContact can make your contact centre even more flexible with our free demo today!