What’s Next for Call Centres After the Pandemic?

Many call centres around the world were affected by the lockdown. With agents unable to travel to offices, many call centres had to adapt to survive. With countries now starting to consider letting people back to work with social distancing, what’s next for call centres after the pandemic?

How call centres survived

Sadly not all call centres will survive the outbreak of COVID-19, those with large overheads and lack of financial support will need to regroup and start again.
Those that had fixed-location software instead of cloud-based setups would have also had issues, due to being unable to work remotely. 
However, some call centres survived the pandemic by switching to a remote strategy. This allowed agents to work from home and continue to make calls. Some already had computers and headsets, whilst others used mobile-friendly hosted diallers or hosted dialler apps to make and receive calls.

Agents returning to work after the pandemic

Call centres that are planning to return to work after the pandemic might be faced with social distancing rules which could stop them running at maximum capacity. Keeping 2m apart means that crowded call centres will need to be spaced out more and a lack of space will mean not everyone can return to the office.
There may also be phased returns and guidance to avoid using public transport. This could pose problems for agents getting to work. Could it possibly lead to further remote working, which poses my next question.

Will remote agents continue remote working?

Some people find working from home beneficial due to reducing the commute and being more flexible with time. However, working from home is not for everyone and some agents will be missing the office environment. 
But as the industry has evolved and some agents have shown the ability to work from home, the option could still stand. The development of mobile-friendly diallers and dialler apps certainly help make it easier.
We previously released the blog (before the pandemic) about how remote working could be the future of the call centre industry. Could this pandemic change the call centre industry?
Whilst the future currently seems unclear, it’s important to find ways your call centre can operate. This includes the ability to work remotely. Many countries are seeing a decline in deaths, however, opening things up could see second waves. This could see a second lockdown and placing further importance on being able to operate from home.
If your you need to spread people out at the required 2m distance and don’t have enough office space. This could mean some people working from home and some working in the office. Rotating employees between office and homeworking.
 
If you’d like to find out more about how Primo can help your call centre after the pandemic, get in touch:
hello@primodialler.com
+44 1617102740
+1 3476952823
+27 318650049