Contact People Predicts Recruitment Boom, Increasing Difficulties

Sydney-based Contact People, a specialist contact center consultancy in recruitment and home agent managed services, claims that, with the predicted recruitment boom next year, the time to get your ducks in a row is right now.

“Contact centers are going to experience increasing difficulties to recruit quality agents which could ultimately affect customer service levels and higher customer churn,” company officials warn.

Company officials cite research from callcenters.net reporting that Australian contact centers are now spending 69 percent of their available budgets on human resources, including salary, benefits, recruitment and training costs – with four percent going to rent. Is it all that much better where you are?

 

Callcenters.net reports that flexible work arrangements are the most effective strategy currently used to retain employees in a contact center. “The benefits of home agents are undeniable,” Paul Smith, managing director, Contact People, said. “Contact centers can access a far greater pool of quality agents that offer the flexibility and scalability to ramp up or down based on demand.”

Smith also said that he sees the advantages of the home agent workforce in a flexible workforce which often begins with the onset of the holiday season and the need to staff up.

Smith points to Aussie online retail and auction company GraysOnline, which sells in excess of 120,000 items of all kinds each month to both consumers and businesses. On average every month its contact center handles 12,000 voice calls and 6,000 e-mails. Such a company has used their services, he says.

In the past, TMCnet reported on the home agent model and, to this day, the idea is still quite useful for companies.

For many companies, the home agent model is a component of what the industry is increasingly starting to call 'right shoring,' or choosing a combination of domestic in-house, home agent, near shore and offshore outsourcing to create the optimum balance, the TMCnet article said.

 

Additionally, the article went on to say that, for companies not wild about offshore outsourcing, for patriotic reasons, quality reasons or both, the home agent model, as one component or all of a right shoring program, is increasingly being seen as a cost-effective, high-quality answer to offshore outsourcing.

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