People first

The integrated people, process, technology, and information business model on which most contact centres have been run in the recent past no longer suffices.

That's because contact centre operators and the companies they represent have realised that customer experience is the single most important influencer of profitability. What defines and determines the customer experience is the interaction between people; in this context, the interaction between contact centre agent and customer.

“People” are therefore moving up the corporate agenda.

People buy from people.

Evan Jones is business development manager at Merchants.

Right alongside people is the urgent need for operational flexibility and agility. Contact centre operators need to be able to scale their workforce up or down to stay in sync with economic shifts. People constitute 75% of a contact centre's overheads. So a contact centre's agility depends directly on its ability to manage its people in the most efficient and cost-effective way.

In South Africa, that's tricky because of legislation that is sometimes onerous and often supports contradictory government objectives.

For instance, government has stated clearly that it wants to attract foreign investment by having South Africa become a preferred offshore destination.

However, the Labour Amendment Act makes employment a complicated process that increases the cost of operations, and therefore, reduces global competitiveness. So there is this fascinating situation in which economic activity in SA has risen, but employment has declined. According to Bloomberg, SA also has the highest jobless rate (25%) of the 61 countries it surveyed in 2010. Yet, the economy has expanded for seven successive quarters.

Although employment is declining, employees are becoming more expensive. During 2010, workers won average pay rises of 5.2 percentage points over the inflation rate. Industry costings show that, for the past three years, pay increases have outstripped productivity gains.

The World Economic Forum's 2010 Global Competitiveness Report, which ranked 139 countries, found that South Africa had the eighth highest level of industrial conflict.

In addition, the Labour Amendment Act promises changes that will directly affect the contact centre industry.

All vacancies, placements, and learning opportunities must be registered with Labour Centres within 14 days. All employees on a full time contract (FTC) will be deemed to be indefinite unless the employer can prove operational reasons for the FTC.

A union for contact centre agents is likely to be established.

The traditional options for ensuring contact centre agility are disappearing.

The Consumer Protection Act is also putting conventional contact centre agility options under pressure. For one thing, it's forcing a level of conformity of operations on contact centres that could feel restrictive as to the ability to innovate for competitiveness.

Contracts and terms, especially in relation to liabilities, have to be rewritten. The costs of marketing databases are increasing because of the requirement to update them every month to remove people who don't want to be contacted.

Higher customer churn is resulting from consumers exercising their right to choose, to fair and responsible marketing, fair and honest dealing, and supplier accountability, among others. To counteract the churn, organisations want a lower cost for acquisition of new customers as well as stronger customer retention strategies.

All of which is leading to a push for customer satisfaction - achieved via a superior customer experience to which the consumer now assumes a right.

So, management of contact centre processes will have to move into a new, more consumer-aware league. Their internal people will have to care more about and take greater care of their external people.

The legislative environment is a sharp reminder of just how important people are to the sustainability of contact centres.

But new laws aren't going to help the industry solve people issues with which it's been grappling for some time. These include steeply escalating agent attrition and absenteeism rates within the local industry. In addition, the industry has seen a tripling in training days for new agents and a massive increase (55.5% to 78%) of full time permanent agents.

So, while commitment to the employee base by the contact centre operator is increasing, commitment from employees is dropping.

All of which speaks to a need, anyway, for operators to reconsider their approach to their own people.

The point being that there are major internal and external influences forcing contact centre operators to put people at the centre of their sustainability strategies. That might very well prove to be the most advantageous shift in the history of contact centre evolution, because it will take contact centre operators back to the core of all business - people as customers and people as employees.

People buy from people. So, by all means have the processes, technologies, and information in place. But, ensure they are relevant to people.

Talk to the unions. Hammer out agreements that suit everyone. Make a positive contribution to the labour landscape by creating workplaces that inspire people to give of their best to the people in the target market.

Convert the demand for job security into employee commitment to the business. Transform protection of the consumer into customer loyalty.

Then there will be an agile, flexible business with highly trained, dedicated employees who easily adapt to market shifts and continuously deliver exceptional customer experience that brings customers, and their friends and family, back for more.